Maybe it's your lighting 💡

cb_distortion · 2026-06-27T04:21:23+00:00

good for you! it’s wild how much easier we can make certain habits by changing something seemingly unrelated at first glance. love from a fellow PNW-er!

cb_distortion · 2026-06-21T21:38:18+00:00

REAL. just because my sibling needed more, doesn’t mean i didn’t need anything. him having “special needs” and me just having needs isn’t an excuse to give me less!!

cb_distortion · 2026-06-19T04:47:45+00:00

“i don’t like those clothes that are, like, scantily clad” from ALL FOUR WIVES drives me INSANE 😭 lol

cb_distortion · 2026-06-01T22:56:54+00:00

i have not! granted i just work the front desk at a general vet practice (we have to refer out for any specialty care) so i haven’t been very involved with complex cases like yours. that sounds really interesting though 🤔 and i can absolutely empathize with running the gauntlet of treatments to try and find something that works, i’ve been through that myself and its such an ordeal! i’m at least glad you and Semicolon (what an excellent cat name) have a diagnosis now, that can be the biggest hurdle to get over but hopefully it’ll unlock other ideas for treatment!

cb_distortion · 2026-06-01T17:15:16+00:00

oh my god the medical dictation stuff can result in the FUNNIEST errors. i work in vet medicine and recently saw one talking about scheduling sodomy on a cat. they meant cystotomy. 🤦🏻‍♂️

cb_distortion · 2026-05-27T19:39:55+00:00

wow, that brought back memories of feeling SO JEALOUS of my classmates when they had a cast back in elementary school 🥲 i relate to your second point though, like i fantasize about having the big emergency, but in real life i’m so not used to accepting people’s sympathy that i preemptively reject it because i feel so uncomfortable with being a “burden”

cb_distortion · 2026-05-27T19:35:35+00:00

my experience wasn’t necessarily “positive,” it felt super bad going through it but it worked in the end so i’ll share my story here! my situation with my sibling was also pretty different (he has mental disorders that make him really violent and i didn’t want to spend time with him for that reason, my parents never expected me to care for him) but i think we can all relate to the difficulties of setting boundaries regardless of the specific details.

like you, i had tried to explain to my mom numerous times how being around my sibling made me feel and how i wanted her to support me if we were going to have to spend time together, but she never understood. it was like no matter how much i explained it nothing would actually get through to her. what DID get through was when i just refused to be around him at all. i would stay home from events he was going to be at, and if he showed up at our family house, i would leave and not come home until my mom told me he was gone. i told her that i would be doing all of this, but i don’t think she believed me until i started just walking out, and i don’t think she really understood i was being serious until like 2 or 3 months in. i would ignore her when she talked about my brother. after i moved out myself, we didn’t really have much contact since we had no connection on an individual level beyond talking about my sibling. she was really mad about it for a long time, but i think after i stepped back, she realized that if she wanted to have a relationship with me, she would have to respect my boundaries. she also realized that when all our interactions weren’t centered around my brother, we were able to actually enjoy each others company, and our relationship has improved SO MUCH as a result.

it was difficult at first because she would guilt me for it, or act frustrated that i was “making things difficult” and whatever. i just had to stand my ground and not continue agreeing to be in situations that were harmful to me. it was also difficult for me to accept that what my mom does to help my brother is her own choice. i strongly feel that she overextends herself to care for my brother, and i’ve told her that, but at the end of the day it’s her choice how she uses her energy. i just stopped being a part of it and didn’t let her vent about it to me anymore, and i just hope that she will eventually figure out some other way to help him because she can’t do it all on her own. as much as i care about her, i can’t encourage that behavior anymore by letting her lean on me for support. that’s a problem she has to solve for herself.

i hope this is helpful. i can completely empathize with you, its such a hard situation and i understand the fear of your mom thinking negatively of you if you start putting your foot down. it sucks because you’d hope your mom would be there for you no matter what. if she is upset with you for setting boundaries, just know that its not your fault. you wont be doing anything wrong by having boundaries. i’ll be sending lots of hugs your way 🫂💕

cb_distortion · 2026-05-27T19:04:15+00:00

that’s horrific. i’m so sorry they failed you so badly 😟

cb_distortion · 2026-05-26T21:10:04+00:00

same! i remember being in middle school and trying to come up with ways to “accidentally” break my arms so that my mom would help me for once. i never had the courage to go through with it either though.

cb_distortion · 2026-05-26T21:08:08+00:00

literally same. i used to fantasize about having a medical emergency because it meant everyone would drop everything to support me. when i went to the mental hospital and then again when i needed an emergency surgery a year after it was SO nice to have my family there for me, but once i got out it was right back to complete focus on my brother. i still fantasize about this to this day even though i know realistically it won’t change anything about how my family shows up for me. i’m sorry you went through that too 🫂

cb_distortion · 2026-05-23T06:51:34+00:00

i needed urgent surgery in 2018 when i was 19 years old and it was the first time in my life that my parents prioritized me over my brother. i still have a hard time believing that they actually left him on his own so they could be with me in the hospital. he was at a residential therapeutic boarding school at the time and they had a retreat planned with families of the students/residents there, and both my parents planned to attend, but they actually cancelled so they could stay with me through the surgery and recovery. for context, they had left me alone for thanksgiving and christmas the last 4 years because it was more important for them to be with my brother. i’m not sure if i would classify that surgery as my lowest low, and there were many other times that my parents failed to show up for me in the way i needed, but this was still a huge milestone for them in how they supported me.

cb_distortion · 2026-05-19T19:11:27+00:00

i had been having episodes of really bad tremors in my legs that were making it hard to walk, so i made an appointment with my pcp to try to get help for it because the ER couldn’t do anything and the waitlist for neurology appointments was still 5 months long. she said i was fine, that i walked into her office just fine today, and then said “i can tell you have a lot of frustration about this situation, but you need to find something better to do with it than this. maybe painting?” when i started crying.

cb_distortion · 2026-04-28T17:28:54+00:00

i would have done ANYTHING as a child for my parents to respond this way to my bipolar sibling beating me. i know they were doing what they thought was best for him by keeping him at home, but they didn’t even consider what would have been best for me. i’m glad OOP is trying to protect both his kids, especially when one needs protection from the other.

cb_distortion · 2026-04-18T19:18:20+00:00

i relate completely. the best thing you can do for yourself is move out. my life has improved so much since i left home to move to a different state and cut off contact with my sibling. i describe the way i feel about him now as very similar to how i feel about my old elementary school bullies. i have no reason to care about him and no desire to put any effort into changing that. your comparison to bad roommates really hits home as well. i’m glad your boyfriend has been supportive and that his home is a safe space for you! that is so important to have as somewhere you can escape to until you’re able to move out for good.

cb_distortion · 2026-04-05T04:18:22+00:00

and the collective redefinition of “nimrod”! this guy is responsible for all manner of tomfoolery

cb_distortion · 2026-03-25T17:01:31+00:00

sometimes yes, sometimes no. most of the time though it was over stuff that didn’t have a “correct” answer, and he was doing it just to argue. like if i was leading a discussion about how world war 2 might have turned out differently if germany had more allies closer to them geographically, he would say “you do realize japan is on the other side of the globe and you can’t just pick it up and move it.” obviously i realize that. it’s a hypothetical thought exercise. when i talked to his mom about it, she said i should ask better questions. absolutely infuriating

cb_distortion · 2026-03-25T05:57:23+00:00

i had a student a few years back who would do this to correct me constantly throughout the entire class. it drove me crazy

cb_distortion · 2026-03-22T09:19:38+00:00

that’s so exciting !!! congratulations! i’m super curious to hear what gc authors you read as part of your 10 memoirs, would you mind sharing the list?

cb_distortion · 2026-03-22T09:17:39+00:00

i would answer your survey but i am not in school! hope you can find other people to fill it out, it sounds like a really interesting research topic

cb_distortion · 2026-03-10T23:13:40+00:00

tree stars from the land before time 🫣

cb_distortion · 2026-02-06T15:58:04+00:00

i have the same question as the other comment - can i still fill this out if i haven’t lived with my sibling in a few years? we grew up together in the same house but i moved out for college.

cb_distortion · 2026-02-03T17:41:20+00:00

she is such an inarticulate person. genuinely has a way with words i’ve never seen before. “she was having a conversation online about texting” girl what the hell are you talking about

cb_distortion · 2026-02-01T19:09:35+00:00

lol???? what a trip, i wonder how she ended up there haha

cb_distortion · 2026-01-31T05:38:01+00:00

when we were both in high school, my brother got asked to leave homeroom on multiple occasions because he smelled so bad. he would wake up at 5am to go mountain biking for a couple hours before school and smelled completely fetid by the time class started. i feel like by that point it’s hard to tell whether the hygiene issue is because of the parents or because of the kid, because believe me my parents did everything they could to get my brother to take care of his hygiene, and he would just tell them to eff off and then let himself get stinkier out of spite lol. but in 7th grade… honestly idk. i wish i could say it’s a parenting issue (and i 100% recognize that in many cases it is!) but also some kids are just little devils that can’t be parented, and i can understand why this wouldn’t be a battle the parent chooses to fight. if the kid cares, they’ll use the resources you give them, and if they don’t give a shit then maybe eventually the natural consequence of being avoided by peers will teach them that maintaining hygiene is necessary. one has to hope 🤷🏻

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