We weren't super close because my grandparents lived halfway across the country but she was always really sweet to me and spoiled me (I was her only biological grandkid and her other is an uncle's stepchild from his wife's previous marriage and was already an adult when they joined the family) but it still felt like whiplash even though she'd been declining a lot for years leading up to it

My dad's been some severity of alcoholic my whole life and probably years before I was born (my mom pretty much looked the other way until it got really ugly and by then it was pretty much too late imo since he doesn't really want to change) but my whole adolescence and adulthood so far has had "try to keep them both afloat" as a major part to the detriment of my own livelihood and social life and being an only child that's had to basically parent your parents since before you were an adult and is only getting harder as they get older and need more help and you're all struggling financially has gotten extremely stressful and he's gotten a lot worse and it just a nasty miserable doddering old piece of shit now and I can't stand to be around him anymore than I absolutely have to

My whole life right now is pretty much just keep myself afloat, do almost every household task for my parents so their place doesn't turn into a health code violation, take care of my cats, and go to the gym

I don't have irl friends anymore, I don't go to concerts or movies or sports games, I don't really have hobbies other than reading and posting here and listening to music. Idk, I've put so much of my stress and resentment into just masochistic exercise since it's been the only way I've found personally to quit drinking, but I'm running into the thought of "hey even if I achieved my ideal body, I'm still a lonely weirdo loser, so what am I even doing?" Having shredded legs doesn't make you happy in itself when you don't really have any people in your life than aren't there out of obligation or financial necessity and idk what to do about that

(sorry got kinda ranty venting there)

RIP bug

🪲

I had a lizard as a pet as a kid and a little terrarium set up for raising crickets to feed him, and one time a cricket kept managing to escape, and I kept catching it again hearing it chirping under some furniture or something, and eventually named it Houdini and just gave it its own little bug penthouse and kept it as a pet until it died of old age and I cried for days about it

Granted, I was and am a damn weiner kid , but having strong empathy and feeling grief acutely isn't a weakness imo if you can use those feelings towards helping others and improving yourself and your situation.

I don't know what your situation is like other than the dad stuff and know it sounds like a naive and shitty "um sweety have u tried yoga???" ass thing, but (strenuous) exercise really has helped me a lot lately

I probably would have lost my shit in some ugly ways with my dad on multiple occasions if I weren't swimming in endorphins half the time and too tired to be as pissed off at him as some of the incidents probably deserve

If you ever want exercise advice feel free to ask, I'm not a licensed anything or serious athlete but I am a big nerd and think I'm pretty knowledgeable about workout stuff

Exercise, caffeine, nicotine, kratom and micro (and sometimes macro) doses of psilocybin have pretty much been keeping me on my feet for a month and change at this point and I've been to the gym at least once a day since I got a new membership in early November and has (mostly) kept me away from alcohol

If you want any advice on supplements and nootropic stuff too, ask away

Hope things improve for you, it really sounds like you deserve for them too and you seem like a sweet person to me and I hope you find a better grief that is easier on you.

💜