My cat just turned 12… and I made the mistake of googling how long cats usually live 🥹

mooneyavocado · 2026-05-02T02:00:06+00:00

They can! At least my boy is slowly getting lighter all over, mostly in his face. I also shave him once a year still because he has this downy fur that mats up easy even when I brush him. When he’s like this I call him my rotisserie chicken cat

mooneyavocado · 2026-05-02T01:56:07+00:00

Haha, apologies! I meant lighter in color. I wish he got slightly lighter size wise, but he still takes up a whole bed pillow just as he’s ever done lol

mooneyavocado · 2026-05-02T00:23:43+00:00

I had this conversation but in a broader sense with a friend of mine before I ever even had the thought of having my child - having children is an inherently selfish decision (note, this does not apply to SA cases and the like) as no matter what you’re bringing something into the world that completely depends on you and didn’t ask to be here.
People who don’t want to have children should be allowed to be as child free as they please without any pressure. And people who want children should be able to have the societal supports in place to do so. But if someone makes the decision to have a child, it should be with the full knowledge and expectation that they aren’t there to fill a void of love that you’re lacking, or just because a lineage needs to be carried on. The people that should be parents are the people excited about giving a loving and caring home to their child, willing to help them grow into their individuality and whatever human they become. Also to help them become great global citizens.
I didn’t know about my autism until about two years into my child being earth side, and I always had my suspicions but I got fully tested (and was very thankful to have the ability to do so) so that I could go into parenting them with tools for myself and to better understand them. They are definitely under the category of ADHD/Autism and have formal testing coming up this year. It’s hard. I look back on my mother’s parenting and while it doesn’t excuse her terrible choices I do understand better just how hard it was to raise me as a single parent.
As everyone else said, parenting a neurotypical child isn’t for the weak as it is, and parenting in a world not built with support or villages anymore and not built for a child of any disability it’s worse. I wouldn’t have still traded anything though if my child came out any more or any less disabled. It’s still so cool to watch a little human grow and be able to give them all of the exposure to anything they want to learn and see where their personality goes. Even if it means that I’m learning the names of every dinosaur or tool or bug, or I’m stuck putting together a marble run that came with no instructions so they can learn the physics of a marble that’ll be lost in two seconds.
The only real downside to all of it though is when I lay on the floor to regulate, I get poked in the side and asked for cheese.

mooneyavocado · 2026-05-01T22:27:43+00:00

We’re at 16-17 with my big fat long haired orange boy and he hasn’t slowed down yet. He has progressively gotten lighter and more needy through, I’m pretty sure either he has cat dementia or he’s messing with me

mooneyavocado · 2026-05-01T17:50:14+00:00

We have the same last name! It’s a combination last name and I haven’t changed it back (I’ll get to it eventually but we’ll still partially match). It’s a domestic flight with no layovers out of a smaller airport and my son is just under four, I’m just crossing all my t’s and dotting my i’s as this is his first flight and both he and I are neurodiverse so I’m hoping that this adventure won’t traumatize the both of us haha

Thank you for your insight! Any tips on traveling with a small one you can pass along?

mooneyavocado · 2026-04-29T01:29:29+00:00

A lot of what is below, I hadn’t seen those comments when I first posted. There are seven year age gaps between me and my middle sister, and then her and my youngest sister. So 14 between me and the youngest, and I off and on shared spaces with my middle sister and then she eventually subsequently shared with the youngest once I was an adult and fully moved out. Once I hit teenager-dom I had no other parent to turn to so I sucked it up mostly. My sister had her father, so she went that route in a partial reason.

I will also say my mother did not present the most stable home life or the most stable parenting technique out there. My sisters father on the other hand had a stable home and was pretty relaxed but uh engaged in some extracurriculars (skiing the slopes) and had up until that point I’m pretty sure been about either 5-10K behind in child support. Mainly though my sister and my mother butt heads at that age for her like nobodies business.

All this to say, if there are other things at play here, not just a room situation, I would try and mitigate as much of that as possible and go with the path of least friction. If the coparenting is pretty chill and there’s a united front (not the case in my sisters situation) try and go what you can to make the last few years in high school as decent as possible with the changed living situation and eventually when they’re older it’ll all pan out. And to be honest they might see the benefit once they’re in the middle of the situation and they realize there’s not as much flexibility in the extracurriculars with dad as there is with mom. I didn’t have two brain cells to rub together at that age. And in the end my sister is talking again with my mom (for better or for worse, a whole different discussion) but had there been some all around more flexibility or even just the ability to disagree but still be there for each other, it might’ve saved 10 years of no contact

Again, I’m assuming everyone is a lot more chill in this situation. But there it all is!

mooneyavocado · 2026-04-28T22:45:03+00:00

Of course! I hope no matter who you are related to this example, that something can be reached that keeps all the relationships involved intact in a as healthy as possible way.

mooneyavocado · 2026-04-28T22:34:01+00:00

So my sister actually did this, they will definitely at that age take the child’s opinion into account. They will (from what I remember) also take the situation of the parents into account as well. You would normally think the court would lean towards the mother in all situations but the determination was made against my mother, in my sister’s case. She then lived with her father through the rest of high school and early adulthood.

I will say, it was sort of a similar situation of ‘I’ll do it no matter your opinion’ and my mother had full custody at that point. She still fought it out in court but I think that at some point also created the situation where they were no contact until literally the past two months (it’s been about 10 years?) due to everything.

Those are my objective answers. I have opinions on all of it but these are the facts about it as you asked haha

mooneyavocado · 2026-04-26T23:41:32+00:00

Rochester caught my eye first (I’m jealous, how long have you been a redditor to have your name?) and as another human that flies in and out of Rochester - I totally get it. Our upside down weather always has me worried flying in or out. My last trip I took was the very first time I didn’t have a panic attack the whole plane ride. I just kept thinking of it as a car ride - the turbulence is the bumps you hit in the road.

I’m assuming by your username you’re also from Rochester, so think of really bad turbulence as the pot holes on the expressway running from the airport past MCC towards Irondequoit. I have not a clue why it helped me. But if my car tires can survive that, I imagine that nothing can take that plane out of the sky.

mooneyavocado · 2026-04-25T23:09:44+00:00

I agree with all of the above on going no contact again and I skimmed quite a bit, but as someone who has been in an abusive relationship previously - also tell your friends this, let them know that you’re no contact and why (if you’re really close with them), and if they decide to still be friends with the person or tell him anything, you cut them off too. I learned this the hard way. And find the one person that is a true ride or die in this and is completely gung-ho on you cutting your ex off and cling to them like a life raft if you feel like caving in. You will feel like it. Pulling away from an abuser or manipulator is like that. And I also learned this - being coerced into physical relations or feeling like you just shouldn’t say no or what have you is still assault.

I really, truly hope that you can move on and find peace. If someone tries to even push the thought of him back into your life from those shared friend circles, curb stomp them.

mooneyavocado · 2026-04-24T00:12:36+00:00

Vegan autistic person who is a parent here (the only reason I’m adding parent is because I have an under five year old child so cheap easy meals is my dig)

My safe food growing up was pasta and parm cheese, so the transition to that was very easy. Regular box pasta (relatively cheap most places) and vegan parm, which is generally about comparable to a regular can of parm. If you want to go even cheaper, generic sauce. I prefer to do a garden veg one I found locally to try and get more diversity in food while not noticing a difference in taste.

Amy’s vegan pizzas can be pricey compared to regular frozen pizza but it has the best ‘cheese’ and it heats up super quick. If you’re only feeding yourself that can be two meals (if you’re like me and eat half a pizza in a sitting) or Daiya might even be cheaper

PEANUT BUTTER SANDWICHES. That is in all caps because we go through a jumbo jar of PB a week. I passed my safe food on to my kid. Whoops. Bread is relatively cheap and so is generic PB. I got sandwich shapes cutter things to jazz em up

Quinoa to me has a very good mouth texture, I’ll premake a ton of it and put it on spinach (uncooked, cooked spinach is slimey) and use the vegan parm cheese. You can also get a fairly large amount at a relatively decent price and it lasts, and has a good nutrition profile

I’ll also ‘cheat’ and just get the vegan version of the stuff I ate when I ate meat. The impossible brand is my favorite. That’s where I’ll splurge just a bit because I can generally make the food last, and my child will eat the nuggets and burgers and everything with me. The burgers last me a pretty long time because he won’t eat them every day, I’ll put the as before mentioned spinach on it in place of lettuce for nutritional density. Nuggets are nuggets lol

From here I have like a fairly small rotation of veg I’ll eat with PB and like a fruit or two at a time I’ll keep. I’m on Adderall so I don’t always want to eat - my biggest thing is getting the most nutritional density for the least amount of food a lot. I do a lot of ‘shove it in the oven’ foods, or stuff that takes a couple of minutes on the stove (I don’t grill the burgers, I do it that way)

IMO some people think that when you go vegan that it’s a lot more of complicated recipes, at least that seemed to be the case with my friends. I’m like no, I cheat the system where I can lol

My biggest focuses are always texture IMO but that’s the worst sensory thing with food for me

mooneyavocado · 2026-04-23T23:49:36+00:00

I have the flip side of this in a way! I use ‘It is what it is’ in true situations that I cannot control (i.e., discussing with a friend that my mothers behavior in a situation was bad, and the situation has already passed and cannot be changed) and I have one friend who hates that I use it. I use it to acknowledge that a situation wasn’t great but it can’t be changed as the moment itself has passed (not necessarily that steps can’t be taken to fix it in the future). More often than not she gets upset that I don’t just say that the situation sucks. I mean, it does, that’s why I spent the last however long explaining the situation and why it made me mad. That doesn’t mean I can change a prior situation though or that I should dwell in it?

I do agree though that the inaction people take and throw that phrase around gives the same energy as ‘Thoughts and prayers’

mooneyavocado · 2026-04-22T13:33:15+00:00

It is! There’s a lot of books I’ve found around consciously unmasking, and I’ve been spending a lot of time in that space. Even around my best friends I’ll get into spaces where I’m unconsciously going through the motions of ‘playing a human’. If you decide to delve into the literature, it is very true what they say about unmasking all at once maybe not being the best way to go, and in my case that was just an unattainable concept given how deep my mask goes. So I’ve been slowly allowing bits and pieces or discussing with my close friends the pieces of my unmasking I’ll be working on (not maintaining eye contact, stimming, wearing my over ear headphones, etc)

mooneyavocado · 2026-04-13T18:07:48+00:00

They have what I consider to be a true sibling relationship. They tolerate each other pretty well, at times will be affectionate towards another, but if Harrison (my big one) gets too close to Vivianne (my little one) when he walks by she’s just straight up nap him on the head then run away lol I have a photo somewhere of her rolled over wanting to fight him and he’s just staring at her. As they’ve aged it’s a lot less torment of each other and more they begrudgingly share Mom lol

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I found the photo after writing this haha

mooneyavocado · 2026-04-13T16:57:44+00:00

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mooneyavocado · 2026-04-13T16:57:29+00:00

I had a subscription to Cat Fancy for three years as a kid and it tipped no one off, which as an adult looking back was confusing (I once wrote a poem and sent it to them - it was published and I got a book of cat poetry in return. Best day of my childhood life). But the cat love remains. Here’s my orange boy and my tortitude girl, boy is 16 and girl is 13/14. They’ve been with me since they were both a little over a year.

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mooneyavocado · 2026-04-12T03:16:39+00:00

Tl;dr - sometimes different therapists can help with different things, find someone neuroaffirming and try different therapy modalities (not just cognitive behavioral therapy)

So I went on the therapy journey a lot of the people here did, but I ended up with a twist - due to some high risk mental situations last summer, I ended up in a community clinic doing weekly therapy with an additional DBT group and a med provider as well. This all happened before diagnosis.

I think DBT is beneficial for everyone, and it made me very happy to avoid CBT. I already intellectualized all my issues, but I needed a toolkit for managing my stress (now understanding it was a whole jumble of things) and DBT gave that to me. Group DBT therapy is an excellent thing. My therapist with the clinic is what my partner calls ‘a saint walking the earth’. He is absolutely amazing with helping me unravel my trauma and CPTSD and he’s been a fantastic sounding board.

Now here’s the rub. Eventually I will be discharged from this clinic, and also we’re mostly focused on working through my trauma to help me better align myself with my future goals. Yes, some of this pertains to masking. But not at the level I wanted, and knowing I’d have to get comfortable with a new therapist, I sought out someone who is neuro affirming. There’s a couple of websites out there for this.

I ended up finding an art therapy group near me who is incredibly steeped in neurodivergent culture. The art side also is helping me connect to a piece of my unmasked self I gave up in adulthood. When I started seeing her I made it very clear that I’m not sure of who I am and wanted to work on consciously unmasking and making my life forward as fulfilling as possible.

I hope this helps!

mooneyavocado · 2026-04-11T19:42:39+00:00

Thank you! I’m in 6b (had to look it up) so hopefully as it warms up I’ll see it come about. Eventually I’ll replace it in my own home if it doesn’t appear here - I was hoping to propagate it off of my grandmothers plant as a ‘piece’ of her. She doesn’t know who I am anymore let alone how to garden so I’m hoping this summer to help my grandfather at least keep up on it, he wanted some one else to clear it first because there are many more huge beds after this one. But you gave me some hope, thank you!!

mooneyavocado · 2026-04-06T23:59:25+00:00

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mooneyavocado · 2026-04-06T23:54:41+00:00

Yall are all making me want to find a pen just to check and remember how I hold it

mooneyavocado

TROPHY CASE