#literally cartoonish levels of agony and tragedy over here

[annieisyourfavourite]

okay i finally have the time to write out an explanation of what all has been going on with me the last like, month - all the stuff i've been alluding to. this is gonna be real, real long, so story time is under the cut.

so some setup. i lived with my parents until just a few months ago. i moved out and now live with my oldest brother, sean, and his 2 (well, it's 1 now but at the time) dogs. at my parents' house, it is my mom and dad, my little brother luke, his fiancee, and my paternal grandmother who we call baba. my parents also have 4 dogs.

baba was living on her own in serbia, but she had a stroke in february, and since my dad is her only kid, we took her in. baba has a lot of needs, and so my brothers and i have been urging them to get her into a nursing home. but for some reason my parents aren't doing this, despite the fact that it would improve everyone's lives tenfold.

because see baba? has been abusive to my dad and to us for his whole life. she has some trauma-induced mental illnesses that she doesn't like to treat, which means she often isn't in the same reality as everyone else. i say this not to imply that mentally ill people are abusive. but rather her mental instability is a big factor in the way that she acts and treats people. and also, if she wasn't mentally ill, my father would probably never speak to her for all the abhorrent things she's done. he can already barely stand her, and his anger issues and trauma responses have become very intense since she's been around.

i also have been abused by baba, and so i have told my family i won't engage with her as much as possible. it was hard when i lived there. but since moving out, i've said i refuse to babysit her or be her caretaker, since i can also hardly be around her without losing my shit. i've told my parents this. when she starts ranting about her paranoid delusions, i can't handle it. if she starts getting upset, i can't handle it. i remember her locking us 4 small children under the age of 12 out of her house when she was watching us because she thought we were annoying. i feel very unsafe around her!!! very bad!!!!

so! the reason all this is relevant. is that my whole family, save myself and baba, just went on a vacation for 2 weeks to the british isles. we've known about this trip for a long time. and i set up with my oldest brother that i would watch the 2 dogs at our house while he was gone. my other brother matt, who would be joining them later, was to watch baba and the 4 dogs up there. except. i learned like 2 weeks before they left. that matt couldn't do the weekends and the end of the trip. so there were 8 days total out of 14 that he wasn't gonna be there (bc matt sucks but that's a different post). so my mother calls me. and says they need me to watch everyone during those times.

at first she had told me it was 1 weekend (like saturday and sunday) and that was it, and i agreed to it even though it sucked. but then after revealing how much it was, i started saying no, i can't do that, that's obviously too much. out of the 6 dogs, 2 of them are new puppies. and 1 of them was an old dog who was dying of cancer. the old dog also couldn't be in the same room as one of the other ones, because they'd try to kill each other.

so like. far too much for 1 person to try and take care of. i said no i won't, i can't. and my mom got so mad at me. i told her i can't psychologically handle being trapped in a house with baba for that long. she said "can't you just suck it up this one time?" i said that's not how abuse trauma works. she said "i can't believe you're trying to ruin our once in a lifetime vacation." i said i'm physically disabled and that is too much. too bad.

i kept trying to find some help. but the problem was, even if someone could watch some dogs, they couldn't do that AND watch baba. and vice versa if someone could watch baba. and i needed to be away from her. however the time for the trip came, and there was no one else to help. so my parents left! they said i don't care what you say annie, we need someone to take care of it, and if you don't, your dogs and grandmother will die without proper care.

so i did it!! because they knew i would do it if there was literally no one else. and i was begging them to try and help, try to understand the price this was going to take. my dad kinda did. but didn't do anything to help. my mom just thought it would be fine.

so for 2 weeks. i was in charge of old dying dog and puppy 24/7. and then sick baba and 4 other dogs for over half the time. on top of trying to do rehearsals for a show i'm currently in. and i couldn't handle it!! i suffered, hm. 10 mental breakdowns at least? so many dogs. so much chaos. so much cleaning up messes from the puppies because they're puppies.

i called my mom, having a breakdown, the first weekend because i was supposed to go to an event for my boyfriend's work, and baba was fighting me on the plan. it was a whole mess. i literally owe my life to kayla (@/modestclam) because she came by on her 1 day off from her 2 jobs to help.

during this time, i also had a job interview in the city because i'm unemployed. and when there. my car got towed. i'm pretty sure incorrectly, i'm trying to contest the ticket. but i was stranded in the city, disabled and alone, and i had to spend over $300 just to get to the lot and get my car back, which i simply do not have. it took an extra 5 hours.

during the last weekend, i decided to keep the old dog chloe at my house, and my boyfriend came and watched her for the 5 days i was at the other house, because i was worried about moving her. my goal had been to just get her to the sunday when sean was getting back. she was clearly sick and i knew she didn't have long. but i was trying my best to just keep her going til then.

so i'm in the psychological torture zone up north. i had to drive back to my house at one point to help give chloe a bath, because she had intestinal issues and got stuff stuck to her backside, and my boyfriend was freaking out. and when i got back? the puppies. also had intestinal issues. all over the house. it took me 2 hours to clean, with baba obsessively following me the whole time. i have at least 1 breakdown every day. i have to miss a number of rehearsals either because i couldn't leave the dogs and baba alone, or because i was so dead tired i could barely move.

during this time. my mom also texts me. that my grandfather's partner had called and said he was in the hospital. he had a fall i believe? and so if anything happened, even though he lives a state away, i would have to be on call, since i was the only one in the country at that moment. because i guess she wants me to have a heart attack at age 25??

my little brother luke got back on tuesday evening, late. (he flew into an airport in canada and my mom wanted me to go drive the 2.5 hours there, pick him up, and drive back. i told her she must be on crack to think i would do that.) him and his fiancee weren't feeling well, but they took over main dog management. i went home to chloe.

the very next day. my parents and maternal grandma get home. grandma hadn't been feeling well, so she was gonna stay with my parents for a bit. except. the very morning after they got back. she tested positive for covid. and everyone in the house was sick.

my mom calls me asking me to take grandma to the doctor to get paxlovid (which i had taken and it helped me). everyone in the house is sick and they need my help. my oldest brother sean wasn't even back yet, he had an extra like 5 days, so i was still watching his dogs. i didn't even get 1 day after the 2 weeks from hell to rest. my grandma ended up going to the ER and getting put on oxygen. she was there 5 days and wasn't allowed visitors. i had to call around and get her affairs in order for her to stay there. the sick household includes: my mom who is 62, my dad who is 59 and has a genetic condition that gives him a weak heart, my little brother who ALSO has that heart condition and had heart surgery just this year, his fiancee who has autoimmune deficiencies, and my baba, who is t2 diabetic and in her 80s.

so i was stressed, to say the least. and during all THIS, chloe, the old dog, starts taking a turn for the worse. i'm doing everything i can to make her comfortable and keep her around, cleaning up her messes, hand feeding her dinner, whatever i can do. i go out to celebrate a friend's birthday saturday, and it's fun, but the whole time i'm stressed for what i'm gonna come home to. since sean was getting in sunday night. just 24 more hours.

when we got home, she greeted us happily. i got her to eat her dinner, drink water, take her pills, and even gave her belly rubs for a while. she was doing well. we all go to sleep.

and when my boyfriend and i wake up that sunday morning, the day sean was getting back. we found her unresponsive, having passed away in her sleep next to my bed. less than 24 hours before sean would have gotten to see her again.

to say i was devastated would be an understatement. i loved that dog so much. and i worked so hard to get her to the end of the trip. i used all my resources, i did everything i could. and she died in my room the same day my brother came back, before they could see each other. my heart? broken

luckily at this time i had family back, so my dad and luke came to put her in the box and deal with it, cuz i was well and truly at my limit. not a single day of rest in weeks. sean got home that night and the next day, we went up north at my parents house to bury her where we bury all our pets who have passed.

digging the grave was hard and miserable, because the spot we needed had a ton of roots in the way, and it was raining, and sean was limping bc of his bad foot, and everyone had covid, and it was just awful. i ended up doing a lot of work, even though i myself am physically disabled and very weak. my right arm and wrist still hurt real bad, and it's been 3 days since.

that night. THAT NIGHT!!!! THAT WE WERE BURYING HER!!! baba was delirious and coughing. she clearly had caught covid, as we knew she would. and covid really messes with her, especially her already frail mental faculties. she collapsed in the kitchen. so the following morning, my dad took her to the ER (after a lot of fighting from her). she was admitted to the hospital in poor condition. they think she has pneumonia. her bloodsugars have been bad for weeks, because we were waiting on an appointment with her doctor to up her meds. at the hospital they are giving her insulin (which she doesn't usually take?? irresponsible) but they can't get her bloodsugar down. which, when it comes to covid, isn't good. it's known that if you're diabetic, and you're admitted to the hospital with covid, and your bloodsugar is high? it's essentially a death sentence. your chance of mortality increases tenfold.

so i had to miss rehearsal again (this is where that post about my director being a bitch comes in). the director has also been making my life a living hell for this, punishing me for having all this going on. my part is like 7 lines, and yet she still is in my face constantly.

:-) so that's where i'm at!!!! my september has been such a blur of mental and physical distress, i'm surprised i'm still breathing tbh. i have therapy twice a week, and when i emailed my therapist the dog + covid update, he responded "holy shit." we've been trying our best, but he's like "the goal is to stay alive, please just stay alive, don't try to aim any higher." i just. don't have anything else in me, you know? i already was gonna need like a week to recover from the vacation stuff. and now with this. it's just like. how much is a person expected to take, you know? how much can a body hold before it falls apart? i'm hoping soon, god, please soon, i'll be able to rest a bit. but man.

it's been a rough fucking month.