So who is the worrier in your family? My mom and her siblings share a severe, irrational worrying gene. (Actually, to be honest, we think it’s some kind of anxiety disorder that goes along my mother’s maternal grandmother’s line. Luckily it seems to be more and more diluted with subsequent generations.)
My maternal grandmother was such a worrier, that when my uncle invited her to live with him, he had to invest in a security door and put bars over all the windows of his house because she was afraid to be home alone during the day. They lived in a medium-sized city with quite an unremarkable crime rate. Nothing much happened there. But still, there were strangers in the city!
My grandmother would call my uncle at work in a tizzy because “a strange man called the house!” Yup, a telemarketer. And now, he knew she was home! :eek:
My mother and her siblings (yes, including the uncle who had to deal with his mom’s worrying) have the worry gene, but to a lesser degree. My mother however comes out with some doozies. When I was 14, I decided to join the track team. I woke up early one day to go for my morning run. “I don’t want you going for your run when you’re still sleepy!” She yelped at me. “If you fall asleep while you’re jogging you could fall and hurt yourself!”
On Friday I was walking home from my office and I called my mom en route. “OMG, are you okay? It sounds like you’re having trouble breathing!” She said.
“Yes, I’m fine mom. I’m just walking quickly. I’m on my cell.”
That was a mistake. I heard a gasp, and she said:
“Oh, honey! I don’t like you walking and talking!”
My mom is quite the fussbudget, perhaps not quite to the extreme as seen in the OP, but up there. Once years ago she was driving me to the mall or something, and I observed a big crane off the road with one of those heavy steel balls hanging down underneath. I jokingly warned her about the heavy ball falling on the car (the ball was at least 50 feet away from the road), and she immediately changed lanes in the direction away from the crane.
Nah, doesn’t hold a candle. My mom has almost caused accidents as a passenger, because she’ll scream “CAREFUL!” causing he driver to brake suddenly and almost get rear-ended.
Why did she scream? There is a cyclist in the dedicated road-side bike lane about a block or two ahead and she was afraid the driver didn’t see him.
She is probably the worst of her siblings when it comes to the worry gene. My cousins, sister and I mainly cope by witholding as much information as possible from our respective worry-worts so we can live our lives normally, otherwise we would have to cancel vacations and holiday plans. Seriously.
And I know it’s fashionable on the Dope to jump in and say “That’s really about being a control freak! And they’re really just passive-aggressively manipulating other family members!” So let’s just nip that in the bud. As far as family history goes, it really is some kind of anxiety disorder along one particular family line. All the younger family members and their spouses have learned various work-arounds. It’s similar to having an agoraphobic parent.
It’s a pain in the ass around the holiday season though, because it’s hard to visit friends and family when you have people who are afraid of basic travel when it might snow later, or it’s dark, or there could be drunk drivers on the roads…
My maternal grandma is a worry wort. We were about two and a half hours early for her flight, pre 9/11, on say, a Tuesday. We were basically the only people in the airport, and she was freaking out that she was going to miss her flight. Well, we might have, because when she stepped onto the escalator, she got so nervous her knees locked up and she started to fall backwards. Fortunately, my mom was behind her and was able to catch her.
Speaking of my mom, and similar to the cell phone story, when I was 19 or 20 I was drinking a beer at my parents house. I got up, and my mom yelled at me, “Sit down when you’re drinking that beer!” They crack me up!
My Mother. Me grandmother to a much lesser extent, and even I inherited a decent chunk of it. However, with some therapy and a good life partner, I’ve managed to seriously dilute and release a lot of it. It manifests now in only minor, OCD-esque habits (I don’t have OCD). It’s good. It’s good. It’s less stressful.
And then there’s my mother.
“What are you going to do with those cats when you have babies? They kill babies, you know. They don’t mean to, but they do. Also, if you touch them while you’re pregant, you’ll have a miscarriage.”
Her to me: “I don’t like you going out there in a kayak. You barely know how to swim. I know you took lessons. I know your husband who is practically a fish will be with you all the time. I know you’ve been doing it for years. I know you wear a lifejacket every time. But I still think you’ll drown.”
My father to her: “They’re not called ‘death jackets’.”
Me: “I ACED my driving test! I finally got my license!”
Her: “I don’t want you driving. You barely know how.”
Me: “I’ve been driving with a permit since I was 16. I’m 29.”
Her: “You still don’t know what you’re doing.”
She was worried about flying back home from here last Christmas - she wanted them to hold off executing Hussain, so no one would bomb her plane in retaliation.
There’s more, but I love her. Some of these examples are mildly exaggerated and very condensed versions of conversations we’ve had. Very mildy, and not that condensed, but still. I need to give her some wiggle room.
:smack: