Hi, friend. I’m so sorry you’re dealing with this. It sounds like you’re really going through it.

I also deal with major depressive disorder. I’ve had severe panic attacks since I was a small child. My family situation was well below ideal, so my mental foundation is full of cracks. I can absolutely relate to the anhedonia and intrusive thoughts. I’ve even made a serious attempt, but I put too much faith in the integrity of my closet bar.

Have you considered inpatient treatment? When I was feeling like my only option was swinging by my neck again, I made the decision to check myself in. I figured I had literally nothing else to lose, so I surrendered. I went in at the height of covid, so the facility wasn’t operating as usual. I think the experience now would be better. Either way, though, taking a break from life for a week helped me refocus. I also got access to treatment options I didn’t know existed.

After I was discharged I entered into a partial hospitalization program. I had to go back from 8-3 every weekday to continue treatment. They monitored how my meds were working, and I spent a lot of time with people struggling with all kinds of issues. I found that to be really helpful. It put my own struggles in perspective, and I got the chance to talk with and help others in similar situations. All these years later, and I still keep in touch with some people I met in Don’t Kill Yourself School.

Once they were satisfied with my progress in partial, I progressed to what they call IOP. It was virtual meetings that took place 3 days a week with a therapist and group of people in treatment. It was a gradual reintroduction to my normal life. During all this time, I quit my toxic job that was ruining my mental health and got on meds that were actually working. I’m not going to lie, the work was hard. Very hard.

I continued seeing a therapist and took a months long course on dialectical behavioral therapy. It has its moments, but I didn’t find all the material to be particularly helpful. I have since switched therapists, and I’m doing trauma work with the hope of working my way up to EDMR.

This may not be for everyone, so please feel free to disregard this, but another hugely helpful treatment I discovered is psychedelic therapy. LSD and psilocybin have helped me get out of my well worn neuropathways and look at things differently. I honestly think these substances saved my life.

I hope you don’t mind me sharing my story with you, and I hope parts of it are helpful. When I was pondering committing myself, researching and reading other people’s experiences helped prepare me for what I would be dealing with. You have so many more options than you can see from the hole you’re in, and there is an entire community out there that is waiting to give you a hand up. It sucks hard right now, but that doesn’t mean it always will. I know you can do this. You’re intelligent, and the fact that you wake up every day and keep going shows your strength. If you can deal with everything you have been going through, you can absolutely handle the work it takes to change your life.

I hope you have a wonderful vacation. If you ever want to talk, please don’t hesitate to reach out. I would love to help in any way I can. Please take care. 💜

I will admit I love introducing people to it, but I always preface it as the worst tasting liqueur for most people. I have a wonky palate, and I love bitter and herbal flavors. I have introduced it to some people who enjoy strong herbal flavors that hadn’t heard of it and were pleasantly surprised.

I usually have a bottle of Malort at home, and I especially love it when my stomach is unsettled. I sip it neat or on the rocks.

Fun aside, it’s also a great way to add some complexity and balance to an overly sweet sparkling wine. It has its place in making cocktails, but I get why most people don’t like it.

I’m sorry to be this person, but that’s an albatross chick. They are struggling to reproduce because of this problem. 😞

This week’s edition of "It’s so hard to shut the fuck up’.

I’m actually surprised that my area of Wisconsin has the majority of these within a 15 minute walk. Bar included, of course. It makes me appreciate my neighborhood more.

She is so darling!

I cannot believe the ignorance and hatred on this site for pit bulls. Reddit was just as terrible. My most downvoted comments of all time have to do with pit bulls and breed stereotyping in general.

I’ve worked in the animal industries for decades and have a lot of first-hand experience with dogs, but all that means nothing in the eyes of people who would rather be afraid of stories they tell themselves. It’s so disheartening.

What a shame your mother missed her opportunity to experience it

Agreed. On a sad note, when puppies come in to a veterinarian for tail cropping and dewclaw removal procedures they are not anesthetized. While it’s done in a sterile, more safe way, it’s still torture. The puppies scream. I hate being in the building for those appointments. Ear and tail cropping, declawing, de-barking, and all physical modifications for nonmedical reasons should be outlawed everywhere.

I work in veterinary medicine, and it’s alarming how many calls we get like this. Just last night a potential new client called saying their breeder told them Ragdoll cats can’t get the rabies vaccine without later developing cancer. The client point-blank told us the breeder was more knowledgeable than our doctors. What do you even say that wouldn’t get you fired?

As I said, dog bite and behavioral euthanasia reports are murky at best, and rely upon nonexpert information. I’m sorry, but a picture graph with no information on how the information was obtained, what verification was involved, etc. is no better than a Facebook share. That’s my point. Information is hard to qualify, quantify, and assess. Trying to oversimplify such a complicated issue is not going to get to the root of the problem.

It’s really disheartening to see Reddit’s irrational pit bull venom is just as present here. Notice how rarely you see comments from animal industry professionals chiming in with these opinions. It’s not because professionals don’t have their own breed biases, and they don’t typically keep quiet about them, either. It’s that most people with a lot of day-to-day experience with dogs don’t share this opinion. Their experiences don’t match public perception.

Bite statistics and behavioral euthanasias both in private and public spheres are anything but transparent. They also often rely upon witness statement accuracy, which is not reliable nor scientific. There simply isn’t enough accurate information available to support such a vitriolic, knee-jerk reaction to a dog’s breed in and of itself. There are too many variables to consider to accept that mindset as rational.

I encourage anyone who cares about these issues and who loves animals and people to consider volunteering. There are a lot of opportunities out there that you might be surprised are available. It’s not just shelters who need volunteers, either, and you can find opportunities in an array of different settings and ways of helping. You might find that experience will give you a broader understanding of how complex these problems are, and how we can work to solve them.

That makes a lot of sense to me given my personal experiences. Reading this thread is interesting. I’ve never heard the idea that you can’t read in dreams. The last couple of months I’ve been having dreams where I’m doomscrolling headlines on an app, and I’m actively reading the headlines to myself. But since I’m doomscrolling , I notice them and move on. I’m aware of when I’m dreaming, so sometimes I’ll laugh to myself and my partner about the stuff my sleep- psyche comes up with. I don’t know if this is a recent development, but I can’t remember ever trying to read something in a dream and being frustrated that I can’t.

I have a number of problems that result in unusual and unhealthy sleep patterns, so that probably contributes to odd dream experiences.

“And the behaviour of the cat was somewhat peculiar. It was soon noticed that when there was work to be done the cat could never be found. She would vanish for hours on end, and then reappear at meal-times, or in the evening after work was over, as though nothing had happened. But she always made such excellent excuses , and purred so affectionately , that it was impossible not to believe in her good intentions.”

I start when they’re kittens. They’re easier to manage if they tantrum at that size, and options for gently restraining them are more varied. Once they get used to the feeling it’s routine for them, even if it’s not their favorite thing. My oldest cat took the longest to get comfortable with it. I had to wrap her in a towel, pulling out one foot at a time for almost two years. Now she’ll sit in my lap like a baby and let me trim her nails. That’s my preferred way of doing it, but it requires training that can take a lot of patience.

Nail trimming is not something I have to do very often, because the most important thing in cat claw maintenance is providing them with plentiful and diverse scratching options. Different cats like different surfaces. Giving them a variety of choices keeps them away from things you don’t want them scratching on. It also helps them manage their own nails, which most cats are very good at. Two of my cats are so meticulous about their claw condition that they’ll pluck their own nail sheaths off when they’re too long for their liking. Cats are generally hygienic and good with grooming, so if you provide your cat with the opportunity to maintain their nails through grooming and scratching opportunities, you may find you rarely have to trim your cat’s nails at all.

I have three cats. They have carpet, sisal rope, and corrugated cardboard options in various forms. Some scratching spots are vertical, some horizontal, some perchable, and some loungable. The most important thing is to figure out what your cat likes and follow their lead. If you have a multiple cat household this can get expensive and crowded. It’s too important for the cats not to do it, though.

Trimming an adult cat’s nails when they’re not used to it can be difficult. The towel method still works, but if your cat gets especially fractious they could seriously hurt you. If that’s the case, visit your veterinarian for a nail trim, and if they’re a quality establishment they’d be happy to try to show you how to cut your cat’s nails yourself.

Every animal is different, so we have to deal with these things to the best of our ability in managing them. Nail trimming is important, and there is nothing wrong with asking for help from your vet if you find you can’t manage your pet’s nails yourself. Getting nail trims done at the vet isn’t cheap, but if that’s your only option then use it.

Side note to this novel I just wrote, OP asked a question about cats, but referenced having a dog. There’s a growing trend of people making scratching boards for their dogs out of lumber and sandpaper. They encourage their dogs to dig and scratch at the board. As easy as I have it with trimming my cats’ nails, I admittedly suck at trimming my German Shepherd and mastiff’s nails. I take them to work and I let the professionals handle it. I haven’t tried the board method yet, but I intend to.