My first response is yes but it sucked.

But there is a more nuanced response that goes something like we have an obligation to all of our kids and to the point that his dysfunction made us unable to take care of our other kids either directly through time demands or by extension through exhausting us to the point where we couldn’t care for ourselves and thus for them, you have to do a bit of triage.

Who do we have the greater obligation to, a 25 year old man or a 10 and 12 year old? Also he could have spread it around a bit, but he couldn’t be honest with his dad or grandpa what he was going through. He expected us to all but kill ourselves so he could conceal what he was going through from people who wouldn’t understand or would lose respect for him. He expected us to forsake obligations such as work and siblings, which could lead to loss of job and all the itinerant complications of that. That’s all kinda bullshit, right?

Hell he was on our insurance, so losing our jobs would’ve directly harmed him in any event.

TL;DR mental illness.

My son used to have panic attacks. Every time he got in a car, he was convinced they were an undiagnosed heart condition. We spent a couple of hours every single day trying to convince him to go to work, not to call 911, and that he wasn’t going to die. For at least a year to eighteen months, every trip to work or the store or on his way home, we had to be on the phone with him for every mile of the trip.

Sometimes he’d go nonverbal and we’d just have to listen to him hyperventilating. Other times he’d be ranting about how no one took his symptoms seriously, despite getting maybe as many as 3 scans in the emergency room with no finding of anything physically wrong.

We couldn’t go to bed until he got home. We had to wake up for his trip to work. Two hours out of almost every single day. He’d call my wife at work. If she wasn’t available he’d call me. And he would get pissed and tell at my wife if we weren’t available.

Anyway, between therapy and meds, we managed to get over that, but that was so fucking exhausting and frustrating. And the sheer presumption that we had to accommodate him regardless of anything else going on.

My grandson is almost 6 months. My wife and I several times had to take him overnight or even sleep in their guest room so they could sleep. How anyone manages without family support, I have no idea.

Take solace, though. Right now she pretty much only needs to communicate that she is hungry, tired, or need to be changed. Before you know it she will have a lot more to say, but the tools she uses (screaming her head off) stay pretty much the same. Sometimes words give you context clues, but I find most of us lack the self-awareness and emotional regulation required for clear verbal communication until sometime in our thirties or forties.

I think we’d all like to go back to the days when politics was only occasionally interesting.

Shit, I want news to be boring again. I remember when there was just thirty minutes of national news power day from 6 to 6:30. Then local news, and then The Muppet Show to put the world back into proper context.

I don’t believe in an afterlife and I’m not afraid of dying. No copium. My death will be a much bigger problem for those around me than it is for me. My problems will be over.

Now, I have kids and a wife and here and now my death would leave them in a bad situation, and I don’t want that. There are lots of things I’m looking forward to, but if I don’t get them… that’s just life. There are no guarantees and I don’t expect any.

I just don’t want anything lingering or debilitating where I’m a drain on my loved ones. As lonely and horrible as it would be, I would want them to move on and let me go and not take drastic action to spend all their time focused on me.

When I was young I was terrified of dying. Now I’ve accomplished everything that really mattered to me. That’s the big difference to me. I’m satisfied with my life and now I just need to do as much as I can for my family and myself with whatever time I have left.

Definitely don’t do this. Not that you should listen to randos online for life advice, but in this case… no, don’t do this.

‘Amoral’ might be a strong word, but it’s definitely an asshole move. I’d judge someone who did that harshly.

A half dozen daily? All I can say is your perspective strikes me as highly industry-dependent.

I have a bunch but I don’t think I’d recommend any of them, necessarily. Mostly they are familiar names and you either want them or don’t. I do pay for Bit Warden. And I would like to anti-recommend Nord VPN for shitty practices. I donate monthly to my Lemmy server.

That’s about it.

helped me heal a bit

The only way any of us heal.

I wrote parts of the above with tears in my eyes, but a smile on my face — that’s a good summary of how I experience grief. Getting to think and share stories about them was like spending time with an old friend, and I relished the opportunity.

It can be tough to gauge the value of my words because my memories are so personal and what feel like profound moments could feel empty to others far removed, so thanks for saying something. I’m glad my words can help anyone — I think they’d have liked that.

There are some really good ones here. I’m not sure if it’s my favorite because moods change, but I want to give a shout out to Le Pacte des Loups or Brotherhood of the Wolf was the English dub.

Nothing wrong with the English version but I saw it in French first and really enjoyed it (and I don’t like live action dubs in general because the words don’t match the lips). It’s schlocky French medieval martial arts mystery, so nothing as artistic as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but it was fun.

Hey, I apologize if I made you feel like you needed to defend yourself. That wasn’t intended as an argument or refutation. I just wanted to unpack one little sentence and provide a perspective on it. You know yourself and it sounds like you’re making the right call for you.

You just run the risk of being involved in things you didn’t ask to have any business to be in, in the first place.

I completely get where you’re coming from. Many of the things you post as drawbacks are things I experienced. But this quote, I had to comment on.

This is just a facet of life. You are always going to find yourself thrust into situations you’d rather not be in. Kids definitely contribute to that, but so does having a job, a partner, or just going out into the world.

Last week, I found myself in line at an amusement park in front of a couple of young men who were — swear to fucking god — discussing a tier-list of races. In front of me was a very nice Indian father with his son whom I’d been talking to. And there I am, an old white guy looking like a fucking F-tier asshole by association. I didn’t choose to be in that situation, but I had to deal with it anyway. Yeah, my kid was there, and that informed how I handled it, but it could’ve easily happened without her there.

I’m just saying, avoiding kids saves you only a small measure of dealing with shit that you never asked for. And also christ I have needed to share that for a week because I can’t get it out of my mind, so thank you.

That being said, I understand where you’re coming from. A situation where one parent only tolerates the kids for the sake of the other is bad for everyone, and by understanding yourself you are making good decisions here for yourself and potentially others.

I did. We got married and had two more. In retrospect, I think she would not choose over 30 years of active parenting. I am really enjoying how close I am with my kids and, while I’m still close with and important to 2 of the older 3, their dad is still their dad.

I agree, but I didn’t have the vacation days. I had just enough for the driving day and I think 5 or 6 days for an anniversary vacation in April.

What shocked me was there was hardly any discernible lightening of the schedule. I expected the week to be pretty light, but I wound up in 8+ hours worth of meetings and deployments every day except Christmas Day. I was given half of Christmas Eve off, but I’d already put in 8 hours by then anyway.

I’m working today and Friday. I do get the first off, which is nice. I’m long past bothering to celebrate the new year.

I always feel like I lose the trail. I barely ever even take lunch. I recently moved to a tech lead role and I barely have time to look at actual code. I still feel like taking time off is hard because I have to keep constant track of everything or I will completely lose the thread of everything that’s going on.

I did get Friday off to drive back home from a working vacation. It felt great. The vacation was stressful as hell because I had family stuff and work stuff intermingled. I literally was in my car fixing an issue with a deployment one minute, boarding an airboat to look at alligators the next, and an hour later I’m in a forgettable meeting in the back seat of the car as someone else drives home.

It wasn’t ideal but the vacation was booked before I had to change jobs and I went from being forced to take that week off to having to cover for 80% of my team. I’m definitely getting too old for this shit, but I enjoy it.

When I was younger — must be close to 40 years ago now — a couple that were close family friends died in a house fire. They were alcoholics. They were terrible examples for a young person and offered dubious life pro-tips. He taught me to drive. They both had a passion for life that I don’t know if I’ve seen before or since. We hung out with them pretty often.

One of them woke up one morning, lit a cigarette, and passed back out. The place burned to the ground. I miss them to this day and wonder how things might’ve gone differently had that not happened. I didn’t cry. I was emotionally numb. I didn’t know how to feel.

For me, there was no moment of catharsis. Not at the funeral or when they were buried. Not driving past the house. There is just a hole. And memories. So many memories, and somehow still vivid in ways that other memories aren’t. Sailing. Camping. Cooking. His stories of growing up in England. Her love of horses. They named their sailboat Dulcinea after the character in Don Quixote. She (Dulcinea) was ugly, but Don thought she was beautiful. The boat was not ugly, but they had a great sense of humor.

I was never able to pack that stuff away in a memory to be opened only on special occasions. They are still present with me now in a lot of ways. Things trigger memories of them all the time. I love that I had the opportunity to know them. I wish I could have known them longer, but my memories of them are all happy. Many of them are hilarious.

We were at a fish ladder once, where fishing is prohibited, and ran into a guy who was fishing there. Rich grabbed the pole right out of his hand and threw it into the river. Fucking legend.

I wish I had actual advice for you. The person who linked to the waves post on Reddit probably has it right — that’s some great advice. I can only say you aren’t alone, and 40 years later I’m still not entirely sure how to process their absence, but I’m used to it. I miss them just like I miss everything about that time of my life. And I still see them everywhere when I look around. Every time I pass a lake with a sailboat. Every time I try to drive a stick shift. Every time I play euchre.

Your relative will probably always be with you. Enjoy their presence every time you remember them. Time will see to the rest.

Be well, friend.

I certainly have the means and the vacation days. But work is really hard to get away from for long. I’ve been (mostly) unplugged since Wednesday and it’s been amazing. Friday was a legit vacation day and I spent it driving half way back home from a trip to Orlando. I’m about to roll out of bed and plug everything in and be back at it again.

I was hired about three months ago because my boss is stretched too thin, but I’m still learning everything so for the time being we are both stretched too thin. Eventually, hopefully we will enable each other to take vacations. I have one scheduled for April regardless. I think we’re going to Mexico, but frankly where we go isn’t as important to me as beautiful surroundings, good food, and leaving the kids at home.

You don’t need dryer vents. You do need two water hookups but you can just add some Y connectors. Also they run on 120v so no electric work (probably, I don’t know the actual current draw).

You do have to clean the lint traps every single time.

I understand you’ve done your research and know what you want. Posted mostly for other readers I guess.