vw, when I get that way I try to focus on the now. I ask myself "Are you safe now? Is anything threatening you now?" And if the answer is no, I try to let that soak in. That I'm okay in the moment. Try to break things down into little bits and deal only with the bits you need to right now. The other stuff is just worrying about the future and when it's unproductive worrying (that is, it's not anything helping you develop rational plans but rather stuff that's making you panic and feel out of control), there's no point to it. Just focus on what's immediately on your plate.

That's what kinda works for me, anyway. I hope you feel better soon.

The sky here is BLUE, and there is no water falling from it.

Substitute Alameda County and yeah. I'm bummed that I'm home sick today. I don't feel quite up to taking a walk outside and enjoying it.

I don't feel quite up to taking a walk outside and enjoying it.

Can you drag a chair outside to sit in the sun for a bit? I'm going to walk downtown to Pegasus and buy calendars in about 15 minutes to enjoy some of that sunshine.

{{vw}} what Spidra said.

Ooh, you must live locally! I used to do that Pegasus calendar run religiously.

I dunno. I still haven't eaten. Maybe I should go out to a cafe so I don't have to deal with cooking and dishes...nah.

See the thing about dragging the chair outside is that all I'm wearing is a t-shirt right now. I haven't gotten out of bed except for necessaries.

The sky here is BLUE, and there is no water falling from it.

Blue? I don't think it comes in that color around here.

open a window Spidra

vw, It is not unexpected that today is wildly unpredictable. That's ok. the upthread advice - are you safe now? is the best place to start. can youdo one small thing to make it better?

I will, beth. Or at least gaze out my bedroom window. Opening would be freezing.

Hey, vw...you are safe, and gravity still works, and Toto is still cute. It's a good day.

vw, sorry to hear you're having a rough day of it today.

You are cared for by a quite large number of people, for good reason. You are quite successful at any number of endeavors you've chosen to pursue, and you succeed because you are talented and capable. Though you're not always aware of it (and few of us always are) many good things happen to you, and more importantly, many good things happen because of you.

If you need to dwell on something, dwell on those things.

Ack. My family is like something out of Jerry Springer's nightmares.

Short (ha!) version: my grandpa is 90, and has had full-on senile dementia for at least 5 years. My Aunt and Uncle live with him to take care of him, though they both work full-time and are therefore out of the house for a large part of the day, leaving Grandpa alone. I honestly don't know how well he's managed to get along like that, but I do know that he *has* managed.

He had to have a melanoma (or more than one) removed from his nose a couple of weeks ago. Apparently it was so extensive that the dermatologist ended up -- literally -- removing most of my grandpa's NOSE. My 90-year-old senile granddad. What would have been the harm in leaving the melanoma? Would it have killed him, cutting short his life? He's 90!!!

But because the dermatologist removed the NOSE, Grandpa had to have plastic surgery to reconstruct it, because even if he's 90 and senile, he still WANTS A FUCKING NOSE. So the surgery was yesterday (which I didn't find out until about an hour ago, even though I live 2 miles from the hospital and oh, is my family fucked up, but that's not the point of this paragraph), and reconstructing his nose involved taking cartilage from his wrist (*does* the wrist have cartilage?) and skin from his forehead and leg.

He's *90*! His body can't handle that! But he truly did need the surgery; I don't argue with that, because EVERYONE SHOULD HAVE A FUCKING NOSE. But -- he should NEVER have had the melanoma removed in the first place, because then he'd still have his original nose and not needed surgery.

So, he's in the hospital, completely senile-batshit, and he's gotten VERY agitated and violent. Yelling, kicking, flailing. The plastic surgeon, who (so they tell me) did a great job in making a nose, happens to be an enormous ASSHOLE and refused to prescribe a tranquilizer. For my 90-year-old senile grandfather.

I find this surgeon, he dies bloody.

Finally a resident did prescribe morphine and ativan, and so Grandpa is sedated. In the meantime, it sounds like Grandpa's kidneys aren't functioning, which is never good. And *if* he gets released from the hospital, he'll have to be in a nursing home for at least 3 weeks, b/c it'll take that long for the surgery to heal, and there is NO WAY he can be left alone at home.

My aunt -- the one who lives with him -- is freaking out that if Grandpa goes in a nursing home, he'll end up losing the house. Which she was counting on in a financial, mineminemine sense.

Now, let me be clear. Five years ago, we sat down with a lawyer and discussed putting the house in a trust, with my aunt as caretaker, so that if something like this situation happened, the house would be safe.

Did she do it? No. Does anyone know *why* she didn't do it? Of course not. And now she's flipping her shit.

She's also getting off on being the martyr of the family, saying that my mom and other aunt refuse to come to the hospital to help her out. I talked to my mom half an hour ago, and caretaker!aunt NEVER called mom. But apparently she should be psychic and know to swoop in to caretaker!aunt's aid.

On top of all this, things with Grandpa are very thin-ice-y, in terms of familial duty. When my mom and aunts were kids -- hell, up until the 1990s -- he was an alcoholic bastard. And by "alcoholic," I mean he drank literally a fifth of whiskey a night, washed down with 2 quarts of beer. And by "bastard," I mean a REAL mean son of a bitch. I think my mom and aunts' childhood was WAY worse than they've ever let on. And they've shared many many many Alcoholic Bastard stories, so imagining how much worse it must have been -- well. It explains a lot.

So there's all THAT, tied in emotionally to the whole fucking mess.

I live 2 minutes from the hospital, and yet my aunt didn't call me yesterday, because she's still holding a grudge against me from a year ago. (The grudge being that when she asked me in February if I wanted to share a hotel room with her for my brother's wedding in (continued...)