Irrational grandmother

[ronandannette]

No. They have a water tank outside underground that they get filled with water. No well or city water. It’s a big underground tank. Trucks come fill it. That’s what I was thinking about. Not a hot water tank.

That's sounds like what I'd know as a cistern. What was it you were worried would happen with it?

 

[ashley0139]

I have always had anxiety issues, and think they increased as I have gotten older. My kids are used to me, my DDs are very adventurous and it stresses me out! One DD is going to Bogota for 3 weeks for a grad school project. I may not sleep much those weeks. I don't even have grandchildren yet!

I was recently in South Africa for a couple weeks for a grad school thing, and I'm pretty sure my mom felt the same. She was also very nervous when I went to Sweden by myself...? Sweden is one of the safest countries in the world.

 

[Skippy918]

My mom is a worry wart. Anytime some kind of bad weather hits our state, she texts me. This week it was “are you guys okay? I heard about the flooding.” Most of the people impacted by the flooding live near the rivers and creeks. We don’t.
We like to do adventure activities and this summer dh took ds out west to do some hiking and rapelling. My mom was so nervous about the whole thing.

 

[AuntieMe3]

My mom is the same.... on a trip to the mountains, she called to say be careful of black ice on our way home. It was July and like 90 degrees.

 

[ronandannette]

I was recently in South Africa for a couple weeks for a grad school thing, and I'm pretty sure my mom felt the same. She was also very nervous when I went to Sweden by myself...? Sweden is one of the safest countries in the world.

Even I would worry if my child was in South Africa, but in Sweden you were probably a bigger threat to them than they were to you.

 

[ashley0139]

Even I would worry if my child was in South Africa, but in Sweden you were probably a bigger threat to them than they were to you.

I wouldn't go by myself, especially to Johannesburg, but I was with a large group from a well-known university and had in-country guides. Nothing was going to happen to us haha. You're probably right about the second part lol.

 

[jalapeno_pretzel]

Not a grandma here, but do have general anxiety that I'm actually on medicine for - best thing I ever did was getting help for it. Anyway, random worries still from time to time come up, but they're much easier to dismiss. And recently I've realized I will worry about small random things when there is actually a bigger concern in the back of my mind.

 

[TexasBee]

The bigger question is whether you used proper etiquette while texting your daughter.

You made me snort Diet Coke up my nose.

 

[kerry1379]

Not sure if this is similar or not: When I was in grad school in the medical field I started to develop some OCD type tendencies and panic attacks all around the idea that I was going to bring a fatal virus/bacteria home to my family. I would fixate on some really rare scenarios that I could not dismiss. When it first started happening, I would call my mom (a nurse) and she would "talk me back down" as to why my fears weren't realistic. Anyway, when I realized it was disrupting my life-I ended up talking with a therapist. That was a tremendous help to me. If you are finding that you recognize that these scenarios are pretty far out there and you can not dismiss them, perhaps talking to a professional therapist may help? I'm not a doctor-just sharing my personal experience. On the flip side-some fears should be recognized. When we first moved into our house with a pool, I heard about it every time my parents had a nightmare that involved my kids (their grandkids) and the pool. I appreciated their concern and it helped me to put several precautions in place. I would share that with them and it seemed to help ease their fears.

 

[js]

On our cruise in August on the Allure my mom told my ds not to go into a stranger’s room and be careful about getting too close to the railings. My ds is 20 lol

 

[dakotix]

Mom, is this you? OMG I had to make sure this wasnt my mom who is also on the dis. My “kids” are 24, 20 and my sister has three kids 11-14. Im 51 and my mom will text, what I think irrational thoughts. She pieces together the worst case senarios. I dont know how she even comes up with some crazy ideas lol

Now you can both be crazy together lol but in a good loving way lol

Ugh my mom is like that lol. I'm mid 40s and she is in her mid-70s. I'm always talking her off the ledge. She has so much anxiety. And she is always playing the worst case scenarios over and over. It must be how we all get when we get older.

 

[WebmasterMaryJo]

That would be me. I texted DD this morning to ask her some stupid questions. This stupid tragedy stuff is always on my mind. (DGS Falling off a cruise ship - we have no plans to cruise, falling under the ice of the lake - he will never be on the lake when it's frozen, falling in their water tank - its a small hole that has a screw on cap, etc.)

I do not remember being like this when DD was little. I guess because I'm not stuck in the day to day parenting routine that my mind wanders to these irrational thoughts.

Any other grandparents, or parents, like this?

No, it's not debilitating. They are usually fleeting thoughts. Being a grandparent is stressful! lol

Reminds me of the time I moved back home with my small children after getting a divorce. I took them to a drive-in, and got home to my parents slightly panicked and my dad getting dressed to go look for me because we weren't home yet and they were worried and imagining the worst. I remember thinking at the time that they were overreacting. They did learn to calm down a bit, and I don't know that I won't the same if my own start bringing home grandkids.

My friend has the opposite issue. We went on a cruise, and when I posted pics her daughter was worried that she was too close to the railing and might fall over. My friend was only 65 at the time.

 

[amberpi]

I have traveled a lot for work my entire career. I could be young and going to Krakow by myself and my folks were not worried at all. Now that I have kids in my life they want the blow by blow. Recently "let us know when you get to Emory," "let us know when you stop for the night," "let us know when you get there," "omg, we haven't had any pics this morning." Almost every custody exchange they call to see how the kids were/are. It's super cute, and very annoying.

 

[ashley0139]

On our cruise in August on the Allure my mom told my ds not to go into a stranger’s room and be careful about getting too close to the railings. My ds is 20 lol

This is hilarious.

 

[olwyngdh]

The only worry I have about my granddaughter is that my daughter and her hubby keep her wrapped in bubblewrap! That kid needs to fall down and get dirty once in a while. She is 16 months so they aren't going to have that control much longer!!

 

[klmall]

I never had much of the anxiety/worries mentioned in this thread until the 3 of us moved to Colorado. While we have a few acquaintances here our family is at least a day away. I find myself worrying about DH and DS (32) when they drive to pick up carryout or when DH goes grocery shopping. I know it's irrational but...I try to ignore it; push it down. Sometimes it works; sometimes not!

 

[Cannot_Wait_4Disney]

The bigger question is whether you used proper etiquette while texting your daughter.

Go get your daughter before she falls into the cistern.

You forgot to say the magic word.

Abra Cadabra

SPLASH!!!!

PLEASE!!!

That's better. I guess I'll rescue my daughter now.

What?

I guess I'll go rescue my daughter now thank you.

That's better.

 

[Colleen27]

Not that this is you, but my parents have 24 hour cable news on... uh, all the time. Like, ALL the time. I'm not a big TV watcher, I work from home, and prefer the peaceful quietness that occurs when my kids are all at school. If I have any noise it's typically music, Pandora or a record. But when I'm at their house visiting -- that news is.always.on. In the kitchen, in the office, in the family room.... sometimes all 3 TVs are on at the same time whether someone is watching them or not. Ahhh!! When they come here to visit, I don't have cable, so my dad streams it on his iPad and leaves it laying around my house blaring cable news. Stooooop.

Anyway, my long-winded point to this is that we are connected to news ALL the time -- we are intaking soooo much information all the time, and we hear a LOT more awful things on a regular basis than we did 20 years ago. My mom will bring up what I consider such random, out-there tragedy scenarios that she is worried about. So I don't think this is extremely uncommon.

I think this is a big part of it. My mom has gotten so bad about stuff like this since she retired - not just worried about crime and freak accidents, but about germs and all sorts of things. I do chalk a lot of it up to too much TV, both news and shows like "The Doctors" which I'm convinced is the Boomer equivalent of Googling symptoms. She wasn't so anxious when she was working full time (in a neighborhood she now worries about me driving through!) and not watching so much television.

 

[Christine]

Ugh my mom is like that lol. I'm mid 40s and she is in her mid-70s. I'm always talking her off the ledge. She has so much anxiety. And she is always playing the worst case scenarios over and over. It must be how we all get when we get older.

Couple that with boredom and too much TV and newspaper articles and it's a bad mix.

 

[scrapquitler]

That would be me. I texted DD this morning to ask her some stupid questions. This stupid tragedy stuff is always on my mind. (DGS Falling off a cruise ship - we have no plans to cruise, falling under the ice of the lake - he will never be on the lake when it's frozen, falling in their water tank - its a small hole that has a screw on cap, etc.)

I do not remember being like this when DD was little. I guess because I'm not stuck in the day to day parenting routine that my mind wanders to these irrational thoughts.

Any other grandparents, or parents, like this?

No, it's not debilitating. They are usually fleeting thoughts. Being a grandparent is stressful! lol

This sounds like the sort of thing my MIL is always worried about. We went on the ferry across the Long Island Sound the other day. She advised me that I should have DS15 wear the life preserver on the ride over because he's not a good swimmer. Interestingly, she wasn't concerned that I might drown. Hmmm...