If you're faced with a threat, those are the possible responses. Fight--get angry. Flight--avoid. Freeze--procrastinate. When you know you can't fight something or run from it, what's left is just freezing up.

My therapist said that there are 2 other slightly more complicated options: Submit, which is letting it happen but not fighting, and a 5th option that I can't remember the name of, but is basically Stockholm Syndrome -- you identify/align/agree with it to try to make yourself safe. I can never keep straight how those 2 aren't the same, but I have therapy tomorrow and she often has that chart out, so I can check.

So I may have made a strategic error. The cat who has been hanging around our yard, who I named Slink tonight? Who is almost absurdly sweet and affectionate for one whose skinny state suggests not a lot of regular feeding? Has been given food and water and affection and she has not left my porch.

I love everyone in this bar!

Srsly, though, y'all have had a front seat to the therapy and meds journey I've been on for over a decade now. It is 100% worth it. I've been lucky to find therapists who were a good match for me and to finally find meds that haven't pooped yet. I still struggle, so much, but I've come a long ass way from Bev having to drive 1.5 hrs each way to do my dishes for me.

amych, I don't see the issue! Welcome, Slink the yard kitty.

How is allowing a cat to choose you a stretegic error, amych?

Zen, you are precious and lovely and wonderful. You deserve care and healing. You also deserve to define what those mean for you.

Please keep dealing them out, WS. Because they're helpful, and you are worth the work, too.

You know, decades ago, I was in such a deep depression that I was convinced God no longer loved me. I would have told anyone else on the planet that God loved them, just not me. I am so thankful that I know how to get the help I need before it gets that bad now. But I do sometimes need reminders.

How is allowing a cat to choose you a stretegic error, amych?

I mean if you put it that way.

(I'm almost certain that we'll take in this cat IF we can't track down an owner and she isn't chipped and she tests negative for the kind of nasties that would preclude living with other cats. But until then, I'm trying to calibrate my expectations, and DAMN if she isn't trying hard to snuggle right on in there in spite of it all.)

(I mean, she's no Murderbiscuit, but.)

And I love that you care for us, WS, and want you to care for yourself too.

Yeah, I get that, Maria. I didn't have the conversation here for a long time, because I felt like it was more or less public, but I've decided that I need the social support from you all right now more than I need the privacy, and also I am no longer relying on people's donations for my daily bread and butter. But here is kinda still the only place I can, so I need to.

I'm sorry to hear you're going through your own struggles and I wish you luck with them. I'm here if you need to reach out privately any. But yeah. Do the thing. It's hard but worth it. I'm sorry about your relationship difficulties too. I'd actually wondered, without any real reason to, so I hope things work out in the direction they need to, whichever way that is.

I'm glad your brother's therapist can do the remote thing, Tep. Sometimes there are security concerns and they won't. Technically, my therapy relationship was termed mentorship in order to avoid that, so I did phone stuff sometimes (he was three hours away from where I used to live) and could still, in a pinch. It was sometimes really helpful. I remember a particular call, stopped at a rest stop on a highway, right before I was about to make yet another slate of questionable decisions, that was incredibly useful.

And Glam and Zen, please do take the next step. You don't have to take the step after that and start yet, just do the next thing. Do a little research. Make contact. Reach out.

Oh, and I meant to say, to the folks discussing the TH situation, I'm not involved, but I do not mind y'all backchanneling about it here at all, not at all annoying, and a good space for it, I think.

I am also in favor of more Murderbiscuitesque cat antics, so hey...

Liese, I'm glad you finally felt okay reaching out here -- I could tell you were processing and working out a lot, but wasn't sure where/how to ask (I suck at that, yo!), but my heart is with you and I'm cheerleading like hell for your new life.

Also, we gotta make the east coast f2f thing happen one of these times.

Maria, in your case, I'm seeing a rough stretch of time unfold now. And I wish you so much strength wherever and however you end up.

In closing, love you peoples.

(I mean, she's no Murderbiscuit, but.)

Murderbiscuit is definitely not snuggly, though. At all. He's totally hyper-caffeinated or in a coma. He will occasionally let us pet him up to 6 times before attacking our hands.

I'm glad your brother's therapist can do the remote thing, Tep.

It's weird, because my brother remembers a whole different set of stuff than I do, and that freaks me out. I know that our age difference means I was focused on school and nerding out when he was blowing shit up in the driveway, so my memories are different, but there's still whole blocks I just don't have. And then there are different blocks he doesn't have. My therapist has said (and my brother, the MS student in psychology, confirms) that people with trauma/PTSD* just have whole chunks of their memory missing. I worried for a long time about the missing parts of my memory, but now at least I know why they're missing.

*A friend messaged me and asked "Did your therapist diagnose you with PTSD, because mine just did, and our situations are very similar (childhood trauma, abuse, etc.), and I was just curious because it feels like such an extreme diagnosis." And I told her that I don't think my therapist has diagnosed me with anything, but is approaching treatment from the standpoint that I have a crapton of trauma to work through, so PTSD probably isn't wrong. And since I have therapy tomorrow, I'm going to ask her if that's a correct diagnosis/label.

I mean, having a label doesn't change how she's approaching treatment, but I'm just curious. Actually, I'm guessing she has to put some kind of diagnosis on the insurance claims, so I've gotta be chock full of something trauma-related.