New episodes

Things happened on the 2nd day of a supposedly happy family reunion trip. The first day and night, the following morning were all.good and happy. Things went wrong unexpectedly during a supposedly happy shopping hour.

The patient suddenly got mad at the child, because the child baught one goods for the other spause at a shopping mall, before buying one for the patient. Although the child already had offered to pay for other purchase which were for the patient. The patient ran away without being noticed, from the family. The child called and  begged the patient to come back, loudly among the customers in the same mall. The child painfully tried to apologize, explaining about the previous offer for the patient. After some dozens of miserable minutes, the child finally managed to locate the patient, and luckily was able to calm the patient down. After being able to have calm conversation with the patient, the child silenly wiped uncontrolable tears.

Two nights later, at night the patient started to blame the child for something about the child's companion. The child got agitated for an instance, which triggered another episode. The child painfully try to explain the situation, recognising the patient's points that made sense, apologised for the child's inconsiderate behavior. But the patient still kept going on with more angry accusations. At last the child . managed to escape from the hitted attacks, in yhe mid nights. Promising to continue the "conversation" next day when all calm down.

The child wss on the knees, to ask forgiveness, to no vail. It is just impossible for the patient to let it go. The anget need more "thorough" release of more "complete" accusations, which have been repeated many times almost in the same order and words. It is as though an actor performingthe same act, for yrars, with the same well rehearsed scenario.

Next day, the child slept untill close to 11pm, from the late sleep time and exhaustion. The patient then started to contine the "conversation", starting with accusations. This lated for about 3 hors. At some point when child could not hold own anger and wanted to defense against some absurd or overly exaggerated accuse, the spause tried to intervene. It triggered some more bigger anger of the patient, because as usual the patient only thought others are on the wrong side and everything about the patient is right, reasonable. But the intervention diverted the anger and tension between the child and the patient. The patient stared talking about divorce, the sacrifices for and contributions to all others, starting from the child, parents on both side, and about how nobody acknowledges, respects the patient's all efforts and achievements.

The episofe stated with the patient on the knees, not for apologizing, but claimIng to be because the child knelt in the previous night for apologies. The patient just keep accussing the child while kneeling.

The accusations to the spouse is after the spouse having paid most of the costs for a two night family trip, more than 133k yen for the 1st night, more than 45k 2nd. 9k for visiting two brewers ( 6k more for beer purchases),  7k for kamaboko foods on the eay, 12k for furchase of a dish, 10k for a sushi meal, 10k for soba meal. 23k for a bag, which the patient claimed to be for the spouse's mother. Later about 10k for another sushi meal in home town area.

The anger then went back to the child. After exhausting all scenarios of accusations, the accusations eventually settled to some weak murmurs.

The patient kept bragging the effects of taking care of own parents especially mother, also the spouse's mother.  The patient insited that children should let parents live together, because the child will benefit from parents' help. About the patient's own mother, the fact is that the mother had been indeed invited to stay with the patient, a few months every year. The patient admitted "some" conflicts between the mother, but the patient's mother was actually constantly living in the fear of her daughter. She was always worried about whether anything she does or say will teigger anther episode. She evevn tried twice to get away from the home. Eventually she started to refuse going to the patient's home.

The self-claimed "conflicts" were in fact  the patient's episode, lasting from 1hour to many hours. Most of the time, the patient kept repeated accusations to the mother. Anything the mother tried to readon back only fueled greater angers. During the episode, the patient also always repeat how the the patient had been doing good things for others, the mother,  justifying more fierce and harsh accusations to the mother, including how the mother had been unfair to the patient when compared to the siblings. The triggers varied, but eventually will develop to similar or, in many cases, exactly the same accusations. Trying to avoid the patient's explosion became daily routine. The mother was constantly depressed and kept looking for chances of conversation, behind the patient, with the patient's spouse to disclose her unhappy feelings, unfair accusations and treatments from her daughter etc, making the spouse depressed in return.

For all episodes, the patient always blame others for "making me angry". If the victims talk back, occasionally irritatedly after many unbearable and absurd accusations, the patient will make more heated attacks on the attitude, behavior etc. , ignorIng the fact that it is the patient who has the worst ones.

Anybody around the patient suffers tremendous whenever having to face any episodes, either directly or in directly. When time passes by, all relatives try to avoid meeting the patient.

The patient's spouse gradually has worse and worse palpitations. When in bed, any sound of loud voice that sounds like from the patient will trigger instant palpitation, for fear of a new episode. Sometimes the spouse has nightmares with the patient havIng an episode. It is also difficult for the spouse to think back about past memories, because many are related to the past episodes.

After the episode over, probably the sense of guilty kicked in. The patient started to treat the victim of child nicely. Then the child started weeping, probably out of relieve, also the sadness of not beIng able to have a regular and sensible conversation with the patient, and talk about own true feelings and views.

The sense of.guilt is so great tha the.patient started to let.the.son explain to the companion, why the patient had angrily rejected a gift the companion gave to the patient, through the child, many years ago. One the accusations to the child in this reunion is why the companion didn't give.the.patient any gifts. When the son reply that it is because of the fear of griggering the patient’s error. Of course as usual no answer to this kind of qestion can ever satisfy the patient. At the same time, the said fesr is very much true and deeply rooted in anybody around the patient: possibility of triggering an episode because of a "wrong" anser, or mentioning of a "wrong" topic.

Also because of the guilt, as usual after the patient switched to a good mood, stated.to spend all possible time with the child, buying things, arranging luggages of the child, leaving no space for the spouse. This is the same as before. A chronical repeat.

The child had to endure the torture of the episode by skipping a conference to attend. The conference is an "excuse" for visiting the family.

Later on the family went to a dinner at the house of the patien’s friend, with the spouse whom claimed to be divorced right after the chikd leaves. The patient chatted with friends happily as though nothing unhappy had happened just a few hours ago. The patient also chatted with the child in good mood and spirits.

The patient claims to love the child the most. It is true that the patient keep buying food, spices, bag, shoes, wallet etc, considered necessary for the child. Although this can cause many wastes of money because not all ared needed by the child. Regardless, this seems to justify the patient’s right to criticize the child or the child’s companion, especially repeated accusation to the companion, only based on very scrachy facts, and mostly on the patient’s imaginatios. E.g. some conclusios are drawn supposedly from other’s expressions, without a single words exchanged. The only catch here is that the hysterical shouting and yellung of absurd and repeated accusations, humiliations, abusive words can hardly mean love of any sorts. The victim is justed  traumatized again and again, with more fears once one episode is over.

The dilemma for the victim is that one cannot krep silence while listening to the patient’s accuses, no matter how baseless, ruthless, contradicted, overly exaggerated. And during any episode, the accuses are mostly ruthless, contradicted, baseless and overly exaggerated. Sometimes even imagined based on some subjective speculations. The patien will accuse the victim about "bad attitude". This probably is because the patient cannot get satisfactions. On the other hand, if the victim tries to correct any wrong accusations or verify with some facts, or point out any contradictions in any accusations, the patient will become more angry with more ridiculous accusations. A death trap either way.

When the patient cannot achieve enough satisfactions with the accusations, the patient will start threats of suicide, "cut relation forever" with the victim.

This is a hopeless trap. the victims can only pray that the patient heal simehow no more happens again, but also know thst the episode will happen again no matter how hard one tries to avoid.

It had not been easy take long vacations for the child to visit the patien, occupation wisw. But it is not somethIng the patient feels the the most grateful. Instead, the patient managed to spent precious union time msking the chilf miserable, frudtrated and cry out of sadness, being helpless  and hopeless. Hopeless because no matter whst one does, no matter how hard one tries, the patient can still be as grumpy, critical as ever before.

During the 2 night family trip, all leasure time had been spent for the patient‘s interest, which are noy shared the family members. From the two episodes, it seems like other‘s compromises are not appreciated much.