no rebogs please – Page 4 – Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0

One not-so-funny thing about that ridiculous little spill earlier. (Well, besides ending up in rather a lot of pain, which probably isn’t helping the rest.)

When I suddenly came down almost on top of him, Mr. C’s immediate impulse was to throw his arms around me. Which probably wouldn’t be a bad impulse at all, dealing with most people.

I, however, yelled at him to get his arms off me.

(Then did manage to add that I knew he was trying to help, but everything was overwhelming right then. Trouble talking or no.)

I apologized and explained more as soon as possible. He seemed reasonably OK about it. But, I did lose it and yell when I shouldn’t have.

So, now I can’t stop doing the good old Scrupulosity Shuffle. Yell at somebody you care about when you don’t have good control, and wind up triggering yourself 😱

But yeah, if it had been my mom? That would have been enough to leave her seriously pissed at me and prone to explosions for at least the rest of the day. If not longer. With the potential to turn into some very ugly scenes. (But, that’s different, whatever she did. I was the one who created the entire situation, when she was Only Trying To Help 😵)

Let’s just say that my stressed autistic person behavior and her unaddressed borderline tendencies did not always mesh well. (Which tended to turn into a problem when I was sick/in pain in general, for that extra bit of PTSD background dread for a good while now.)

Anyway, I don’t think he’s liable to respond like that. Especially understanding (and, frankly, caring) why that happened–with apologies. We’ve known each other in person for over 15 years now, and he has yet to behave that way.

A lot like with the sudden spate of meltdowns a while back, though? I can’t stop feeling like maybe I have seriously fucked up, however unintentionally, and waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Besides going off into more “maybe I really am a terrible person who doesn’t care about anyone else and just keeps hurting the people around me” garbage, naturally.

Never much fun to ride out, but as usual trying to argue with it is a bigger losing proposition.

clatterbane:

clatterbane:

It also really doesn’t help that any kind of (hopefully) temporary problem with access to funds throws me straight into “Oh Shit, We’re Totally Broke!!!” poverty panic mode.

With OCD Jerkbrain adding loads of extra fun, and plenty of experience for it to work from.

Being aware this is happening does help with perspective some. But it’s still a PITA to deal with.

No doubt part of the reason that instead of asking for takeout, I decided to play Kitchen MacGyver today when I was super stressed and really did not have the energy.

Better to use what we have, make extra sure not to waste anything, and COOK BEANS 🙄

So, that debit card didn’t work again when I tried that ATM today. Seemed worth another try, just hoping. NOPE.

So, I finally got it together and called the bank a little while ago. Just about gave myself a stroke, but I got fed up and figured my half-deaf ass trying to deal with them through not-so-accessible means would actually be less stressful than continuing to drive myself crazy worrying about it.

This time, the person I got was actually pleasant enough to deal with–and it turned out that there is no problem with the actual account after all 😧 (Which may have had something to do with the guy staying pleasant.)

That was the same ATM I tried multiple times, one just up the street, and it’s possible that the specific machine wasn’t playing well with my card. It may be a chip problem requiring a physical card replacement, which would be a tad inconvenient but no biggie.

I didn’t want to try using the card elsewhere after it got declined, since in past experience when the balance is fine? That’s always happened because they’d put a block on the account. (And all but one time, when there was an actual data breach, that’s been thanks to false positives with their fraud detection 😬)

Anyway, it’s a relief to find out that the account should be fine, and totally usable. Except possibly with that ATM. Should definitely be able to use it online. So I’m not functionally broke after all.

The whole thing also prompted me to request a replacement card for the joint account, after the last scheduled one just didn’t arrive. Handy to have backup available, regardless.

Fighting feeling kinda bad over accessibility problems making me put off getting after the bank for days. But, disability.

When you’re not sure if somebody is being legitimately forgetful or passive aggressive, and you really don’t want to ask 😒

(ETA: As usual, it’s nobody here. Not into vaguing like that.)

But yeah, I’ve been increasingly feeling like my political alignment might as well be summed up as “Exasperated Moderately Old Hillbilly Punk Weirdo”.

(Mostly OK with that, other than the exasperated part.)

Just reminded again, I’m still appalled that I couldn’t find a rescue/rehab organization anywhere in Greater London willing to take on pigeons at all, when our half-grown cats proudly carried in an injured one almost as big as he was then. There was a roost nearby, but it hadn’t occurred to me that a kitten might go after a full-grown pigeon. Surprise! 😕

(That was also over 10 years ago, and I don’t know about now. Hopefully there is at least one rescue taking them. May have missed something then, but you can bet I did some motivated looking.)

So, I needed to do some other research, starting from a point where I’d never taken care of birds at all, and set up my own makeshift pigeon infirmary–with those cats carefully shut out of the room 😨

Thankfully, that bird wasn’t badly injured, and mostly needed a few days to recuperate in a safer place before it seemed ready for release.

Clatterbane’s Flying Rat Hospital ended up with several other patients over the years, including one I saw struggling with an obviously hurt leg and birdnapped off the street. Luckily, all the others were also either just shook or not badly enough hurt to need veterinary attention, and recovered with a some TLC and a couple of weeks at most. (If any had been in worse shape, I would have hauled them to our vets’, who do also treat birds, and tried to get them more help. No worries there.)

But, they deserved better than “Geez, I have no idea what I’m doing, but at least I do care enough to try to find out how to help to the best of my ability.” I don’t care if they’re not usually considered Proper Wild Animals Deserving Of Help. That’s just mean.

Perfect setup again to drive myself crazy: Mr. C is running late home without getting in touch (again). So, I delay finishing putting supper together–and crash my blood sugar (again)! 😈

Cue some shaky OCD fun.

As many times as variations on this exact same bullshit have happened, it still took me a while to recognize what was going on. (Again.)

Now at least I am fed and sitting down for a while. And I am already getting less looping garbage. Rationally pretty sure he’s fine, but just shit at remembering to text me once he’s caught up in something and/or after a couple of drinks. I’m not very happy with him right now, assuming he is fine.

Frustrating how this stuff can keep sneaking up on you, though.

Thinking again that the main reason I have run into so many problems trying to deal with the NHS that I’m currently just having to go without treatment for some serious health problems is probably a combo deal.

Mainly consisting of (a) more things working against me wrt discrimination, and (b) much less/not as effective support available as a disabled foreigner trying to navigate an unfamiliar system. Set up so that it’s much harder to just find someone else to see who might treat you more like an actual person, rather than a weird and exasperating waste of increasingly limited time and resources.

Add in © getting sicker making it harder for your autistic ass to even hold onto communicative speech on a normal day–much less in a more stressful situation–and that can further complicate just about anything.

(And I have to say that the current state of the US healthcare system likely does not help with some perceptions there. On a couple of fronts. Kinda tying in with the too-popular scapegoating of “NHS tourists” as somehow responsible for the austerity undrrfunding mess. People working in the system are not magically exempt.)

At least I am less inclined to blame myself for all of the difficulties now, while well aware that probably 90%+ of people not facing the same combination of garbage totally would. Still very short on feasible workarounds, though.

I couldn’t help but think again that some problems might have been at least partially headed off if anyone had pointed some things out to me growing up.

Including that there are actual reasons some people will not fit into single digit clothing sizes, beyond the ever-popular “lack of sufficient determination” 😵 No matter how hard a person might try, things like ribcages and shoulders are pretty hard size limits.

(Even proceeding off the assumption that the base expectations are reasonable, which of course they are not. At all.)

What’s even more disturbing, though, is the number of otherwise mostly rational adults who do not seem to understand this–or want to. Including my mother with her own body issues, the best I can figure, but that’s a story of its own.

Mr. C is off to Düsseldorf for the rest of the week, for some professional conference.

I was looking at their website out of idle curiosity ~~and because I’m bored this evening~~, and I couldn’t help but be impressed again at just how pricey these things tend to run. I mean, I know that field tends to pay pretty well, and hopefully speakers get comped somewhat. (Not guaranteed, but hey.)

But, $750 early bird registration, before the €149/night (€169 sharing) special room rate? 😱 Still plenty of room for sticker shock there.

A little more excitement than anybody needed, once again, when I was trying to separate out more male Endler babies.

After that last accident (thankfully a while ago), I did switch over to using a small dip net. It is unusual not to get multiple of them, with the way they do swarm.

But, better to just transfer whoever I scoop up into the Baby Fish Holding Cell in the other tank with the males, and return any extras once they’ve had some time to calm down. Hopefully the tiny fish I was aiming for is in there too. Spending even a day in where they can see/somewhat interact with the older Endler Boys will usually also prompt any that haven’t already to start coloring up more. Which is handy, in case there are any bonus boys of an appropriate age in the haul. (Which has happened several times already.)

Anyway, that should be a safer method than catching them in the little cup, besides a lot easier. Obviously not foolproof, though, as demonstrated a few minutes ago.

The first scoop also got me one of the bigger fish–who promptly managed to flip herself out into the floor while I was trying to transfer them into the transport container! 😨

So, I had to rush off to grab a flashlight and a soup spoon to hopefully scoop her back up carefully.

Thankfully I did find her almost immediately, and got her back into the water. She seemed OK other than the shock. They are pretty tough little fish, but still. Couldn’t have been a pleasant adventure.

First time that’s happened, at least, and with any luck the last. The small ones don’t seem strong enough to make a bid for freedom out of that net, so I wasn’t as careful moving them as I could have been.

Next time, I will be more careful to cover the top, and also make sure there’s a light ready at hand to search for any escapees.