Battle Kitten: Ascension

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

4 hours ago, fleaball said:

Composure ("controls feelings and remains emotionally stable") and mental toughness ("receptive to constructive criticism")

Of course you scored high in those categories. Think about your home life at that time compared to the soccer camp. You were living in an environment where Flea wasn't allowed feelings, and when you did have feelings, they were not validated/didn't count. You learned to stuff your own emotions inside long before you ever got to that camp. And as for mental toughness where the criteria was "Receptive to constructive criticism" you spent your whole life being criticized for everything. Actual constructive criticism probably felt like praise to you. None of what I have written is to take away from your awesomeness. I just want to point out where those abilities came from. And as crappy as you childhood was, there can still be good results from a bad situation.

 

As for your dad, he's sticking with the ten easy things a day because they are easy. If he weren't doing those there's no way he'd get to the big stuff anyway. The ten things a day let him feel like he is accomplishing something so he has an excuse not to tackle bigger stuff.

 

Also, Flea is awesome.

[fleaball]

1 hour ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

Of course you scored high in those categories. Think about your home life at that time compared to the soccer camp. You were living in an environment where Flea wasn't allowed feelings, and when you did have feelings, they were not validated/didn't count. You learned to stuff your own emotions inside long before you ever got to that camp. And as for mental toughness where the criteria was "Receptive to constructive criticism" you spent your whole life being criticized for everything. Actual constructive criticism probably felt like praise to you. None of what I have written is to take away from your awesomeness. I just want to point out where those abilities came from. And as crappy as you childhood was, there can still be good results from a bad situation.

yeahhh the more I think about it the more I realize there's a difference between "how Flea feels" vs "how Flea reacts outwardly." (♫ Conceal, don't feel, don't let them knowwwwww~ ♫) Although even constructive criticism, even when it's presented super nicely, makes me want to cry and I feel like a failure. Always has. Which makes sense now given the perfectionism thing and whatnot.

 

1 hour ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

As for your dad, he's sticking with the ten easy things a day because they are easy. If he weren't doing those there's no way he'd get to the big stuff anyway. The ten things a day let him feel like he is accomplishing something so he has an excuse not to tackle bigger stuff.

True. But annoying. Because he also likes to call attention to it - "I did my 10 things today, not that you can tell..."  Depending on how cranky I am I'll either tell him great job or "well, that's a start." 

 

1 hour ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

Also, Flea is awesome.

Questionable. 

[fleaball]

Today in “Flea makes good choices:”

 

it’s 3:35am and there’s 45 minutes left in HP and the Chamber of Secrets. I’m going to finish it even though I need to get up relatively early tomorrow. 

 

Also it’s the one with the spiders and FUCK spiders. 

[fleaball]

Not a happy kitty. Turned my head wrong this morning while trying to sleep and suddenly started getting super dizzy when I moved a certain way. Now my neck hurts. It’s getting better, but I have to go driving so I’m going to be miserable. Whee. 

[fleaball]

Reason #875 flea needs a real job: 2 people order a car and have a bunch of plants they’re moving from one house to another. Okay fine. Put larger plant on the front passenger seat. I’m not pleased but whatever, it’s a short ride. Drop them off and realize my entire front passenger seat is soaking wet. 

 

Mother. Fucker. 

 

That was an hour ago. Grabbed paper towels from the trunk and started mopping up the wettest parts. Drove home and have been sitting in the driveway with a hair dryer on an extension cord cursing these two people. But I can’t call it a night yet because I still have to do 9 more rides to get my quota for the week in order to be able to renew the car tomorrow and not pay a shit ton of money for nothing. Argh. 

[Severine]

16 hours ago, fleaball said:

Reason #875 flea needs a real job: 2 people order a car and have a bunch of plants they’re moving from one house to another. Okay fine. Put larger plant on the front passenger seat. I’m not pleased but whatever, it’s a short ride. Drop them off and realize my entire front passenger seat is soaking wet. 

 

Mother. Fucker. 

 

That was an hour ago. Grabbed paper towels from the trunk and started mopping up the wettest parts. Drove home and have been sitting in the driveway with a hair dryer on an extension cord cursing these two people. But I can’t call it a night yet because I still have to do 9 more rides to get my quota for the week in order to be able to renew the car tomorrow and not pay a shit ton of money for nothing. Argh. 

 

That is such bullshit. How hard is it to bring along plastic bags to lie on the seat (or wrap the pots in) so you don't fuck up someone's car? Ugh. Sorry that happened to you. Did you get it dry in time? 

 

Hope your neck is feeling better.

[fleaball]

1 hour ago, Severine said:

 

That is such bullshit. How hard is it to bring along plastic bags to lie on the seat (or wrap the pots in) so you don't fuck up someone's car? Ugh. Sorry that happened to you. Did you get it dry in time? 

 

Hope your neck is feeling better.

Right?? Like I’m not a plant person but I’m pretty sure they would have had to water them immediately before getting in the car  for there to be that much of it. Which is just rude and dumb. It took a little more than an hour overall but I managed it and got back on the road. I wound up down the street from your house at 1:45am and hated life. 

 

Neck is mostly better. Asking doctor lady about it in an hour. Bleh. If I ever get there, that it. I’m in a Lyft on the way there bc I didn’t hear my alarm go off to have time to take the T and she’s not the most confident driver. And getting confused. And I can’t give her directions because her English isn’t great; I tried to tell her she could take a left at one light instead of going down to the longer one and she was like “but the GPS” and pointed to the first one. I think her accent was Brazilian. And I don’t care about that, this is a decent gig for people who don’t have the English skills for something else. But I want to scream because there’s a better way to get there and her GPS is being dumb. 

[fleaball]

Nope, scratch that. Lady just didn’t pay attention to where she was going. Awesome. But I’m alive and getting coffee. 

 

Edit: also definitely a Portuguese speaker. At least I called that. 

[Severine]

Woo for getting there! I have a bunch of Brazilian students so I'm good at identifying that accent now, but five years ago I wouldn't have had a clue. It's an interesting one. I find the "guess the accent" game really fun in a language nerd way. I think my favourite right now is one of my students from Bangladesh whose accent is super interesting because it's a combo of a few different accents I've heard before but the end result is not quite like anything else.

 

Also boooo to finishing at 2AM but at least you don't have to pay for the rental. Funny how whenever you get annoying rides late at night they always seem to bring you to my corner of town...I swear I'm not paying my neighbors to troll you.

[fleaball]

7 minutes ago, Severine said:

Woo for getting there! I have a bunch of Brazilian students so I'm good at identifying that accent now, but five years ago I wouldn't have had a clue. It's an interesting one. I find the "guess the accent" game really fun in a language nerd way. I think my favourite right now is one of my students from Bangladesh whose accent is super interesting because it's a combo of a few different accents I've heard before but the end result is not quite like anything else.

 

Also boooo to finishing at 2AM but at least you don't have to pay for the rental. Funny how whenever you get annoying rides late at night they always seem to bring you to my corner of town...I swear I'm not paying my neighbors to troll you.

My best friend in middle school was Brazilian. She was born here but her parents were from Brazil so I heard it a lot. I play the same game when I’m doing Lyft. I’ll also try to guess at the languages being spoken. I think I pissed off a family speaking Hebrew once, like they thought I was being nosy or something. 

 

I finished at 3! That was my second last ride. I made it from there all the way back to Inman Square before I got my last ride. Went from you to Davis and then just kept driving into Cambridge. It was miserable lol. My last ride is always to the middle of nowhere. Usually I wind up in Quincy. Sometimes Mattapan, which is fun. 

[fleaball]

Was going to write about dr appt but I haven’t slept properly for 3 of the last 4 nights so that might have to wait til tomorrow to see if I can function. 

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

2 minutes ago, fleaball said:

Was going to write about dr appt but I haven’t slept properly for 3 of the last 4 nights so that might have to wait til tomorrow to see if I can function. 

Sleep good. Sleep deprivation bad. Flea sleep now.

[fleaball]

12 minutes ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

Sleep good. Sleep deprivation bad. Flea sleep now.

Actually, flea go on another road trip because someone is incapable of filling his prescriptions properly. Then flea sleep. Hopefully. 

[fleaball]

So yes, my brother is a dumbass who doesn't fill his prescriptions until he's nearly out of medication. And CVS was out of what he needed, again. Luckily this time the 24-hour Walgreens 10 minutes away had what he needed in stock, because he would have been taking an Uber by himself to anywhere farther away if not. He did give me $10 because "well you wanted to go to sleep and I'm preventing you from that so you may as well take it." Okay, sure. I did eventually get to sleep but I'm still do tired. D: 

 

My new doctor is cool. Probably my age-ish? She was like "I've read through your chart and have a pretty good idea of what's going on, but is there anything you want to highlight or discuss more?" Surprise, I have PTSD! And she was super understanding and made sure I was seeing someone for it, etc. When I explained why I didn't tell the old doctor (family) she was like "just as a reminder, everything here is totally separate. I don't share anything you tell me." Huzzah. I continued to babble about how it's depression + environment + trauma combining for me to keep gaining weight instead of losing it, and that I know how I need to eat and whatever to fix it, but it's a struggle. And she was cool with that. And then started talking about weight loss and such and her whole speech directly contradicted everything GI guy said last week. Lifestyle changes are what really seals the deal, the medications don't really work for everyone and they only work for as long as you're actually taking them, etc. So I feel vindicated even though I knew he was spouting bullshit anyway. 

 

Ugh I just realized she also gave me a reason to work on my diet that's not just "because I should." I'd mentioned wanting to scale down and eventually stop taking my acid reflux medication, which at my first appointment with GI guy he'd implied he should supervise or whatever, but then last week he said "that's something you can do with your PCP, I'm not typically involved in that." Good, that means I don't need to see you again. And she agreed it's a good thing to work on (sooner rather than later, as opposed to GI guy who was like "mehhh it takes years and years for it to do damage") and so when we scheduled a follow-up in 3 months she said we could do it then. Womp, I guess I need to get my shit together. Augh. Goodbye cheese. 

 

She also asked if I wanted to start an anti-depressant. I explained that I'm not against psych meds but I'm also not really interested, but I told my therapist I'll try it if she thinks I get to a point where I really really need them. Doctor was cool with that, but said she usually starts people off on a low dose of Zoloft so I can read about it and whatever and if I change my mind I can just shoot her a message online and she'll prescribe it. Last night while on our Adderall adventure I asked my brother if he'd ever been on it. He said that's what he started with but he's on something else now. He also said that all in all, while anti-depressants have seriously helped him, "honestly if you can manage without them I'd just not take them because of all the side effects and everything, plus you might have to take them for weeks or even months before they even do anything for you." 

 

I still don't want to try them, but I'm worrying that I'm being a hypocrite about them? Like no, they're fine for other people but I want nothing to do with it. And yet right now I'm really not functional on my own. Like I'm getting shit done, but slowly and not efficiently and usually only because I'm panicking about consequences if I don't do things. So it could maybe be worth it to try it and see if I get a bit of a boost. But on the other hand, my absolute biggest issue is my living environment and I am convinced that if I weren't living in this place with these people, I wouldn't be so much of a mess. (Sure, I wasn't superwoman in DC either, but I also didn't know what I know now about my mental health.) So would taking medication even work while I'm still drowning in quicksand? Idk. I'll bring this all up with my therapist tomorrow but I still don't want medication. I just feel sort of irrationally guilty for being like "yeahhhhh! everyone who needs medication should be on it!!" and like... I technically need it but am not taking my own advice, I guess. 

 

Now I'm going to go be sad because all the Harry Potter movies were free on demand last week and now they're not, and I wanted to watch the rest of them. :\

[Tanktimus the Encourager]

10 hours ago, fleaball said:

I still don't want to try them, but I'm worrying that I'm being a hypocrite about them? Like no, they're fine for other people but I want nothing to do with it. And yet right now I'm really not functional on my own. Like I'm getting shit done, but slowly and not efficiently and usually only because I'm panicking about consequences if I don't do things. So it could maybe be worth it to try it and see if I get a bit of a boost. But on the other hand, my absolute biggest issue is my living environment and I am convinced that if I weren't living in this place with these people, I wouldn't be so much of a mess. (Sure, I wasn't superwoman in DC either, but I also didn't know what I know now about my mental health.) So would taking medication even work while I'm still drowning in quicksand? Idk. I'll bring this all up with my therapist tomorrow but I still don't want medication. I just feel sort of irrationally guilty for being like "yeahhhhh! everyone who needs medication should be on it!!" and like... I technically need it but am not taking my own advice, I guess. 

 

My layman's theory about your PTSD and still living with your family is this. At BEST the frustrations of living with your family are preventing you from healing from the trauma of growing up with them for so long. At worst continuing to live with them is adding more trauma onto the pile that started with childhood, although at a far slower rate than you used to accumulate trauma. That's due to more protective capacities and a greater awareness about the PTSD itself and all the work you've done so far.  In between (and what I think is more likely) is that while you aren't necessarily accumulating more trauma for the pile, living with your family is exacerbating the symptoms of PTSD.  

 

As for the Zoloft, I support whatever decision you end up making. You have shown an ability to improve without meds. The side effects are real. On the other hand, a low dose anti-depressant could give you a boost to help you till you can move out. I don't think there's a wrong decision to make here.

[Severine]

16 hours ago, fleaball said:

My new doctor is cool.

 

Huge yay for doctor being cool and for basically everything in that paragraph.

 

16 hours ago, fleaball said:

Ugh I just realized she also gave me a reason to work on my diet that's not just "because I should." I'd mentioned wanting to scale down and eventually stop taking my acid reflux medication, which at my first appointment with GI guy he'd implied he should supervise or whatever, but then last week he said "that's something you can do with your PCP, I'm not typically involved in that." Good, that means I don't need to see you again. And she agreed it's a good thing to work on (sooner rather than later, as opposed to GI guy who was like "mehhh it takes years and years for it to do damage") and so when we scheduled a follow-up in 3 months she said we could do it then. Womp, I guess I need to get my shit together. Augh. Goodbye cheese. 

 

Oh man. You know I'm going through a similar thing with reflux management, so I feel your pain. We can do it!

 

16 hours ago, fleaball said:

She also asked if I wanted to start an anti-depressant. I explained that I'm not against psych meds but I'm also not really interested, but I told my therapist I'll try it if she thinks I get to a point where I really really need them. Doctor was cool with that, but said she usually starts people off on a low dose of Zoloft so I can read about it and whatever and if I change my mind I can just shoot her a message online and she'll prescribe it. Last night while on our Adderall adventure I asked my brother if he'd ever been on it. He said that's what he started with but he's on something else now. He also said that all in all, while anti-depressants have seriously helped him, "honestly if you can manage without them I'd just not take them because of all the side effects and everything, plus you might have to take them for weeks or even months before they even do anything for you." 

 

I still don't want to try them, but I'm worrying that I'm being a hypocrite about them? Like no, they're fine for other people but I want nothing to do with it. And yet right now I'm really not functional on my own. Like I'm getting shit done, but slowly and not efficiently and usually only because I'm panicking about consequences if I don't do things. So it could maybe be worth it to try it and see if I get a bit of a boost. But on the other hand, my absolute biggest issue is my living environment and I am convinced that if I weren't living in this place with these people, I wouldn't be so much of a mess. (Sure, I wasn't superwoman in DC either, but I also didn't know what I know now about my mental health.) So would taking medication even work while I'm still drowning in quicksand? Idk. I'll bring this all up with my therapist tomorrow but I still don't want medication. I just feel sort of irrationally guilty for being like "yeahhhhh! everyone who needs medication should be on it!!" and like... I technically need it but am not taking my own advice, I guess. 

 

I think I told you this last time we had crepes, but I went through a period where I decided that it was a mistake to never even be willing to consider going on meds, and I talked to my therapist about it (the one I am seeing now is also an MD so he can prescribe) and while he and I ultimately ended up deciding that meds weren't the right choice for me, I think going through the process of at least considering it was helpful. Because it involved being willing to think about my situation a little differently - like admitting that not everything about how I feel is a matter of character/willpower that's under my control, you know? Not that I ever thought that logically, but there was always that self-blaming undercurrent for me. So in a way, even considering meds was a good sign on its own. Maybe something similar going on for you here?

 

My concerns about side effects and about how hit-or-miss medication can be (i.e. we often don't know why stuff works, or what will work for which person, so there's a lot of basically experimenting on yourself) were shared by my therapist, which I found validating. He said it's important to be realistic about what they can do. However, he also said they genuinely really help some people, and he does prescribe them, and for some people they make a life-changing difference. And basically you can't know for sure how they'll effect you unless you try.

 

As Tank said though, you have proven you can make improvements without meds. Only you and your therapist can judge whether it's a good choice for you to try a new approach for a bit. I think it's unlikely that your home stress would stop the meds from working - if anything I think the realistic goal for meds would be to make you feel less adversely impacted by the shit going on at home, to help you cope more easily until it's time to leave. I agree with Tank that neither choice is wrong, especially since if you don't like the meds, you can stop at any time. And if you don't take them, you can always change your mind and start taking them at any time. You're not painting yourself into a corner either way.

[fleaball]

3 hours ago, Severine said:

Oh man. You know I'm going through a similar thing with reflux management, so I feel your pain. We can do it!

Yes we can! What sucks is that I know dairy is one of my biggest triggers so I specifically have to work on that. And I don't want to haha. Although reducing stress would probably help too. Also did anyone ever tell you that it helps if you don't have anything to eat or drink before bed? Because that's a thing but I didn't see it when I was doing research at first. 

 

3 hours ago, Severine said:

I think I told you this last time we had crepes, but I went through a period where I decided that it was a mistake to never even be willing to consider going on meds, and I talked to my therapist about it (the one I am seeing now is also an MD so he can prescribe) and while he and I ultimately ended up deciding that meds weren't the right choice for me, I think going through the process of at least considering it was helpful. Because it involved being willing to think about my situation a little differently - like admitting that not everything about how I feel is a matter of character/willpower that's under my control, you know? Not that I ever thought that logically, but there was always that self-blaming undercurrent for me. So in a way, even considering meds was a good sign on its own. Maybe something similar going on for you here?

 

My concerns about side effects and about how hit-or-miss medication can be (i.e. we often don't know why stuff works, or what will work for which person, so there's a lot of basically experimenting on yourself) were shared by my therapist, which I found validating. He said it's important to be realistic about what they can do. However, he also said they genuinely really help some people, and he does prescribe them, and for some people they make a life-changing difference. And basically you can't know for sure how they'll effect you unless you try.

 

As Tank said though, you have proven you can make improvements without meds. Only you and your therapist can judge whether it's a good choice for you to try a new approach for a bit. I think it's unlikely that your home stress would stop the meds from working - if anything I think the realistic goal for meds would be to make you feel less adversely impacted by the shit going on at home, to help you cope more easily until it's time to leave. I agree with Tank that neither choice is wrong, especially since if you don't like the meds, you can stop at any time. And if you don't take them, you can always change your mind and start taking them at any time. You're not painting yourself into a corner either way.

I mean I was willing to try them for anxiety and started looking for psychiatrists in DC, but then I started BC and it just happened to help with the anxiety and made psych meds a moot point. I think I'm slightly past the self-blaming point and I'm just stuck on like, yes there's a brain chemistry component but also so much of my depression is linked to my environment that I wonder if it's worth going through the hassle of trying different meds at different dosages and dealing with all the side effects rather than just trying to power through and do what I can on my own. 

 

My therapist basically said the same thing you and @Tanktimus the Encourager said - there's a chance that taking something could give me the boost I need to deal with the bullshit and work on getting out of here. She reiterated that she'd tell me if I definitely needed something, but said if I want to try it now there's no reason not to, really. But also that side effects are a bitch and something like 60% of people try 3 different medication before they find something that works. I'm going to sit on it for a bit but I think for now I'm going to hold off. Not because I feel like I "should" do it on my own, but honestly just because I don't want to deal with the side effects and the throwing shit at a wall to see what sticks. (My brain being what it is, if you tell me there's even a minor chance of X side effect happening with any medication, I will drive myself crazy being hypervigilant and looking for signs and symptoms. Not a stress I need right now on top of everything else. Case in point: took antibiotics recently, spent half an hour googling c diff symptoms and twice that trying to convince myself I didn't have it on day 2 of the antibiotic.) Although my therapist did kind of make a face when I said the doctor starts with Zoloft and was like "that's an interesting choice." But google tells me it's one of the most common ones to start with. Meh, that's something to look into later I guess.

 

10 hours ago, Tanktimus the Encourager said:

My layman's theory about your PTSD and still living with your family is this. At BEST the frustrations of living with your family are preventing you from healing from the trauma of growing up with them for so long. At worst continuing to live with them is adding more trauma onto the pile that started with childhood, although at a far slower rate than you used to accumulate trauma. That's due to more protective capacities and a greater awareness about the PTSD itself and all the work you've done so far.  In between (and what I think is more likely) is that while you aren't necessarily accumulating more trauma for the pile, living with your family is exacerbating the symptoms of PTSD. 

Yeahhh. The in between version is what it feels like to me. They're pulling all the same shit they always did, with a little added stress because despite my best efforts not to I'm still filling a bit of the void my mother left. The difference is that now I know what it is and even though it hurts I can let go of it a little more easily and not take it so personally because I know, mostly thanks to you all, that I'm not the problem here. But at the same time, it's harder to heal in general when I'm surrounded by 30 years of memories. Thinking about it now, that might be a good reason to try a little harder to heal if I can though: it would feel much more powerful if I learned how to be comfortable in this kitchen than if I moved out and worked on it. I mean, if it happens, it happens. And if I win the lottery tomorrow I'm not going to say "nope, can't move out yet because I have to prove something." But it might be something to work toward. I guess? 

[fleaball]

PS @RES you can't just come in here and like a shit ton of posts and disappear again. I demand cat tax.

[RES]

Will one of my cuties do?

[fleaball]

18 minutes ago, RES said:

Will one of my cuties do?

Yesss!! Kitties eating noms! 

[Severine]

15 hours ago, fleaball said:

But at the same time, it's harder to heal in general when I'm surrounded by 30 years of memories. Thinking about it now, that might be a good reason to try a little harder to heal if I can though: it would feel much more powerful if I learned how to be comfortable in this kitchen than if I moved out and worked on it. I mean, if it happens, it happens. And if I win the lottery tomorrow I'm not going to say "nope, can't move out yet because I have to prove something." But it might be something to work toward. I guess? 

 

This is probably a good thing to talk to your therapist about, because I'm not sure if that's a genius breakthrough idea, or just a way of setting yourself an extra difficult task for no reason, but it seems like either is plausible!

 

I do think that whatever progress you're able to make at home is progress gained in spite of a higher difficulty level, and definitely something you should be giving yourself extra credit for as a result. So make sure you're doing that for everything you've accomplished in the past year 

 

If you do decide to tackle the kitchen thing at some point...I wonder - have you ever sat and made a list of what would need to change about the current kitchen situation in order for it to feel okay to be in there? My therapist had me do this for something else - make a giant list of everything that'd improve the problem, including things totally out of my control (like in your case, your brother/dad stopping with their annoying questions) and it was a useful exercise. Not that you'll be able to address all the things on the list, but it's a good way of helping to understand all the little parts of what makes it suck now. Even though you know the problem already, obviously, it's amazing the insights that can come when you have to put it into detailed words. For me, having to make the list involved thinking about why particular things bothered me, which brought up certain memories etc. It was useful in a therapy way. And then if you do decide to tackle it, you'd have a concrete list of what to address?

[fleaball]

Fun at Flea’s house:

 

My father got blueberry stuff on his khaki-colored pants. Threw a fit. I googled it and figured out how to handle it in two seconds. Washed the pants. (Not sure if they shrunk tbh but I wasn’t gonna bring it up.) 

 

the real fun: he’d brought he dish soap up with him when he changed and put soap on the stain. Then apparently left it on his bed for several hours and it leaked all over the place. So he started screaming and instead of getting ready for bed, like he’d started to do, he continued screaming and stomped downstairs. Did I mention he was screaming? Because he might have been screaming. 

[WhiteGhost]

It almost sounds like you may have some disfunction in your household

[fleaball]

3 minutes ago, WhiteGhost said:

It almost sounds like you may have some disfunction in your household

You know, I’ve wondered about that for a while but I’m just not sure. 

[Severine]

57 minutes ago, fleaball said:

the real fun: he’d brought he dish soap up with him when he changed and put soap on the stain. Then apparently left it on his bed for several hours and it leaked all over the place. So he started screaming and instead of getting ready for bed, like he’d started to do, he continued screaming and stomped downstairs. Did I mention he was screaming? Because he might have been screaming. 

 

Your father is such an alien. Was he screaming about how he's stupid and ruins everything like he sometimes does, or some new type of screaming? I have a hard time even imagining what a person would scream about in that situation because it's just such a bizarre alien thing to do. 

 

Also, like...don't leave dish soap on your bed? Or put the cap on? I can think of so many normal adult behaviors that would have averted the whole situation. He is a real puzzle.

 

In case we haven't reminded you recently, your competence/resilience/independence/initiative for self-improvement/emotional intelligence and basically your entire personality is a triumph of against-the-odds achievement, having been raised with/by those people in that house.