Old trusty soda machine. I push you for root beer, you give me Coke.

Willow ,'End of Days'


Natter 77: I miss my friends. I miss my enemies. I miss the people I talked to every day.  

Off-topic discussion. Wanna talk about corsets, duct tape, butt kicking, or physics? This is the place. Detailed discussion of any current-season TV must be whitefonted.


P.M. Marc - Feb 22, 2024 1:53:06 pm PST #28822 of 30000
So come, my friends, be not afraid/We are so lightly here/It is in love that we are made; In love we disappear

I haven't had any emotional spoons left for Dad for quite a while now. I know he's not being crazy on purpose, and I know he's not being crazy *at* me. But I still have nothing left for him, emotionally. Not anymore. I guess what I really need is an extra helping of grace so that I can extend some grace to him and get through this to whatever might help him.

This is me and my older sister. When we went down last week to bring some of her things from her house to my parents' house AT HER REQUEST (AND we picked up the car from my soon-to-be-former BiL), things went poorly enough that my watch gave me a high heart rate while not moving alert. Oops?

I might have lost my patience and snapped, but Christ fucking wept. I just. I remember more of 2023 than she does. I know how much we, including the BiL, tried to get her help for both physical and mental health issues. She doesn't remember or acknowledge this. She's angry and abusive, and when she's not verbally aggressive, she's passive-aggressive. She complains she doesn't have money to hire a lawyer (though she claims she can help my parents out with the bills my mom keeps forgetting to pay) while doing things like buying an electric bike that she can't even use, given that she's barely mobile. There are four people living in my childhood home (parents, both siblings), and none of them are really competent, and I hit the end of my rope a long time ago.

My sister used to be the sweetest person. A little Eeyore, but sweet and kind. That person doesn't exist anymore, or if she does, she's buried under pain and resentment. Trying to care about her or help her is a thankless task, and even with the boundaries I've got put in place, it's probably shaved a few years off my life, and I resent that it's making it hard to see my aging and fading parents.


lisah - Feb 22, 2024 2:04:03 pm PST #28823 of 30000
Punishingly Intricate

So much whatever you need to Steph, shrift, sarameg, and Plei & any others on the loved one care front.


-t - Feb 22, 2024 2:14:23 pm PST #28824 of 30000
I am a woman of various inclinations and only some of the time are they to burn everything down in frustration

Oh, Plei. That is so much that is so hard.


P.M. Marc - Feb 22, 2024 2:24:49 pm PST #28825 of 30000
So come, my friends, be not afraid/We are so lightly here/It is in love that we are made; In love we disappear

Oh, Plei. That is so much that is so hard.

And that's as close to an elevator pitch version as I can even get! If I had a lot of money, like, multimillions, not just a few million, I would be throwing it at lawyers so fast.

You can barely walk into the house now because of the piles of boxes (and the still-in-a-box bike) from her manic spending. And I do mean manic. I suspect mood stabilizers would do her a world of good, but she screamed at me (both real screaming and FB message screaming) when I suggested she might look into the possibility of being bipolar. "I'M JUST DEPRESSED! YOU AREN'T A DOCTOR, SO STOP SAYING I MIGHT BE BIPOLAR!" as if potentially being Bipolar Type 2 is some huge insult (I found her taking it as an insult to be insulting, given that I kept telling her that, I, her blood relative, found SSRIs and the like far less effective than a mood stabilizer, which I am on because my pdoc treats depression mixed with severe anxiety as BP2 with a lot of success).

I'm trying to avoid talking about it as much as I can, as actually looking at it head-on makes me want to curl up in a ball and hide for all eternity, but man. It sucks.


Amy - Feb 22, 2024 2:31:56 pm PST #28826 of 30000
Because books.

I'm so sorry, Plei. That's hellish, and you deserve a break and some peace. Hugging you from here.


Amy - Feb 22, 2024 2:32:03 pm PST #28827 of 30000
Because books.

-t - Feb 22, 2024 3:18:46 pm PST #28828 of 30000
I am a woman of various inclinations and only some of the time are they to burn everything down in frustration

I'm trying to avoid talking about it as much as I can, as actually looking at it head-on makes me want to curl up in a ball and hide for all eternity, but man. It sucks.

That's fair. I don't need details to know that I am On Your Side whatever that may mean


Sheryl - Feb 22, 2024 4:31:58 pm PST #28829 of 30000
Fandom means never having to say "But where would I wear that?"

Timelies all!

Happy Birthday Laura!

Hugs and ~ma for all dealing with parental care issues.

In house news, we finally have a functioning sink in the kitchen. Now we need to unpack the metric buttload of boxes in the living room and basement.


Laura - Feb 22, 2024 4:38:59 pm PST #28830 of 30000
Our wings are not tired.

I'm trying to avoid talking about it as much as I can, as actually looking at it head-on makes me want to curl up in a ball and hide for all eternity, but man. It sucks.

My heart hurts for you, and all of you dealing with family heartaches. All I can offer is virtual hair pats, martinis, hugs, or an empathetic ear as needed.


P.M. Marc - Feb 22, 2024 6:01:45 pm PST #28831 of 30000
So come, my friends, be not afraid/We are so lightly here/It is in love that we are made; In love we disappear

Ahahahaha. My mother just called, no doubt meaning well, to try to get me to...take my sister's side? Accept her reality? (Did I mention my mother has "mild cognitive decline"? There's that, too.) And maybe if I hadn't been on the phone with her husband when the shit hit the fan (as in, mid-conversation about next steps in trying to get her healthy when she called from the hospital saying she was checking herself out), I'd buy some of it, but I was, and I can't, and now I think my mom's mad at me, and anyhow, fuck everything.

I truly hate this so much. There is no way to solve it without making things worse or breaking relationships completely. There might as well be no way to solve it, period. My chronically ill sister also apparently doesn't have insurance now because...hell if I know. Balls, they got dropped. Probably by her. If I had the money to just hire people to untangle the clusterfuck, I would, but I am not a person with unclusterfuck money. And unclusterfuck money can't fix a broken mind.