"Signs she's avoiding or preparing to avoid me - I open the door off my dining room, call down, Mom, and she doesn't answer, even though I heard her moving around moments ago. She texts two-letter replies, such as OK and no. She locks the door off the dining room. She takes out her trash before sunrise. She stops feeding the squirrels and birds. She keeps her lights off. She keeps her phone off. She stacks cardboard boxes in the laundry room or garage or on the deck."
"I wouldn't always know. And I think that was what was so anxiety-inducing about it, was because I would end up in this loop of thinking, oh, is it because I went to Home Depot without her? Is she upset that my partner and I have COVID without her? I mean, she stopped talking to us at one point. It was, like, a week into my partner and I having COVID. And I thought, OK, surely I didn't do anything wrong there in not giving my 80-year-old mother COVID."
A mother moved into her adult daughter's renovated basement apartment and began responding with prolonged silence and avoidance. She used terse two-letter texts, locked interior doors, kept lights and phone off, stopped feeding wildlife, and removed trash before sunrise. She stacked boxes and sometimes included moving checklists listing distant retirement communities. She alternated cruel statements like "we never did get along" with softer lines suggesting love but a preference for distance. The daughter's attempts to understand created persistent anxiety and rumination. Silent episodes ranged from days to as long as six months. The mother framed silence as maturity and avoidance of saying something regrettable.
Read at www.npr.org
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