#fuck that GP vet

[intriga-hounds]

beau is going to be ok but here’s what we’ve been dealing with:

last friday, beau yelped when jumping off the bed and started limping. my parents took him to the vet and the vet said it was probably something soft tissue so to just rest him for a bit.

by sunday, beau stopped eating.

by monday, he was on his 3rd vet trip. they did xrays and found a weird fuzziness in his chest cavity. we thought maybe he had pneumonia.

the vet told my parents that beau had lung cancer, an enlarged heart, and lung torsion. the vet said he had days to live. my dad was devastated. i called him and he was a wreck. he was preparing to euthanize because fluid in the chest was making even breathing painful.

i packed a bag, canceled my root canal for today, and prepared to drive to nevada to be there for my dad.

we called starfyre silkens, beau’s breeder and co-owner, who urged my parents to get a second opinion with a specialist before making any dire decisions. they originally were going to drive to CA for a vet, so i stopped packing. then they found one in NV. so i was kinda in limbo and everyone was stressed tf out.

the specialist immediately drained the fluid to make beau more comfortable (the GP vet wouldn’t do it bc they said it might kill him??), then took new xrays. they told my parents there’s no way anyone could diagnose cancer or really anything at all from the original blurry xrays that had fluid obstructing the view.

after many tests, surgery was suggested as the only way to figure out what was going on. hernia was suspected as a best case scenario, but regardless, the vet said whatever it was, it did not seem life-threatening. at this point, we all felt like we could breathe. my dad sounded optimistic, so i decided to stay home.

the surgeon, who has operated on many sighthounds and is eminently esteemed in his field, found a faulty lobe in beau’s lung today. it was removed and sent away for testing. no cancer, no lung torsion, no heart issues, and no hernia were found.

beau is stable and in the ICU. this should not affect his life in any way once he recovers, but the next 24 hrs are critical. i will get an update tomorrow.

[murple]

I'm only 20 but I never use a gps- I don't have data on my phone and dad doesn't have a cell phone at all. Whenever we go somewhere new in the city we look it up on google maps then either write it down or memorise the route. (For some reason my friends find it amazing that I can remember "take hwy 59, then left onto hwy 52, then left onto hwy 12, then first right, then left at the gravel road" without a gps)

So many times I forget to look up the exact location of a place before I leave but I know which major street it's close to so I'll just go there and drive around until I find it.

(Once I got terribly lost in Kenora because I decided to go through the city instead of taking the bypass. I knew I had to go east, but kenora is surrounded by tons and tons of tiny lakes (and one huge lake to the south) and there's only one road that weaves through all the lakes, the rest are either dead ends when they hit the water, or they just circle back to downtown. So I kept trying different roads going east only to end up back downtown over and over and over. Finally I noticed a tiny street sign saying HWY 17 - it didn't look like a highway but it turned out to be the right road - and I managed to follow it through the lakes and join up again with the main highway. This took nearly 2 hours. Luckily my brother was very cool about it.)

[legy]

hi! i'm caelum. you might know me from @goldentruths-pod or from posting online. im in a financial quicksand pit and i really, really, really need help.

i'm disabled and receive approx ~$950 a month from social security. this has gone from "rough but survivable" when i first started receiving SSI to "i am literally not making ends meet" in 2024. right now my current status is that i am covering my basic needs but any kind of extra purchases are impossible. and the extra purchases i need to make keep piling up because i just can't afford them. some things i need include, in vague level of priority:

dolphin, my cat, is years overdue for a vet visit. this is going to be $300 minimum, possibly more because she has an adversarial relationship with the vet. she needs dental work done which they had quoted me as being $1500 but ive been putting it off for so long that i would not be surprised if that's more expensive too

i have learned today that my gold crown needs to be replaced. really unhappy about this one. it was a miserable experience the first time (everything that went wrong did go wrong, i'll spare you the details) but what is relevant here is that my insurance does not cover this and it was $900 last time. insurance also does not cover extracting the tooth either so that's cool. i have some time before this one is due (my next consult is in july)

my phone is approaching "unusably broken". i've had it for close to 4 years now. the call speaker no longer works (i can only use the phone on speaker mode) and it struggles to run apps or a web browser which makes things like GPS pretty dire. this would be like ~$100-$150 probably, i havent done serious phone shopping yet

my driver's license is expired and i need to get a new one. this was $110 last time. note i havent driven a car in years due to the disability but it's really valuable to have a universally recognized form of photo ID and ive already been hassled over it being expired

god this one is so embarrassing to get into but i had to flee my previous apartment last year due to it escalating into a DV situation. the other tenants did not pay the heating bill, which was in my name (and my dumb ass didnt close the account because it was the middle of february and i didnt want to freeze them to death) so i have a $250 utility bill in collections. i might be able to dispute or debt forgiveness this one but tbh ive been so fucking drained given everything else going on and also my phone barely works so i havent pursued it. especially since i can't afford to pay it if i cant challenge it

i would really like to have a passport again. my previous one was destroyed by my landlord in 2018 but even if it wasnt it'd also be expired now. not sure how much this one costs. likely $200?

my food stamps were slashed in half (covid emergency ending lol) and do not cover my food costs for the month so im paying like $150 a month on food that i didnt have to previously. i can maybe fix this one but im slowly losing my mind from malnutrition from trying to not go into debt and also eat. so i havent had it in me to go 1v1 welfare bureaucracy and possibly make everything even worse

my shoes are probably two months out from fully decomposing. they were $100 three years ago and id like to get something comparable given they lasted me this long

the rest of my clothes are also very literally becoming threadbare, falling apart, or are too big and keep slipping off. i legitimately feel embarrassed to go in public these days because i dress so shitty all the time

insurance doesnt cover my HRT anymore so that's $30 a month i didnt used to have to pay

im sorry this turned into such a ramble. i'm in such a bad way right now, i have been for quite a while and the dental work news is really just the final straw. i can't really have a fundraising goal because due to the SSI asset limit i can never own more than $2000. & i'm aware both that this is the poor people sending each other the same 20 dollars website and that there are people urgently trying to raise money to escape an active genocide. but i held off from making this post as long as possible & idk what else i can do

anyway if theres anything you can contribute to help me i would appreciate it more than anything. at the very least i need to do something about my tooth.

http://paypal.me/hivehum

[callivich]

Vent post

had a bad week - long story but my cat is sick and she has something potentially treatable (diabetes and chronic kidney disease) but we’ve had to stress her out with several vet visits and she’s elderly (15) and it’s just a lot. I just want to do the best for her and give her every chance possible but at the same time I don’t want to put her through excess stress or suffering. I’ve not helped myself by going down an internet rabbit hole. I’m crying too much and I just feel like shit. We were given the first dose of meds for her diabetes and she took ages to eat it, I know it’s the first day and she’s had a very stressful week (she hates the vet and going in a car) and I need to calm the fuck down but I’m worried for long term. I live with my parents and they agree that we all need to calm down lol because she’s probably picking up on our anxiety.

It’s also making me think I shouldn’t have come off my anti depressants last year, I’m crying a lot because of my dear Cleo but the crying thing isn’t recent (been getting too caught up in my head, anxious and depressive thoughts etc) and I don’t think I’m doing too good these past few months….maybe into the end of last year. I feel selfish for thinking about myself right now because I need to focus on her but idk, I’m not feeling too good. i think I’m gonna talk to my GP but I don’t wanna go back on what I was on bc I don’t think it was helping towards the end, I was on them for like…..10years and they worked at first but I don’t think they did at the end which is why I stopped taking them.

[witchthewriter]

𝑴𝒂𝒄𝑮𝒚𝒗𝒆𝒓 & 𝑾𝒐𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒓𝒃𝒐𝒚: 𝑨 𝑳𝒐𝒗𝒆 𝑺𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒚 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐎𝐍𝐄.

Paid story for @alohomorasomnium. Word Count: 1k Warnings: swears, mentions of previous domestic violence

ᴹᵃˢᵗᵉʳˡᶤˢᵗ          

The vet’s office had said to dress casual for the interview, but in this town, you had no idea what that meant. Driving into Charming felt like going back five…maybe even ten years. It wasn’t an old hick town, but it had a feeling of slowness. Like trends and updates took their time to reach Charming, even though it was a Californian town.

   You had chosen a white button up top, with short sleeves and a black pin skirt with a matching jacket. Your hair was in a French braid and you had nearly dropped your thin black framed glasses locking your front door that morning. Your aim was to impress; seem professional. But god it was hot. You weren’t expecting such a warm day – neither was the weatherman you’d been listening to on the tv last night.

   It was still an adjustment – moving into a new home, into a new street, new town… new state.

   “Change is good,” is what you had told yourself while you drove all of your belongings from your hometown to Charming. You said it over and over again.

 This morning hadn’t gone too badly, well, not until you got onto the main road and Charlie, your truck, conked out twenty minutes from your interview destination. You had considered walking, but it would take you at least an hour on foot. Especially since your GPS didn’t work without a power outlet.

 Bottling up your scream, you stood on the side of the road and popped open the hood of your truck. Steam blasted you in the face, fogging up your glasses and dirtying your white shirt.

    “The fuck is wrong with you Charlie! Why now?” You groaned, leaning your head against your arm. You counted to ten and pulled yourself together. Now wasn’t the time for a breakdown.

 Hooking the rod into place, you wiped your glasses on your shirt and looked for any damages. The oil was fine, water in the windshield wipers were full, hell everything looked perfect.

   Just as you unhooked the rod, you felt a presence behind you. Jumping, you turned around in a flash and dropped the hood. Bang! The sound seemed to ring out in the early hours of the morning.

     “Sorry ma’am, didn’t mean to startle you.” Having to look up to see his face, you saw a bearded man with a leather kutte covered in patches.

 “No need to apologise, just … having a rough morning,” you said, locating your keys and doing your best not to seem frightened. Your fear didn’t spawn because he was a biker, no. It was because he was a man.

   Moving to Charming wasn’t a choice out of freedom, but necessity. To put it simply, the man you had loved turned out to be a narcissistic, obsessive control freak. Breaking loose of him gave you your life, but parts of you would never be the same.

  “Looks like it,” Opie said in a humorous tone, “I work for Teller Morrow mechanics, I can take a look if that’s okay with you.”

 Polite.

        You weren’t used to big, booted men with being polite.

So, you were unsure, but time was ticking away, and you were in desperate need for this job.

     “Okay, you can take a look,” stepping back, you watched as he trudged over to Charlie and did exactly as you had done. After ten minutes he slowly lowered the hood and wiped his hands on his jeans.

  He shook his head, “Not an easy fix, looks like a part is missing.” Opie’s sunglasses perched high on his head as he looked at you. You noticed the tattoos on his neck and arms, and wondered how many more he had.

 After processing the words, your stomach sank.

      “God,” you shut your eyes, and held it in. Coincidence, you thought. This was all coincidence.

  “I can call the tow truck,” he said, moving toward you. Taking an instinctual step back, you noticed that the big biker stopped in his tracks.

“Sorry, it’s not you. I’m just –“

        “- not only having a rough morning?”

You crossed your arms and nodded.

  “Look, I’ll call a tow truck and take you to wherever it is you need to go, sound okay?”

  You looked from the ground to see what his transportation was. A Harley. How would it look showing up to the Vets on the back of a bike?

 Fuck. I’m fucked. This is fucked. How has my day come to this? You thought roughly, rubbing your temple. You looked at your watch, five minutes. Five minutes until the interview. Shit.

 Letting out a laugh (because if you didn’t laugh you’d cry), you nodded to the brown-haired biker.

“Why are you doing this?” you asked him, throwing a leg over the seat, trying not to let your skirt hike up too high.

    “What comes around goes around,” he replied, handing you the helmet and securing your handbag in his satchel.

  “Huh, Karma,” you muttered, and tried to fasten the helmet tighter.

“Here, let me,” large hands came towards your face but you didn’t flinch. There was something about this man. Being up close meant you could sense it better. Maybe you had been around animals for too long, but as they were able to sense a good person…somehow so did you.

  “I didn’t get your name,” you said as he was face to face with you. His large fingers gently tugged on the cords of the helmet, clicking it in place, his eyes flickered to yours and you noticed the faded freckles over the bridge of his nose.

“Oh uh, it’s – Opie,” he stammered lightly, moving in front of you and hoisting a leg over the bike. “Yours?” He asked over his shoulder.

   “Kaelie.”

“Well Kaelie, where we going?”

    “The Veterinary Clinic,” you called over the rumble of the bike.

He smiled and nodded. Flicking up the kickstand, instantly the two of you were off.

                                                            - 🛠 –

What should have taken you twenty minutes, Opie did in ten. You chalked it up to knowing the right streets, but a few times you looked over his shoulder to see how fast he was going. (It was fast).

   After parking you had handed the helmet back to the biker and smiled at him.

“Thank you.”

  With a half smile, he shook his head. You were about to turn around and head off but he pulled something out of his pocket.

  “Here’s the details for our mechanics. Your car should be done by the end of the day.”

You nodded, once again thanking him for his generosity.

    “Do you need a ride after your done here?”

Cocking your head to the side, you blinked a few times before nodding.

    “Hey, just helping a new neighbour.”

[iamnotawomanimagod]

friend of a friend is a big believer in letting her cats free roam.

her cat has been attacked by an unknown animal, and needed vet care including shots and stitches, and had to wear a cone for two weeks - which she obviously hated. she gets lost constantly. just last week she disappeared for two days because she got locked in a store that closed down for the weekend. so she was without food or water for 48 hours.

so they put a GPS tracker on her, and now just watch as she roams the entire neighborhood, crossing busy streets.

her owner does not give a fuck about the impact it has on birds/insects/etc, which is WILD because she's otherwise a full hippie and crazy intense about the environment. she basically just says that "it's just one cat" (it isn't, since other people let their cats wander) and "cats are meant to roam."

it is INFURIATING to me. I've had to learn to let it go, but god. isn't dealing with all of that way more stressful than just keeping your cat inside? and playing with them enough?

the most frustrating part is that she has lost pets that she let free-roam, but she just considers it like, a part of it?

she is the living embodiment of that "sounds like you're just feeding shelter cats to the local coyotes" post

[cynophagia]

It just fucking sucks. I'm trying to find positivity in this and I have, at least I've learned a lot and at least he made it 5 days without needing transfusion and that was 5 days I got to spend with him at home. (but I'll always fucking wonder if I should have just brought him to the ER first, would have they been more aggressive out the gates? I don't know. With his bw on Saturday though the vet there said he would continue with the gp's tx plan so maybe it wouldnt have made a difference). The team at the evet for as many gripes as I have sometimes with the work culture are being absolute angels and working with me cost wise the best they can since I'm just shy of employee assistance time wise. There's a lot of sweet people who have given me hugs. He's alive which is the biggest plus of all and as long as he's alive there's a chance he will stay that way. But it still just fucking sucks. He's my best friend

[self-loathing-angel-of-thursday2]

Beautiful Spouse’s Rewatch Thoughts SPN 08x03 Heartache

“That was some deep writing. He hit a dog. Took it to the vet. Slept with the vet. Only needed one set” “Is he going to have a heart attack or something?” “Shit” “Fkn Indiana Jones style right there”

“ALI MAA” “what the fuck” and laughter

Laughter

“Sam is being so boring right now. It’s not like you have anything else going on” “I’m so confused. Did the lady die or did he just leave?” Sam was a deadbeat and left the lady like we saw last episode

“We don’t have peach pits here” “The People of Minnesota don’t grow peaches, as far as I know” “They’re really selling that” “thats a lot of eyeball” “They’re having a lot of fun with the rack focus on that one” “what a heartless bitch” “they missed their opportunity to make fun of everyone from Minnesota have that one accent” “Ok” “um” “I don’t know how he would have had time to breathe in before screaming. The screaming didn’t come from the same person at the same time” “How is that…the phone wouldn’t know what the fuck. It needs to know what language you’re using originally too” “Is it a possessed or cursed donor or some shit? That’d be awesome” “the place looks like the inside of an old country buffet” “thats what they all say” “I feel like we’ve seen this alley before” “not that guy’s heart” “to be fair, it looked like he had hella heart disease” “What’s it called when it’s something syndrome?” “Stockholm Syndrome?” “Dean hates being a hunter but he does it anyway” “thats a lot of blood stuff” “yup. Sure” “is it Lucifer or something?” “the occult” “When the aliens find that, it’ll be a brick named Brick” “It’ll be an obvious brick label” “Cacao” “options. Stocks. Bonds. Future investments” “no problem” “that’s a lot of brick” “more like stone I guess. It looked like actual rocks” “Is she Brick’s lover? I thought that was his mom” “Were they married?” “I thought he was a young dude” “Williams used that livery color today (Qatar GP 2023)” “box o fan mail” “Who the fuck is Betsey?” “Look at that fkn TV man” “Mid-20s huh?” “these guys are fucked. Dean said all of that, and Sam said sure that’s believable” “Is it a pipe organ? Or a digital one?” “what a bitch move” “oh yeah, she’s in my house” “the bunny hole. Exotic angel fire” “Two occult-obsessed weirdos walk into a strip club and threaten a stripper with a knife. Where are we? Florida? Christ’s sakes” “what a fkn greasy horror show” “scary music” “I didn’t see that coming” “I feel like Dean is into this somehow” “that was easy” “Oh he hit her in the heart” “crazy ass lady” “Dean gets what it’s like to be Xena Warrior Princess” “I’m with Dean on this one. Sam says that a lot” “You already tried that once in college, man” “slight the bitch some more” 🎶let’s start a riot🎶

“How come we don’t see her again?”

[gender-trash]

for YEARS i have occasionally seen gifs from legend of hei on this website and EVERY TIME i was like "god, thats some smooth fucking animation, i should watch this" and every time i kept getting distracted and not doing that

until today!

my review: holy shit, that IS some smooth fucking animation. i'm always a sucker for characters who are Cool and Highly Respected for their Competence at their one (1) special Thing and who just abjectly suck at everything else so of course i love wuxian hes my fucking boy

look at him. he's so cool and yet he's a dipshit. my guy you HAD a phone when you were on the island, and you hadn't gotten it drenched yet! you could have checked your gps! instead of getting lost on a raft on the ocean with a cat in full I DO NOT WANT TO GO TO THE VET voice!

this little *pat pat* is so important. thank you

anyway i think wuxian and feng xi should have had an enemies-to-catboy-coparents-who-reluctantly-get-along-but-are-still-kind-of-enemies arc. i think we were robbed.

(this is feng xi btw)

also @combat-epistemologist watched it with me and it was like.

me: *gestures emphatically to laptop screen* look at this tiny fucking cat!!

@combat-epistemologist: *ignores xiao hei, gestures to irl cat zeezee (doing crimes)* look at THIS tiny fucking cat!

(five seconds later)

@combat-epistemologist: oh my god this cat [referring to xiao hei] is so fucking tiny and his eyes are so big. if anything bad happens to him i'm going to lose my shit

(which, tbh, if we have learned anything from this movie it is that You Are Not Immune To Xiao Hei)

overall, highly recommend if you like studio ghibli movies and/or really nicely animated action/fight scenes! if you watch it, make sure to pause and read all the english text in the background, because some of it is really funny.

[lexa-griffins]

Here's another cool roleplay scene for clexa. Clarke visits the local brothel and chooses whore Lexa to be her lover for the night. It can be GP or not

I see your roleplay idea and raise you this:

Medieval type AU where Clarke is a criminal of some kinda visits a brothel to try and blow off some steam and the massive amount of money she just robbed. Lexa's the most expensive and exclusive whore they offer, well known for her beauty and the attitude of someone who does more than fuck for a living. Unfortunately for most, not only does she vet every single person she sleeps with, she is also widely known to only allow women (noble ones considering her prices) and, as a result, her "virginity" is up for sale and as it stands with her choice of clients, it seems it'll never be sold.

However Clarke is a woman with just the right tool and amount of money to buy her virginity from her. And when Lexa's eyes fall on the sack of coins and the woman's bulge, she simply cannot refuse.

[rawk-chikk]

Sooooo. Nephew Too may have Type 1 Diabetes. GP has sent him up the hospital for tests. His blood glucose and urine test are thru the roof apparently.

No idea how he's gonna cope with it if that's the case. Obvs Sis is gonna have to do most of the coping for him, which isn't gonna be fun. He's absolutely triggered by blood so regular fingerprick tests are out of the question, and I dunno if he'd put up with a flash monitor.

What a mess, eh?

Oh yeah, and a mistake at the vet meant Harley pretty substantially OD'd on her blood thinner last week. Caught the error after one dose, but it was *a lot* more than she should've had. Cue frantic call to out-of-hours vet, then the poison helpline (which cost 40 quid upfront!!!). She's been okay, but she's been vomiting for the last 24hrs. Vet says it could be a side effect, so we're watching her like a hawk.

Fucking hell.

ETA: Looks like they're keeping Nephew Too overnight. Poor mite's not handling it well, as I feared. He won't let them take blood coz blood terrifies him and he's scared of needles. He just wants to go home. Whole thing is really traumatic for him 😔.

Just hope the staff have experience dealing compassionately with autistic kids in this kinda situation.

ETA 2: They managed to take bloods finally. Dunno all the details yet, but from the sounds of things it's good news, so 🤞.

[alarrytale]

Hi Marte. Like every celebrity who reaches the top and has people turn on them because of their popularity and success, Harry's now in that position. Where online they're desperately trying to cancel him and are going to the extent of making things up. It hasn't appeared to impact his career. People are trying to get him cancelled for being homophobic - mocking gay people, when he's just expressing his sexuality, and now because Heartstopper didn't get the rights to use his music. Calling him, of all people, homophobic is just madness. People have truly lost their minds. Twitter has destroyed their braincells. I'm just worried that they're going to keep pushing this stuff and it will go viral and impact his career. Usually internet discourse doesn't go anywhere. The internet has tried and failed to cancel so many people. By the way I'm mostly talking about twitter but the other social medias tend to copy/be affected by twitter. What do you think will happen? How do I not let this bother me?

Hi!

Well, Harry has a pr company and management who's literal job it is to manage his reputation, so that he's in a position to attract new fans and keep excisting ones (the reputation dosn't neccessarily need to be good...). They keep an eye on (at least they should) gp and fandoms reactions to things and try to mitigate and balance everything that affects his brand negatively.

Harry's made some blunders the last few years that i think full stop and his pr people took too lightly. For example google camp, no mask during covid, the bad mp interview, his grammy speech, everything in venice etc. Harry is going to fuck up because he's human. He can be better at vetting his speeches and generally remember his own privilege. He also need to consider the optics of the things he's doing. Yes, people love to tear the ones on top down. And look for ways to cancel him. But he's doing things that also fans of him don't agree with. He needs to be careful (and plan things better). He can't cruise through life without critisism anymore. The constant back and forth (gay/straight) is annoying fans and gp more and more. He can't be both straight and gay.

I think him and his team are going to have to start talking (making statements) to refute false claims if they get loud enough. I know they have a 'keep silent' policy (because every conversation about him creates free engagement and keeps his name on people's lips), but they may have to start talking if things gets too bad.

I don't know what will happen, i think we have to wait for him to make an album or another product to see how all this reflects on his sales. I doubt there is anything going on bts that will threaten his career or cancel him (like misconduct, harrasment, mistreatment, overworking or revengful exes and employers). I think it's more likely these things are done to him and not by him.

As to how to not let this bother you, curate your own fandom experience. People are going to say, feel and express opinions not based on facts, opinions that are kneejerk reactions (mostly Twitter), and opinions that is just to create drama. That's fandom for you. See everything for what it is, but let people live. This is a cliché but have the serenity to accept the things you cannot change, courage to change the things you can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

[aboutsixplums]

Work tedium really hits me in the fall. I'm glad I'll be on vacation for vet tech week, because I cannot stand a week of pithy little speeches from the manager about how much we matter and we save lives and blah blah fucking blah. Lots of techs do. We mostly don't. We're a GP in a basic little overpopulated town. We give vaccines and treat diarrhea. Idk, I feel really weird about the "HEROES IN SCRUBS" narrative. Never liked it.

I also need to force the boss to talk to me about people throwing my shit out and rummaging in my locker (bought a padlock on my own dime) (the lockers don't actually lock) because he's ignored 2 emails about it.

[trainstationsparrow]

today SUCKED ASS. couldn't get a vet appointment. have to pay to send a broken figure back for repair. got the physio appointment ive been waiting 6 weeks for to ask for rheum referral and they said my gp was wrong and they can't refer me. excruciating stomach pain for nearly 12 hours. my 3ds battery blew up. just non fucking stop the mundane horrors. i better have a great day tomorrow

[eats-the-stars]

kind of a weird moment lately, where SSI, which I applied for like, at the beginning of the pandemic, just recently got back to me with a “you qualify” after years of jumping through hoops and paperwork while also juggling just...so much at once. but the thing is that we kind of gave up on me getting SSI because it was taking, you know, literal years, and the paperwork was confusing and we were like “so did I just get disqualified? what does this mean?” and now...I literally have two jobs. I’m making decent money. I’m actually going to possibly lose my state health insurance because I make more income now, so I need to find a private health/dental plan that won’t bleed me dry because neither of my jobs offer any benefits. but still, I make too much for SSI, which restricts your assets to $2,000. Like, I am not breaking into the upper or even middle crust. I’m basically doing factory and caregiver work. I also only have these jobs due to A) our local “help disabled people get jobs” program. and B) my nephew getting into a support program we applied for 2 years ago and the program giving us the option to find (we would need to find them ourselves) and hire a nurse to do all of the medical/supervision stuff I was already doing for free, or pay me to keep doing it. Plus, we found out that my nephew has, like, a number of medical issues that most nurses are not trained to handle for some reason. and i got trained by his medical team because they are about 2 hours away and that won’t cut it in an emergency. like, I’m talking “how to intubate an infant/toddler” and how to program and manage his feeding machine and sanitize the equipment and prep his blended meals and how to replace a g-tube and I kind of forget how much I do because I do it all the time, but yeah, now I’m getting paid to do it. Plus my machine management job. So...I qualify for SSI in terms of being so disabled that i cannot live on my own, or care for myself independently, or hold a job without quite a bit of support from my family. but...SSI took so long to fucking approve my application that I just got two jobs to pay my part of the rent and help out with household repairs and childcare costs and vet bills, and I just felt like I was just a burden on my family. so I got two jobs. and I’m making it work, even though it’s hard and I am honestly just super super lucky that the jobs i got fit my specific issues so well. my major issues to staying employed revolve largely around being bad with customer-facing positions, since I am autistic and not good at hiding it, which pisses people off. I miss social cues and I fuck up eye contact no matter how I do it and I dress weird and I struggle to shower regularly. plus i have a different condition that uh...makes my face look different. most people think i have some kind of transmissible sickness, but i don’t. so...machines don’t care about any of that. my family doesn’t care about any of that. and, the second biggest impediment i have is my fairly severe memory issues, and very tentative grasp of time. my inability to navigate is not an issue due to GPS and my dad/sister just driving me to work. and the “unable to work with a schedule that changes week to week” is mitigated by the fact that my new job has a very simple, set schedule. plus my dad/sister are responsible for driving me, so if i forget that i work, they will remember for me. so...I got lucky...but I can’t help but wonder where i would be if I did not have my family support, and I did not get so much help to get these jobs, and it still took SSI...I am bad with time, but I think it’s been 1-4 years. since i applied. so...where would i be with no support, struggling to live on my own, unable to hold any of the jobs i was applied for without program assistance....eventually unable to pay rent or bills or groceries...would i have simply died? if i didn’t have family to support me...i think i might have. so...mixed feelings on getting this “you qualify, take these final steps to get your SSI benefits” paperwork from SSI....

[dzpenumbra]

11/28/22

And... it's 4 AM. This time I got sucked into Twitch, and honestly... again... it wasn't worth it. I swear, it never is. Like... there was a point where I was actually laughing out loud which was absolutely a good way to spend my time tonight, but it was like... laughing hard for one 20 minute bit in like... 5 hours of watching. I don't think that evens out. But god, I'm just starving for normal human interactions, so much that I'll just tolerate that.

I spent a good chunk of the day editing my old Session raw recordings from October. I was documenting my progress of learning how to skate in Session on Hardcore mode. I planned to make a highlight reel. Today, I clipped all that, rendered them and cleared up like 100 gigs of hard drive space by deleting the raw files. Now I have space for Rimworld... and I'm a bit back and forth about it, as I said the other day? Maybe yesterday? I'm a bit lost in time.

I don't know if I want to just delete the 7 hour playthrough and start over - because there's no sound and the last session didn't record for god knows how long because my hard drive was full. It's hard to part with them when it's not on the story's terms, when it's my fuck up. Like a technical problem or something. So I guess I'll figure that out tomorrow. I have bigger things to talk about tonight.

I had an intense conversation with my mom about my dad. And... it's getting a bit too overwhelming for me. Like... I'm not a therapist. For decades I would try and try and try to be there for people, and I was. I would shoulder their burdens and let them just dump whatever onto me and I'd just process that shit for them. ... I mean, I can't process that for them, but I'd just like... mop up their emotions after they vented and they'd just not deal with their problems and just drink in the catharsis. I thought I was helping. But once I was made aware of how I'm a much more sensitive person than most, I started to realize that... well... first off... none of these people are offering this in return for me. At all. Why? Because my feelings are too strong for them, that's been the most common answer. They're scared or intimidated by them, and the prospect of taking them on. Here's the contradiction, the weird one. They don't want to take on my stress and support me the way I supported them because of my sensitivity, and yet they don't hesitate to dump stress on me despite my sensitivity. And then I realized, I was giving them too much credit. Credit that they were actually considering how any of that shit affected me at all, or that they even knew me, honestly.

Okay, well I don't want to talk about my dad or that thing with my mom, it wasn't bad it was just a bit much for me and I'll be vocal about it later. But what really put it over the edge was... getting a phone call. I got a call that I... for some reason thought was a telemarketer or something? I had no idea what to expect, who it might be. I can't stress this enough - I do not get phone calls. Even texts. It's just not something that happens in my life. If my phone is ringing, it's either my mom, a telemarketer, grubhub or a vet/doctor. So I see this phone ringing as I'm getting my socks on getting ready to pick up my food delivery... and I just assume it's... okay, welcome to NerdVille - Bolivar. I know this dude's name because every time this guy gets my delivery (and that's pretty often) I start cracking up because I want to do a montage thing of screengrabs of his GPS car driving all over the city and call it "Bolivar's Travels". And I think it's fucking hilarious and cool. ANYWAY. I thought it was him calling to let me know the food was here, they do that sometimes. I could not have been more wrong.

The person who called me. Was my old "friend" from high school. I'm really struggling to actually say the words. She was my... best friend. In like late junior to senior year. She was not a good friend. But she was social, and she introduced me to people, and we'd go on adventures. She got me regularly smoking cigarettes and weed. She would pick me up at my house in her ratty old car "Smoky" and we'd go cruise around and smoke a shit ton of weed and Marb 27's and listen to music and look for people to chill with. She kinda treated me like garbage, and fucked me up pretty bad.

I might as well vent this shit now, because I don't wanna carry this for too long. Big gigantic trigger warnings here, because I'm kinda just letting traumas out to breathe a bit here, just a heads up, I put the tag thing on but I just want to be considerate. She was supposed to do mushrooms with me the first time I did them, we ate them together and she took me to a Friendly's right when they were kicking in, then she fucking left and abandoned me there. Like... I could've gotten arrested. And I somehow miraculously ended up at my crush's house. And I had a big crush on this girl. And she invited some dude over, I guess to like... help her supervise or make her feel safe since she was alone with me or something? Like I'm threatening at all, I just wanted to look at her art and flirt or something, I was a fucking virgin on mushrooms, I would never even know where to start with hooking up with her, it wasn't even on my radar. She had bunk beds in her room and she got me into the top bunk and she and the dude went into the lower bunk and either I had a really vivid panic attack or they hooked up right underneath me while I was tripping. And that scarred me, because I've always been developmentally pretty far behind other people, especially when it came to anything having to do with sexuality, so... that really messed with my head. So, that ended that crush pretty quick... And bravo to my "best friend" for taking me to and then ditching me at a crowded restaurant.

She also tried to get me to "lose my virginity" by getting me really fucked up, locking me in a dorm room with a mutual friend and having her try to "seduce" me. Aka assault me. And she did, and that's all I'm gonna say about that.

She also invited me to live with her and her crackhead boyfriend (oh don't worry, I'm sure she was a crackhead, too) in Colorado, so I flew halfway across the country by myself. My first flight. Alone. Met her there, lived with her for like 3 weeks in Denver. Then she started fighting with her boyfriend (who barely socialized with me at all) and decided she was fed up and flew back home, ditching me with this dude. And he was basically a stranger to me. So, I considered myself homeless, and I just wandered off on my skateboard with all my possessions in a backpack. This kid who partied with them who I met like 3 times got his parents to let me stay with them for a few weeks. I couldn't find a job, we made a bunch of art and played video games but like... it wasn't going anywhere. And I finally swallowed my pride and called my mom and had her fly me back home. I was 19, I think? Tool's 10,000 Days album came out that year, so yeah, that was 2006.

So... let's just say... I don't really have a good track record as far as "good friends" goes. Maybe my metric for "friend" is a little too low. Ya think? Let me be clear, there were more events than just this, too. Yep. These are just the greatest hits.

The last time I talked to her... it was about 2 days after I spread my dog's ashes in the river we used to go play at. I was doing a hike and collecting stones, and I went to visit my dog's ashes. And some really skinny person was sitting further down the river, I walked close by and didn't notice her. I was talking to myself on the trail on the way down, so I was really embarrassed and kinda just kept walking when I saw her. It was her. I completely did not recognize her. When I knew her, even when I reconnected with her a few years prior in 2019... she had always been a bit overweight. Sometimes more than others, but you know. Just, always curvy. And this time she looked skeletal. Like I legit did not recognize her. And she just started pouring out horror stories. And it's giving me really creepy feelings just thinking about it, so I don't want to linger or relive that part. She was going to court for accessory to fentanyl trafficking across state lines, the same shit that killed a mutual friend. She had like 5 kids. She was homeless. She was in rehab, but was down by the river getting high like 2 days before a court case. And she flat-out told me, and I said "oh, well I guess weed is okay, right? Now that it's legal..." And she went, "Right... weed... hehe..." And I was just in my head going "why the fuck are you still standing here dude, fucking run away right now!" I have never hiked faster and more scared than my hike back from that spot to my car, with my hand in my pocket clutching my keys in case I needed to like stab her like she was a zombie or some shit. Fuck, it's just haunting.

She called me. As I was getting my socks and shoes on to get my Chili's delivery. And I picked up. And she went, "Hey, it's ____. I'm stuck in ______ (the town I just moved from) and it's freezing cold and I'm just trying to get to my mom's house." And I just went, "I'm sorry, I don't live in the area anymore, and I don't really know anyone in the area." She asked where I moved to, I considered lying. I probably should have. But I told her I'm upstate. I told her sorry I couldn't help and we said goodbye. It had huge "I'm just calling you because I need something" vibes. A feeling that was a bit too familiar, and really just raised a lot of red flags, so I tried to just take a mental note on what that feeling was. I immediately went to block the number, but instead saved it as "WARNING - (HER NAME)" I couldn't bring myself to block it. I'll unpack that another time.

Then I took some really deep breaths and tried to shake it off, put my shoes on and... she called me again. And I just held the phone in my hand and watched it ring out. Then she called again. And I did the same. And I'm legit just standing by my door with my phone vibrating in my hand and just going "oh my god, I just want to get my dinner." And a literal homeless drug addict is speed dialing me because they can't find a ride. What does she expect me to do? Call my elderly parents and have them give her a ride? I don't know anyone in that town that would give me a ride. If I were her, I would call the cops and explain the situation, see if they have any suggestions, dispatch was always really nice to me. Maybe they would know what to do. I can't save you, and I really can't keep having the guilt of that being thrown on my lap.

The more I look back at my trainwreck of a social life... the more I go... "yeah, no shit, no wonder I'm terrified to meet new people, I'm obviously really fucking bad at picking friends." Why? Well... I guess because I don't pick them. I just take whoever gravitates towards me. And I try really hard to see the best in all people. The best I can. I don't wanna get into that too deep right now, but it does concern me in meeting new people. That I might not be able to tell if I'm around someone bad until it's too late, because historically that has been the case pretty much across the board. I don't know if it's a PTSD thing? Or a neurodivergent thing? Or a developmental thing? Or maybe a combination of all of them? But it destroyed my entire life. I am a creative, and creatives only thrive with a supportive community. And my community consisted of people who were basically just using me for whatever they needed (taking) and kinda just not even really acknowledging that I had needs at all. They sure didn't seem very interested in the things I made, or what I was doing with my life, what my goals were, any of that. So, career-wise. Doomed. Emotional support for a super emotional person? Doomed.

It scares me. I get to a point where I start to wonder if this kind of person is all that's out there. Self-centered, self-indulgent, prideful, sinful people. Lustful, overconsuming, greedy, apathetic, angry, jealous, hubristic people. And that whole black-and-white thinking, absolutism, "everyone might be like this so better play it safe and never leave your house" shit. That's a big-ass component of PTSD. And that shit got set off pretty hard today. Well, this week. Majorly. And today with those phone calls especially. So... I think I'm gonna be gentle with myself right now about the fact that it's 5:15 and I still haven't even taken my contacts out.

I'm just gonna say this. I would really, really, really just like. A break. Just... a break. Some good stuff. Some good news. "Hey, you've been going through some shit so I decided to help you figure out getting new furniture to your new apartment." Fuck man, you know what. I'd literally chop off half my fingers to just curl up in a giant beanbag chair with someone I felt completely comfortable with and just binge-watch a TV series. That's like, an actual dream for me right now. Like... I would take that over meaningless sex literally any day, and I mean that. Or like... sitting on the floor on pillows in front of a fireplace and drinking tea and sharing happy stories. So, if you have access to these things, please don't take them for granted. Because someday they might not be there. And I can say, as someone who has been in that trench most of my life. It's a dark, lonely place.

Good god this is an insanely depressing post! I pledged to try to find good vibes at the end. Here's something. Two things actually. I wrapped the bloodstone. It's not... great... Like I don't think it's super impressive, it's kinda plain, but I got it done and I'm happy with it. And I started to clean up one of the opal pieces and I'm like 90% sure it's real. I have no idea how I'm going to cut it, because I didn't really understand how opal works... the color comes from refracting light, right? So the more different angles (facets) I have cut into it, the more it should scatter light and do that... opalescent effect... right? I think that should be how it works. Because now that I'm cutting the matrix stone off of it, it's actually looking kinda... transparent. So I'm guessing the matrix just bounced the light around to amplify the effect. So... I don't know, I'll have to do a test piece or do some more googling tomorrow or something. It's an interesting concept. But raw, legit opal is so. fucking. beautiful. It's really cool. By far the coolest stone I have in my collection. So that's a good vibe, in my book.

Rest for me now, hopefully. I started to get that "I'm not safe" feeling again. Good thing I have weird occult protection symbols drawn all over the apartment. I figure if you put symbols from every culture and spiritual belief system, at least one of them has gotta work! XD Thank you for sharing my burdens, if you got this far. No matter how many of these hurt, angry, sad, hungry people are out there... no matter how much I get kicked down or taken advantage of. I will never let it snuff out the light inside me. And I will shine that light, of peace and love and hope, the best I can. And I'll be looking out my window every night until I see that light shine back.