"They fuck you up, your mum and dad."

Truer words, man.

That sounds like a really positive appointment. Weekly therapy absolutely sounds like a great idea. Go Team Brain Who Wants Steph To Take Care Of Herself! *\\o/*

esse, I'm so sorry for your loss. It's so hard. Much love to you.

Laura, I hope your son can get his heart issues under control. Health~ma to him, that's awfully scary.

msbelle, what the actual fuck, I hope you find a new job and get tf away from there. Document and CYA!

Happy birthdays, BT and Trudy!

I keep thinking I'm done with this feature, but then the goalposts move again.

That describes how I feel about my whole g-d life.

Steph, my sympathy for having to take the caretaker role for a contrary old parent; it sucks.

after asserting that we are sooooper geniuses (SPOILER: I am not), he turns around and acts like we are ignorant babies who failed first grade.

My family has done this to me my whole life too. Only in the last decade has my sister started to acknowledge that I'm pretty smart, but she still explains things to me like I'm a second grader. Although I think that's just a habit, from a long career of being a smart person trying to explain difficult concepts to less-smart people, more than a reflection of how she thinks of me. Still irritating, though.

Because what I can't untangle in my brain is that withdrawing from caretaking for my 78-year-old father as his care needs are increasing makes me beneath contempt, because what fucking kind of lousy sociopathic selfish daughter does that? (And yes, that last part is getting addressed in therapy. I'm just trying to explain how I feel, even if it's not rational.)

May I just say, my sister had this same reaction to stopping being our mom's caretaker when her dementia got really bad. I managed to convince her that no, this is exactly when she should stop trying to care for mom, because she's not trained for it nor emotionally able to do it, and give that duty to someone who is. So I say the same to you. And you are already better off than my sister was, because Sis wouldn't see a therapist!

I like my job and the people I work with and my boss is great and even so I am SO ANXIOUS because I am doing essentially 3 jobs and there is so much work. I'm handling licensing which is a hot mess, MLS support which is my actual job, AND bookkeeping which is NOT my job but someone has to do it and since the office manager quit it just got handed to me. I have once again made the mistake of proving myself competent. My 6-month review is Friday and I'm gonna ask for a change of title and a salary increase. And if I don't get it I may start looking for another job in spite of how much I very don't want to.

Steph, for what it may or may not be worth, it sounds like you at least have help now. It sounds like the nurse practitioner knows what she's doing. More important, it sounds like your father is developing some trust in her -- or at least giving her the benefit of the doubt for now.

So you could take care of yourself by celebrating a step in a good direction. I recommend ice cream.

(((STEPH)))

I don't think I need a new job, I just need to figure out how to get the info I need without getting fired. Most days things are fine.

I did have a brainstorm yesterday. As I get trained on more things that mean I can take little tasks from co-worker, I am going to try and position it so that I am taking more and more of the work that does not involve Big Boss.

I have already started down that path in moving things that were not electronically filed to e-files. I now can file things into the employee electronic files and thus can support the other departments without that access. That is a low-level task, but it is 100% Big Boss contact free and THOSE are the tasks I need to beef up on.

Steph, what is the possibility of hiring a part-time care person. Someone who could take some care of your dad? Does he need help cleaning his house? Cooking? Yard stuff?

When my mother retired, age 70, she and my sister moved into a house together. She was fine for a while, but her health declined and she became effectively blind and deaf (she had some vision and some hearing, but not much ... and couldn't keep her driver's license). Her mental abilities began declining and my sister hired someone to be with her during the day (while sister was working), drive her to doctor appointments, etc. So ... Steph, keep the live-in assistance person in mind as a possibility.

I was super-grumpy yesterday because I couldn't find something and I was afraid I'd lost it, and then this morning I had a brain wave of where I might have put it (spoiler: my purse, which of course I hardly use these days) and it was THERE!

Very glad I thought of this before we emptied the giant recycling container to search it.

I declare that people will have good days today.

I feel sure that Jilli has seen this, but just in case: [link]