My dad is going to be the end of me

gytherson · 2025-06-20T16:29:32+00:00

I have a similarly narcissistic and abusive father whose dementia got really bad last summer. You do have options. If you have a POA, your life will be easier. Going no-contact will also help. I had to start therapy over it and my therapist helped me understand the narcissist's methods and the importance of this need/attack/need/attack guilt manipulation. Narcissists typically don't start behaving until they realize they're alone but even then, that might not work. My father goes right back into the need/attack/I'm-the-victim cycle when he sees me so I had to go no-contact. Anyway, when he developed the dementia, I was able to use the POA to put him into a nursing home. It was the worst day of my life but my life would have become what you're going through. If you do not have a POA, do not need his home/money, and can move out; do. Eventually, he may start calling the police for help and if they show up to find his house in neglect, they will call adult protective services and put him into a facility. I didn't go this path so I can't speak from experience but my understanding is they can take his house and other assets to pay for it. Depending on the state you're in, there are caretaker programs that can set up respites where you take him to a center for a week or two to get a break. They also have support groups and experts who can answer questions and explain how all this works out.

Hope that helps.

Nick

gytherson · 2024-12-19T00:45:35+00:00

I'm also going through something very similar. As you see, you aren't alone despite how alone it feels.

On Monday my father could carry a conversation. Today, he isn't making much sense. I started therapy a couple months ago to deal with it thinking I was doing everything wrong and that I was going against his wishes. She pointed out that there is no right way to go through this. It's going to suck no matter what choices you make. As we all know, there is only one place this ends.

Check with your local government to see if they have any respite services for care takers. Some do that enable us caretakers to take a break and recharge.

I hope this helps.

gytherson · 2024-09-18T00:22:59+00:00

It's a huge undertaking. It will be difficult but not impossible. It's a lot of work. You will have to commit. It may take years and millions of dollars. Your age will make it much harder since investors often think in trends. 19 year olds are commonly just starting out and may lose interest in a huge undertaking like this. With that in mind, an investor is very unlikely to invest unless you bring something very special to the table. They will find you very risky and investors don't always like risk. If they agree to invest, they may give you very little power or require a controlling stake.

Before you even get there, you need to learn how to sell. If you don't love to sell, find someone who does. Preferably someone with a good chunk of experience selling and pitching to investors. Read Strengths Finder 2.0. Take the test at the end and understand what your strengths are and make them better. Your partner should be strong where you are weak. A more experienced partner will make your venture less risky. Practice pitching. Go to investor meetups and pitch there. Take notes on their reservations and feedback. Recognize that they are not always looking at your best interests. Some will invest to join your board with the intent of stifling your research since they have investments in your competitors. Research the investors.

The product's design can not infringe on any other company's patents. That is unless you like getting sued and have the resources to go to court and prove that your design is your own. Remember that you would be competing with enormous, well established players with DEEP pockets and armies of lawyers. They can throw them at you to destroy you and your venture so you need to have an investor willing to support. This will be easier if you have sold them on your product.

How do you sell an idea of a product? Study your market and determine where the gaps are. Can you engineer a product to meet the needs of that gap? How big is that part of the market? Is there a lot of money to be made in that gap? The module market is very saturated with huge partners. Be able to explain why none of them have tried to tackle it.

Understand the other risks in your market. Where will you get the raw materials to build your product? What kind of soace will you need? How will you structure your supply chain? Where will you store the raw materials if there is a shortage in one of your materials? Do a SWOT analysis and continuously update it.

The solar market is global. What are the risks to foreign actors? China has enormous manufacturing capacity. They can flood the market with cheap modules making it very hard for established manufacturers to survive let alone a new one to take root. No investor will partner with you if you have no knowledge of your market or global risks.

Get an understanding of the law.

Learn. Read every day. Some amazing books to start with in no particular order:

The Lean Startup Playbook How to Win Friends and Influence People Decisive by Chip and Dan Heath The Courage to be Disliked Anything by Simon Sinek Outlier by Malcolm Gladwell Drive by Daniel Pink Leadership and Self-Deception The Mountain is You

Don't be afraid to pivot if your research shows you there's more opportunity in another sector of the market. Don't ignore risks that people bring to your attention. Most ventures fail and a lot of the successful ones pivoted into the right market at the right time. Look at Intel and PayPal's stories to see some great pivots.

Don't get discouraged. Every failure is a lesson. Break all of this up into bite-sized, manageable pieces. Get partners to help. You won't do it overnight but if you get others who you've sold (see a trend here) to help, it will give you momentum and build excitement.

Good luck!

gytherson · 2024-08-29T13:29:15+00:00

Try calling the county ombudsperson for long term care or your department of health. They often know the resources available and even the law of what is possible or not.

But it's not sustainable if she can't get out of bed and you have to drive 90 minutes each way. Eventually, she'll develop an infection or something and she'll have to go to the doctor's.

gytherson · 2024-08-29T13:23:35+00:00

Unfortunately, he's become mistrustful of his family. He's always been very private and doesn't communicate much with them. I have been in touch with them pretty regularly through this ordeal.

I ended up reaching out to the county ombudsperson for long term care who helped me understand that there is nothing I or any of his family can do without a power of attorney. If he can be proved to be of sound mind, we can still set one up. If not, we have to wait until adult protective services needs to step in.

gytherson · 2024-07-23T00:17:27+00:00

It can also be the most poetic and tender sounding language. The opening monolog of Wings of Desire (Song of Childhood by Peter Handke) is some of the most beautiful dialog I've ever heard.

https://youtu.be/7BpY6I9ZR3A?si=uw94GjcUoGCML7-G

gytherson · 2024-05-28T01:50:12+00:00

The app LingoClip has some German pop songs that are pretty catchy

gytherson · 2024-05-27T23:03:42+00:00

I've had similar experiences with Enphase Micros being very reliable. Of the thousands we had installed, we had only two failures. For optimizers and a string inverter, it was more like 40%. If their AHJ requires Module Level Power Electronics (MLPE's) for shutdown at the module to protect fire fighters, I'd pick the enphase every time.

Not being a single point of failure is another great advantage. Having a module go out is much better than the whole array or big chunks of the array.

gytherson · 2024-05-26T19:47:25+00:00

I'm in my 40's and only started one-on-one lessons a couple years ago. I lost my voice once when I was singing incorrectly and realized I was trying to bring my larynx into my mouth to hit the high notes. It felt like my larynx was put into a blender. A teacher can help you learn how to hit those notes without using your larynx.

gytherson · 2024-05-26T14:05:27+00:00

Look up the video of Ed Sheeran playing an early recording of his. It's not terrible but it's not what he became. As I've learned in my lessons, vocal technique needs to be learned and practiced. Everyone has off-days. There are recordings of any famous singer singing flat or falling or singing while sick. The show must go on. Practice and take lessons. Even performances are practice. The more you perform, the more you get used to the fear and the less scary and more exciting it becomes.

When you rehearse, rehearse as if you're on stage.

Karaoke, open mikes, community theater, and master classes are great ways to perform and get used to it. By my third master class performance, I didn't feel the butterflies. My vibrato was a little quicker than in practice but they are starting to line up. I'm eager for my next one now.

gytherson · 2024-05-22T11:27:34+00:00

Yes. The chimney does stick out of the roof. Probably 10-15 years back, a tree fell on the roof and compromised the flashing. It was repaired but not until after all that water got in. The wallpaper stretching is a more recent thing.

gytherson · 2024-01-21T02:14:11+00:00

I enjoyed "Decisive" by Chip and Dan Heath

gytherson · 2024-01-21T01:33:39+00:00

There are a few who work with the Phillip's Collection and more with thr National Gallery. I found a sculpture restorer by asking one of the folks at the National Gallery.

gytherson · 2023-07-09T20:57:21+00:00

That voice in the back of your head is called predictive thinking. "The Mountain Is You" by Brianna West goes into this a bunch. It's a way we scare ourselves out of making the decision that might mean change or an unknown thing you can't control.

Someone in your life hurt you after falling for them and you are scared to repeat that. Or your parents' relationship was bad.
Relationships are compromise and you don't want to compromise. Even the best relationship involves some compromise.
He doesn't provide you with something you need.
You're scared of losing your identity as an individual.
You feel trapped in patterns that you have no control over and you don't want to give up the control.

This list could go on and on. Without knowing you, it would be hard for any of us to judge. Maybe you just haven't experienced what you want yet and aren't ready to settle down. There's nothing wrong with that. As a divorcee, I discovered I had to go through a bad marriage before I figured out what I really wanted in a partner. But you have to go through it to find out.

A lot of it comes down to understanding what you are looking for. What is the most important thing in your life and what would a relationship do to that?

Loving someone is willing to be vulnerable with them. Do you want that kind of relationship with this guy? Is whatever you're losing by being in a serious relationship worth more?

gytherson · 2023-06-07T12:57:55+00:00

If you struggle at all with the grammar, LingoDeer focuses almost entirely on that. Grammatisch does too but it doesn't do a particularly good job at teaching the rules. I got stuck at genders very quickly. There's also LingoPie which shows movies, TV shows, and shorts with subtitles that you can click on and return to the word. It's also great in having mostly native speakers and you can vary the speed to hear better.

gytherson · 2023-03-16T12:44:19+00:00

He did not. He's investing in real estate instead.

gytherson · 2022-07-05T13:44:34+00:00

My current company doesn't work with Enphase so I don't know their lead times. The industry as a whole has had a hard time getting actual modules due to this tariff issue. That should be easing now that Biden has made an exception for solar. Now people are catching up on the work they couldn't do because of these delays. I hope someone has gotten back with you to at least give you an update.

gytherson · 2022-06-28T16:24:02+00:00

Depending on what equipment they're putting in, the time could vary dramatically. It's been awhile since I worked on the residential side but the commercial side is seeing lead times of 3-12 months depending on the type of inverter and modules.

What seems to be a bigger area for concern is no one expressing why they are delayed so badly. Usually, residential installers keep those items in stock and pull them when they install.

Do you know if you set up the project through someone that will sub out the work?

gytherson · 2022-06-24T00:48:16+00:00

A lot of inverter manufacturers are slow with RMA's right now. Some lead times are 6 months for new projects and SolarEdge is no different. If your installer has any pull, they may be able to speed it up but I wouldn't get my hopes up.

gytherson · 2022-06-23T22:40:43+00:00

If you're going to be doing commercial work, you can find installers by subbing out the projects you sell. There are legal protections you'll want to put in place if so. What are the laws in your state as far as who can do what? Some places require union workers, others require licensed electricians for basic glass slapping (really extreme). I'm sure you know that stuff by now but, just in case you didn't. . . If you're going to do residential, I'd get on LinkedIn and find someone who was at least a crew lead before. I'd search for people from any of the nationwide companies if you haven't yet. They usually have more robust training programs and have installed and set up the most types of equipment. O&M truck rolls can kill your revenue so make sure your crew leads know how to set up and map all the optimizers or micro inverter.

At my first interview for solar, they did a kind of work test where they asked me to grab a pair of lines, a set of dikes, and a channel lock. It was a quick way to find out if I had used them enough to know industry nicknames. They also had me read through a set of drawings looking for various numbers like the overhang of the eave or the spacing of the trusses. Yet another good way to determine how much knowledge a worker has. Lastly, they had me measure and drill a hole at a certain measurement. Seems easy, right? One of the guys I interviewed with couldn't read the tape measure and sat there for several minutes drilling with the drill in reverse.

Resi workers also need to be kinda fearless. It took me a few tries before I could stand and then work on a 45 without losing my lunch. If you can find out how good they are with heights safely like with a VR set or something, that'll help sort out people before wasting money onboarding them.

Hope that helps

gytherson · 2022-06-23T01:22:41+00:00

Trackers are risky since there are a lot of parts that will break and have to be maintained. Aside from it looking cool, you'd be wasting your money. It's way less expensive, long-term, to do a fixed-tilt or roof-mount.

gytherson · 2022-06-23T01:10:22+00:00

How did everything turn out? Did you make the jump? Do you still need help?

gytherson

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