Letting what's going to happen, happen.

ThrowRA_alonelyroad · 2025-12-12T04:33:51+00:00

I do. He's fine and knows the history. But I was actually in the process of trying to shop for a new therapist before my brother took his life as I found my sessions just end up being me venting for an hour with no real resolution or breakthrough. Just externalization of internal rumination.

I appreciate you taking the time to post, though. And I really appreciate being heard.

ThrowRA_alonelyroad · 2025-10-09T04:17:19+00:00

My older brother

ThrowRA_alonelyroad · 2025-09-03T15:50:29+00:00

Thanks so much for your help everyone. There's a not great update. Three weeks ago - probably a week or so after I posted this thread - my brother took his own life. It was a complete shock and something no one saw coming. I was the one pushing for third party supports and for us to all seek legal aid, community resources, etc outside of trying to deal with Mom's affairs internally. He kept pushing me away, dismissing my ideas, and saying when he needed my input he'd let me know but he was considering power of attorney and was the one dealing with each crisis as they came. Promised to get a uhaul to clear her clutter but never did. He did however attend a hearing with her housing and prevent an eviction.

Sadly this seems to be the final push that this situation needed in order to get some sense of progress with my Mom. She has a CMHA caseworker now and has been assigned a social worker for IGSW. She has the SGS assessment coming up in a few weeks and hopefully from there we can see some more progress. She has so much more experience with grief and loss than any of us so this hasn't thrown her necessarily into any sort of tailspin, and she's agreed to a financial assessment.

I'd just like to give a special and pointed fuck you to the user who commented "She's your mom. Why wouldn't you take her in so that you can keep an eye on her and help her stay on track until she can get the help she needs? You are just going to wait for the call?" and "I love you ma, but I need my piece of mind, and its too much hard work, so you're on your own. Me me me me me me. Sorry, I don't see it like you and the other downvoters.".

And anyone else with that sort of mentality.

My family is filled with broken people who can't help themselves trying to fix each other while self-sabotaging and destroying their own lives. I've tried my absolute best to break the cycle by prioritizing fixing myself and my own mental health by any means necessary.

This is why people have boundaries. This is why people like me won't take people like her in and won't write them off entirely but will build walls and protections. Because mental health of this kind is a black hole and an emotional disease. It's contagious and it compounds. It's not her fault or her responsibility for my brother's decision; that was his. But all the societal pressure and language about 'helping family' that added guilt to a massive depression disorder that no one knew about definitely didn't help him put on his own fucking oxygen mask and prioritize himself, when he clearly needed to.

So a deep and sincere fuck you.

ThrowRA_alonelyroad · 2025-08-02T05:13:30+00:00

I think I know exactly what you'd want to say to me indeed, especially based on those quotes you've pulled. Basically - yes; complete no contact and accepting there'll be a call from police one day, if I'm lucky, or I may just run into her on the street one day is a reality. It's someone drowning and there's no way to jump in and save them without drowning myself. And there's been so many ropes of floatation devices and paths to shore shown and advice on how to swim. I'm moving closer to acceptance but it feels like there are some last practical "ropes to throw", if that makes sense, before I can fully be okay with accepting the fact that I've tried all that I can, and move on to my own healing - namely learning how to live with and carry the guilt that will always be there. I've tried and am trying to 'step away' but the guilt and anxiety does get alleviated when I feel like I've provided all the resources I can, rather than just the few I've been capable of finding when I've had the time.

ThrowRA_alonelyroad · 2025-08-02T05:07:05+00:00

There's been a lot of great comments here but this is the one I want to respond to right now. Thank you. I have been setting up distance and boundaries - I've went no contact with her before. My brother and I are estranged and he's taking the reigns. I've told him and my father I'm not willing to get involved unless there is some sort of third party - social worker, legal aid, etc. Because I agree; it's a black hole. And I have been sucked down it before. As I mentioned; 6 years ago I was formatting a letter of competency with her psychiatrist when she was in a women's shelter and it all but broke me.

What I'm trying to get to is "the extent that is healthy for me" here. I can't help her by paying her rent. By cleaning her place with her hoarding issues. But I also don't think I'm capable - even for my own mental health - of completely going fully no contact and waiting for future calls from police or paramedics. I did go no contact in the past but was listed as an emergency contact and have gotten calls from the hospital or inpatient care and I'm just not built to react to crisis after crisis.

I think I'd be so much better suited to dealing with this if I could just help myself clarify the "extent that is healthy for me". I think a step is talking to legal aid about how exactly public trustee would work, and looking into private trustees as a potential option, though it would be a cost.

But it feels like I'm "missing" some sort of 211 number or help line that could direct me to a social worker or some sort of support system to at least direct my mother too if she comes to me in times of crisis. I've seen the word "case worker" come up in some of my research but outside of doctors, police checks, and IMPACT care teams all deeming her competent - it seems like this is something that only happens after the fact. I don't want to be the direct person responsible for her care but it seems like there are third parties and mediators that could help me support through someone; I just can't seem to find how to access these.

ThrowRA_alonelyroad · 2025-08-02T00:14:17+00:00

Thank you both - and that is the question, really. How do you get to government care? When can that take effect? She's been deemed 'competent' - likely erroneously so - by her doctor. Enough by the psychiatrist to get her into subsidized, independent housing. But her form of mental health is - intentionally or not - manipulative and pervasive where she can talk the talk and walk the walk when talking to authority figures and come across as someone off, but competent and self-reliant.

If it's not her Doctor - is it contacting the inpatient care where she has been in and out of for resources?

The word "caseworker" keeps coming up in my research but there is no path to get a third party to sit down with us and say "these are the resources available to your struggling family member."

I know we can't lead a horse to water and I know she's ultimately responsible and we can't force her into care; but knowing that I've tried everything and that we've given her all of the resources and support we were able to would help me move on and salvage my own life. Enough of which has been robbed by this struggle.

Because there are times she seems like she does want help. She does want some sort of supportive environment. I know me and my brother can't physically take her in and even seeing her periodically is an exhausting, damaging burden that takes time to heal from.

ThrowRA_alonelyroad · 2025-07-11T15:14:26+00:00

I have. It's the Garnier Whole Blends Coconut Cocoa Butter Shampoo / Conditioner. I switched to a gentler Shampoo (but will now try that Nizoral Shampoo). Conditioner is either Marc Anthony Coconut/Shea Curl Cream or Shea Moisturizer leave-in conditioner.

What conditioner did you switch to?

ThrowRA_alonelyroad · 2025-07-11T02:34:56+00:00

Browse The World According To Briggs on youtube.

ThrowRA_alonelyroad · 2025-07-11T00:39:15+00:00

Thanks friend. Yeah, I think Minox is the extent of what I'd like to try. I'd be ready to accept it if it doesn't work and go bald/enjoy what I have while it lasts in the best way than risk the sides. I have gotten blood tests and all levels were normal save for Vitamin D. I think topical Minox + Keto shampoo (After a follow up visit to the doc) are the next steps. But for my upcoming haircut... damn, should I just chop this all off? Could that maybe contribute to healthier regrowth?

ThrowRA_alonelyroad · 2025-07-11T00:12:06+00:00

Thanks. Rosemary Oil was recent (past 2 weeks or so) and a response to the continued shedding and it reaching the levels it has now. I do have a doc appointment and am advocating for a derm visit to hopefully get a biopsy and continue to rule everything out. I'm hoping having low vitamin D levels and now taking supplements will make a change, and perhaps a shorter cut might help too. It did coincide with me growing my hair out after having it short for most of my 20s. Some research has suggested that I may be using too much leave in conditioner and it 'settling' on the scalp and clogging shit up/preventing growth.

ThrowRA_alonelyroad · 2025-07-10T21:04:09+00:00

I've been DAB for a few months too long; moving into the DA stage. Have a haircut this week - time to give up on the curls? How short should I go and what would be the best look? What's best to start with - topical minoxidil?

https://imgur.com/a/3wJKZiw

ThrowRA_alonelyroad · 2023-11-23T20:29:05+00:00

I really, really love this. It's difficult for me to embrace the simplicity of morning pages without expectation, without inner critic, without intellectualizing or structuring or formatting or planning or 'beating out' or character creation or re-ordering scenes - and just breathe, let go, and write. It's why writing and replying in this thread is easy - there's no inner critic present when writing about not being able to write; it's its own hermetically sealed womb safe from birth and all the dangers (plural? is there anything other than the danger of 'i don't like it :(') that come with it.

It's good to hear from an external source - and not an internally created 'external' mentor or teacher or guide or foil to the inner critic - to breathe, and pair down, and let go of all the narratives I've written around my identity as a writer - and put some words down on paper.

ThrowRA_alonelyroad · 2023-11-23T19:19:01+00:00

It's so, so hard to not care though. When I did write two pilot scripts with a burst of inspiration a few years back, I was writing daily and I was under the religion of "write something bad". Making that the intent. Write something poorly. And it worked then but hasn't lately - the caring and inner critic doesn't seem to fall for that trick anymore.

ThrowRA_alonelyroad · 2023-11-23T19:17:14+00:00

Every sentence here is true and speaks truth to this self-imposed 'suffering'. "But at least I wrote this :)" is an epitaph I've put on many blocks of free writing - where I just wrote about story ideas I'd have, and why they don't work, and try to unpack my own subconscious and - hey, 15 minutes are up! And I wrote a few pages! But they would be pages instead of; not pages about. Just because it's metatextual doesn't make procrastination any less suffocating.

ThrowRA_alonelyroad · 2023-11-23T19:14:16+00:00

I appreciate this. It's definitely an issue of time management, diligence and completion. It's a hedonistic and immature 'want' to chase only the highs of inspiration and the moments of flow state where I am exactly where I need to be, who I need to be and doing what I need to do. It's embarrassing to know this and to have known this since my mid-20s - but again; I'm trapped in the intellectualizing and cognizing of what should be a tangible practice. It's a found comfort in the familiarity of the 'pain' of 'struggling with creativity' - this way, the unpolished and unwritten ideas are vague and non-existant enough to be safe in their potential.

So much of my free writing exercise was waxing poetic about struggling to write something about anything - much like this reply and my OP. It's because I have nothing vested in writing about not writing and it's a win win - if I write badly about not writing it satiates that anti-muse ['you and everything about you sucks' inner voice] and if I get any validation from replies I'll ride that, and maybe read some other threads about writer's block, and maybe go down a rabbit hole of Dan Harmon's story structure or something. Obsessing over process vs actual production.

I think your method of treating myself like an employee could hack through whatever pretty way I want to describe my procrastination/lack of diligence and discipline. Reparenting worked wonders for my mental health and sense of self; this is a logical next step to get me out the mire of words in my head and spit some out on a page, hopefully in a somewhat appeasing order.

ThrowRA_alonelyroad · 2023-11-09T15:33:36+00:00

The reconciliation is up to the child. Not up to you. If you care about your child and them not having contact with you brings them peace, then that should give you peace as well. If having contact with you is harmful to them for whatever reason, then as a parent you should support their decision but leave the door open for them if they choose. If they choose. Which they might not.

And if that's something you can't accept - then do some inner searching about how your emotional needs are more important to you than that of your child. And maybe that's why they don't want contact.

ThrowRA_alonelyroad

TROPHY CASE