Real Life Struggles/Support/Vent
-
@dvoraen If you’ve got good health coverage, see a podiatrist about it. If you don’t. Well, if you were local to me I’d let to swab your foot and play with the microscope to see if you’ve a fungal infection, which is a possible cause with OtC treatments available. Might wash them with cholorhexidine and put athelete’s footcream on 'em, and try to avoid wearing shoes and socks as much as possible.
-
Couple things today.
Firstly, to everyone I RPed with before getting on the ADHD meds (which is everyone I’ve ever RPed with), holy crap I am sorry you had to deal with someone so horrifically erratic and scatterbrained. I’m currently on the fifth and thank god final day of my psychiatrist-advised no-medication break so the meds don’t lose efficacy and it’s absolute torture for me, the wife, the kids, the wife, the dog, and especially me, and definitely the wife. I understand now why the psychologist who did my initial assessment said “if you weren’t a genius, you’d be completely crippled”. I thought he was joking!
Secondly, perhaps more pressing because the above nonsense ends tomorrow, the cat situation.
You know the one.
This is the mother of next door’s litter of cats and has always loved my family. I found her sitting in the regional park across the road from my house. She’s always been very friendly and came hopping over the road when I made a single pspsps. We had lots of head and chin rubs, plenty of belly showing, and we even played with a twig in the grass. She’s a wonderful and affectionate little cat.
Once again:
- Unsure if desexed/registered/microchipped. Gonna assume finally desexed because she’s not pregnant.
- No collar (illegal in my local council).
- Roaming in a national park (extremely fucking illegal in my local council).
This happened at 11:30PM.
11:30PM.
Unfortunately, limited by a keyboard as I am, I can’t unleash my frothing annoyance appropriately at what I’ve dealt with. It’s the middle of the night and this friendly little girl is at the mercy of snakes, spiders, kangaroos, emus, and especially snakes all alone. Next door’s lights were on so maybe they took her back inside later I don’t fucking know!
I cannot stress enough how many dangerous snakes we get here. It’s so bad that last time I played Pokemon GO it kept spawning Ekans and I’m like “this tracks”.
I’m starting to think this is no longer a question of legality. Seeing a roaming cat at 11:30PM with at least two laws broken, I definitely have moral grounds to catch her (and maybe her kids) and maybe I’ve got legal grounds as well. At what point is it animal neglect? I don’t know but emotion keeps winning out over logic and I’m going crazy every time I see this colony-in-the-making.
-
@Hobbie said in Real Life Struggles/Support/Vent:
Couple things today.
Firstly, to everyone I RPed with before getting on the ADHD meds (which is everyone I’ve ever RPed with), holy crap I am sorry you had to deal with someone so horrifically erratic and scatterbrained. I’m currently on the fifth and thank god final day of my psychiatrist-advised no-medication break so the meds don’t lose efficacy and it’s absolute torture for me, the wife, the kids, the wife, the dog, and especially me, and definitely the wife. I understand now why the psychologist who did my initial assessment said “if you weren’t a genius, you’d be completely crippled”. I thought he was joking!
Secondly, perhaps more pressing because the above nonsense ends tomorrow, the cat situation.
You know the one.
This is the mother of next door’s litter of cats and has always loved my family. I found her sitting in the regional park across the road from my house. She’s always been very friendly and came hopping over the road when I made a single pspsps. We had lots of head and chin rubs, plenty of belly showing, and we even played with a twig in the grass. She’s a wonderful and affectionate little cat.
Once again:
- Unsure if desexed/registered/microchipped. Gonna assume finally desexed because she’s not pregnant.
- No collar (illegal in my local council).
- Roaming in a national park (extremely fucking illegal in my local council).
This happened at 11:30PM.
11:30PM.
Unfortunately, limited by a keyboard as I am, I can’t unleash my frothing annoyance appropriately at what I’ve dealt with. It’s the middle of the night and this friendly little girl is at the mercy of snakes, spiders, kangaroos, emus, and especially snakes all alone. Next door’s lights were on so maybe they took her back inside later I don’t fucking know!
I cannot stress enough how many dangerous snakes we get here. It’s so bad that last time I played Pokemon GO it kept spawning Ekans and I’m like “this tracks”.
I’m starting to think this is no longer a question of legality. Seeing a roaming cat at 11:30PM with at least two laws broken, I definitely have moral grounds to catch her (and maybe her kids) and maybe I’ve got legal grounds as well. At what point is it animal neglect? I don’t know but emotion keeps winning out over logic and I’m going crazy every time I see this colony-in-the-making.
Look, as someone who has inadvertently become (one of) my neighborhood’s resident crazy cat ladies who just ends up bringing in whatever little flea-bitten, three-legged, one-eyed, mangy trash goblin who happens to rub up on my ankles…
I strongly advocate for calling whatever your country’s version of animal humane officers are because fuck your neighbors in their stupid fucking faces.
-
I think about this reply and insane amount for a forum post.
Because, see, even though we started the trial in April, added days in June, then again July, and had witten closing submitted the 13th of August… we still are sitting in limbo.
Today is October 5th. I have no doubt that we will hit 60 days in this case of the Judge working on her decision.
In that time the department fired the company contracted with for mom visits because they allowed mom to question the girls about a sexual disclosure from the youngest. Now they are providing visits on a shoestring basis - when the director of family time/caseworker and another worker with a therapudic license. It was suppose to be a stopgap for a week or two. We are moving into visit 8 with this.
The youngest has lost her foster placement and been moved.
Three of the 4 kids have had birthdays.
Bio-mom has gotten and lost 3 jobs.
Eldest foster mom is on FMLA from stress (not only the case, but after the Evergreen shooting a kid brought a gun to the school she is a nurse at and the administration didn’t act promptly.)
I feel like nothing will ever change, and since we know parents will appeal I can realistically see it just… continuing.
-
We recently went away on a trip for an extended long weekend with some close family friends of ours.
For four days, myself, my wife, and my kids (!) were used and abused for free daycare and hospitality by these “friends” that were more interested in TikTok and yelling at each other than the basic responsibilities of parenting. They contributed nothing to the holiday whilst actively-if-ignorantly sabotaging any activity we tried to do as a group, even something as simple as making dinner.
They didn’t exchange a word with their eldest son (who’s four) beyond telling him off for misbehaving when he’s clearly acting out for any sort of attention, and happily ignored their youngest (who’s not even one) as he pulled small coffee tables on himself, fell half-way out of his high chair, or climbed half-way up the stairs with no supervision. I was told later by my wife that I’d saved each of their kids from some form of serious injury at least once, something which didn’t occur to me at all during the trip.
One of those four days, and the one that showcased their worst behaviour, was my birthday.
This is… I mean, this is simple shit. Keep an eye on your kids, don’t shut them out or ignore them, maybe think beyond your immediate gratification. I get it! I get that it’s hard! I get that parenting takes everything out of you! I’ve been there, I still am there! But at one point late on my birthday when I was carting their baby down from the stairs for the fourth time that hour I’d had enough and I was one hair away from just saying get off your fucking phone.
There is at least one positive from all this though. It’s completely dismissed all the worries I have of being an inadequate dad. For now. It’ll be back lol.
Suffice it to say there’s agreement between my wife and I that we’re terminating this near-decade of friendship immediately. My heart goes out to their kids, but I’m ashamed to see this from people I once called friends.
-
@Hobbie I’ve managed to maintain adult friendships with people whose parenting choices wouldn’t be mine, but very importantly, it’s because we avoid long together times when the kids are involved. Most of the time we’ve had the elephant in the room discussion soon after the precipitating event, which has always been interesting (and one of the reasons why we were able to maintain the friendship). I personally have never regretted keeping a friendship in this manner (unless we couldn’t have that discussion, sans kids, but all of those times the friendship naturally fizzled).
I’m not going to say don’t go against your gut, but it might be worth thinking for a bit if you are willing to give the friendship a chance, chalk this up to not being a good vacation fit because they were more on edge with friends sharing a space (it happens), something’s going on between them that you don’t know about (it happens), or somesuch.
I’ve definitely had to draw boundaries with some friends who are also parents around what I will and won’t do with their kids at my house (or theirs) and the rules of engagement/courtesy at mine too (Like an agreement we all put the phones away/in phone jail, what areas are off limits, ect). I tend to be the more vigilant person at gatherings too just because I slip into early childhood educator mode, and I think some people naturally default to it. It definitely makes me thankful for the majority of friends in my life that are solid “aunties and uncles” to my kids, even if our day to day parenting styles aren’t in total alignment, I know they have oversight and are vigilant to keep everyone safe.
But yeah, there are a handful of folks where I have been, “You know, I enjoy doing X Y, or Z with you but I think we should do it without the kids,” too.
That being said i am sorry you are even having to consider this and that the vacation was ruined. It really sucks when people disappoint you like this. And it is totally better to just let them go sometimes too!
-
@junipersky unfortunately this is the nature of the whole system. It’s incredibly slow and inefficient because trying to handle the intimate details of family life through an adversarial process is really stupid. We just don’t know what else to do so we try to force square pegs through round holes.
-
@mietze First off, thank you for responding like this. I appreciate a differing opinion because I have a hard time assessing a situation from beyond my own viewpoint.
These are the friends where we’ve gone against our gut, given it another five goes, and been optimistic about the future. This, however, is the first time we’ve spent an extended period with them and their kids and it has been very telling.
There were a lot of things I didn’t get into in the last post, it would have been too much and it would have been a wall of text that’s just whinging. There will be some more details below.
@mietze said in Real Life Struggles/Support/Vent:
But yeah, there are a handful of folks where I have been, “You know, I enjoy doing X Y, or Z with you but I think we should do it without the kids,” too.
This is perhaps the core of the whole thing. Sometimes it is better to do things without the kids, but when the kids are there, it is unfair/dangerous to act like they are not. Approximately 90% of the holiday, the mother of those children was interrogating my wife about something or other while the father was on TikTok watching memes. This happened at the holiday house, at kid-friendly events, when we were out to eat, etc etc. It was happening while their baby was hanging out of a high chair held in only by their neck. It was happening in a car park while their oldest kid was walking into traffic. These are the aforementioned “saved from serious harm” incidents that I remember.
Part of my issue is that I consider parenting a 24/7 task, so I cannot turn off my instincts. It doesn’t help my own wellbeing much, but it does mean I’m aware of what the kids are up to even if I’m not actively watching them. To have children around who are visibly not having their emotional, physical, or safety needs met triggers extreme caution in me.
The number of times I turned and found myself next to their infant with them nowhere nearby was approaching double digits. One of those times, they were fifteen metres away arguing over a frozen drink they were going to buy for themselves.
Finally, I will never forgive a parent that scoffs and walks away when their child asks for a kiss and cuddle good-night.
I would never consider them aunty or uncle to my children. After this trip I wouldn’t allow them within fifty metres of my children without me being there.
-
@Hobbie yeah that sounds like a nightmare! There’s only so much you can do as a friend, and I think just about everyone would struggle having to deal with that, especially when it is a consistent pattern. Hopefully this will relieve a lot od stress in your life. I hope cutting out people who dont add much to your life but that level of stress ahd disappointment gives you a little more peace!
-
@Aria Small update here, the angel cat I’ve been speaking about got into a territorial dispute on my driveway at 2AM today that woke my wife and I up. With it being so early in the morning and noting the pattern of activity, I can now solidly argue that the cat has been abandoned. I’m going to be looking into trapping her for her own good.
