This Is Why Mental Health Awareness Is A Thing Now

This was during the 1980s when “mental health” was generally reserved for people proclaiming to be Jesus Christ or walking around mumbling to themselves and neglecting their hygiene.

My mom was known for being paranoid in the sense that she constantly thought everyone around her was up to no good. She once seriously accused my dad of raping a woman when an irate customer scratched him in the face after being refused a refund, and she once accused my nine-year-old sister of being involved in a bank robbery and hiding the money somewhere in the woods after a petite teenaged girl robbed a local bank down the street from us.

This one, I just couldn’t pass up sharing. One day, my mom bursts into my room.

Mom: “Give it to me.”

Me: “What?”

Mom: “MY PURSE!”

Me: “Mom, I have a job at [Fast Food Restaurant] and I deliver papers on the weekends. I don’t need your little $30 or however much Dad gave you to pick up some cigarettes.”

We get to arguing, and she insists I stole her purse. I tell my Dad about it, and he simply says:

Dad: “You gotta learn to ignore her. That woman has drunk enough booze over her lifetime to float a ship, and she won’t seek help because she thinks she’s just fine. As soon as you both are old enough to move out, I’m filing for divorce.”

The next day, I’m at school, and the principal’s voice booms over the intercom.

Principal: “[My Name], please report to the office.”

I go over there to find my mom standing outside the office. She takes me outside.

Mom: “GIVE ME MY PURSE!”

Me: “I didn’t take your purse! Why would I steal money from you if I have my own job and have cash practically coming out of my ears?!”

Mom: “That’s not why you took it.”

Me: “Huh?

Mom: “You know exactly what I’m talking about. GIVE IT TO ME!”

She goes on with this charade for two more days before finally coming to me with said purse.

Mom: “I owe you an apology. I left it in [Friend]’s van.”

Me: “Okay, I accept your apology, but Mom, why would you think I’d steal money from you when I have my own job and a weekend paper route?”

Mom: *Pulling out her driver’s license* “See in the photo how I had my hair cropped really low? I remember how you kept saying how you couldn’t wait to move out and go to California. I thought you were going to take my license, put on makeup and a dress, buy a plane ticket to California, and rent an apartment under my name.”

I am silent for a moment.

Me: “You thought I was going to dress in drag… and try to buy a plane ticket as a seventeen-year-old who is a six-foot-two, 180-pound male using the license of someone that says the bearer should be a thirty-nine-year-old woman standing at five-foot-three and weighing 130 pounds?”

Mom: “Well… I’m just glad to know you wouldn’t do something like that. It says a lot about you.”

Me: “JESUS CHRIST, MOM!”

To this day, she hasn’t set foot in a psychiatrist’s office (or an AA meeting) because she genuinely is convinced she’s perfectly fine. And yes, my dad divorced her as soon as my sister moved out — on her eighteenth birthday, unsurprisingly.