Making Memories

It's probably not a good thing that the best way to get MIL to remember something is to holler at her about it. The neurologist confirmed this for me, that when there's lots of negative emotions attached to an event, Betty will more likely remember it. So I've yelled at her about not going into the garage, for example, and she hasn't done it for at least a week. The garage is an issue for me because I'm worried that she'll fall, she's always barefoot, and there's a refrigerator out there in which I hide things she can't stop eating, like chocolate syrup, and things we don't want her to eat, like the cottage cheese I feed the kids, my stash of hummus, etc.

But I don't like myself very much when I yell at her. It bothers my kids, and makes me feel like a jerk, even when it works. And it's not balanced by warm and fuzzy moments of love and affection, because I never felt that and I can't fake it now. So it's balanced by moments of tolerance and even-temperedness, at best. It's balanced by my grudging purchases of foods she likes, though not as often as she wants them.

I suppose I get a few points for ordering a bunch of football DVD's for her on Amazon, because she asks to watch football at least three or four times a day, but those are things, and easy for me to provide. It's positive emotion I can't give her.

So I justify my bad temper by pointing at its effectiveness in making an impression on her and modifying her behavior, but I don't like the memories I'm making for myself.