u/Holiday_Preference47 — reddlx

Possibly enmeshed? Graduation situation

Me (F24) and my husband (M26) have been married for two years. We married early because my dad was choosing medically assisted death and we wanted him at our wedding before he was gone. His family has never really liked us, and at one point my husband used to tell me things like, “they’re not like that,” and “they like you I don’t know why you’re creating problems.”

He had an eye opener when during my dad’s funeral his mom said that she needed him more than I did at that time, and since then he’s heavily distanced from his family.

He graduated from university this Sunday, and invited his family, me, and his boss and their family (we’re really close with them). We let them know while the ceremony starts at 6, seating starts at 4:30, the drive can be up to 2 hours to we suggest they leave at 2 and maybe we can use the extra time for pictures.

It’s a big event full of many people so seating does in fact matter. My BIL said to that, “I’m not leaving at 2 for an event at 6.” Sure, fine, we said that’s ok we’re leaving early because graduates need to get there early anyways.

We left on time, took pictures, got in line. By the time they got there I had saved seats and my husband was with the graduates trying to get things going. I get asked if he’s wearing his pin.

For context his mom got him a pin to put on his tassel, it has a picture of his deceased dad. His dad passed away 4 years ago. We forgot it at home, it wasn’t like an oversight or anything my cat had kidney failure and we were rushing the morning of Sunday to get her to the vet before we left. She got hospitalized, we didn’t even want to go to the grad at that point, but still did. Whatever he could grab that he knew he would need (cap and gown) is all he really grabbed and we left.

So I told them we must have forgotten with everything going on this morning. Both MIL and BIL start going about how unappreciative he is of gifts, how that was his dad and he doesn’t care, yada yada. I firmly say “he forgot, there’s no reason to make a big deal out of it, we are dealing with a possibly dying cat.”

BIL gives me a look and says “you don’t need to say that,” and starts patting MIL shoulder and rubbing her knee and saying it’s okay to her quietly.

Ceremony starts and MIL says she bought him stuff to wear around his neck and asks when he can come grab it. I message him and he says he’s in the grad lineup and he can’t really leave unless he’s wanting to go very last. I let them know and BIL gives me another weird and mean look.

BIL later asks me how my cat is doing, I said I don’t really know. He tells me I shouldn’t be spending so much time and money on a cat and just to put that one down and buy another one. I give him another very firm answer of “that’s a life and that’s my cat.”

Last Sunday we went for his honours ceremony (just me and him), and we invited his friends for dinner afterwards because they’re his closest friends. Someone from the medal ceremony recognizes me and asks me how he’s doing and asks if he remembered his medal. His family did not know about this because he only had one ticket to the medal ceremony and he wanted to prioritize me, and he knew they would freak out if they found out.

Freak out they did, BIL started whining about “I see how it is,” and “I see my place in his life.” I said he had one ticket, and in his wife. “No like his brother isn’t important.”

Mid ceremony he asks if I brought a camera and I say no, I’m using my phone. He asks why I would forget that, and I say well because of my cat but regardless it didn’t matter because professional pictures are being taken of him and he doesn’t like pictures anyway. I thought that was the end of that (we will get back to that later)

Then MIL and his grandparents get up after he gets his diploma and say they’re in physical pain so they’ll wait for him in the car. I say okay. BIL asks me if I have plans afterwards, I tell him “not really but we haven’t eaten even a little today so we might be grabbing food, if we have time maybe a restaurant.” Said nothing about us not being able to take pictures, or them not being allowed to join us.

They leave before the ceremony even ends. It’s 8PM when they leave, 8:30 I message to let them know an usherer just told us the ceremony ends at 9. They’ve already left, but that was my attempt at letting them know they have to wait a little longer.

When the ceremony is done we just grab McDonald’s on the way home, we get home around 11 because of the drive. The second we get home MIL snaps at my husband and says “you hurt us, we aren’t important to you and we know that. You went to dinner without us, you don’t want pictures with us, and you threw away your dad pin. The least you could have done is say hi!”

BIL is gone, it’s just me and my husband and MIL. he tries to explain he has no idea what that’s all about because he hasn’t even had a chance to talk to anyone today, she keeps cutting him off so I tell her “you wanted him to say hi to you in midst of over 10 thousand people while he was graduating?”

She snaps at me, calls me a smartass says I ruined the whole mood and snapped at BIL all day, yada yada. We fight, when she realizes she has no basis for what she’s saying but I do she starts crying and saying “I’m grieving and you’re hurting me!”, and “you wouldn’t know what I’m going through” (my dad died less than a year ago so I snap and have to leave)

An hour later I go down to apologize for yelling and calling her self centred. She apologizes for personal insults and explains she was grieving and BIL was feeding her with information. We don’t believe her because she takes no accountability, not really, just blames it on BIL. But hey it’s progress, at least we aren’t fighting.

The next day my husbands best friend shares messages he’s received from BIL where BIL says my husband is a douche and didn’t care about family.

Says:

And they made plans after without telling any of our family or inviting us

For example I found out he invited yall to dinner last week for the medal ceremony and didn't invite any of us or anything

My mom bought him balloons got him a special custom pin with my dad on it for him to wear and he didn't even take it with him

He wasn't even willing to take pictures with me or anything

He always puts friends over family and blames everything on us

(And more, it’s a lot)

So now to an extent we believe MIL, but the thing is this behaviour from SIL and BIL always stem from MIL initially being upset.

SIL is in another state and pregnant so we couldn’t really include her, but the other day when MIL asked me to fix her IPad I saw suspicious messages from her about how I must have purposely told my husband that we’d get there early so only I got pictures with him, and MIL agreed.

I’m just so done with them, this happens regularly over smaller stuff but I thought they could put their feelings aside for a big day such as a graduation. Instead they made it so incredibly shitty for them and the worst part is if he were still in the enmeshment then they would have made me see like the villain but because he’s not he is now. He would technically be happier and more peaceful in it.

I don’t even know if this is truly an enmeshment but a pattern I’ve seen is MIL gets upset at one of the kids and all the kids get upset at that one of the kids and often make up lies to have more “grounds” for being upset. It’s usually my husband, sometimes it’s SIL, rarely it’s BIL.

And spouses get dragged in always. Unless it’s BIL, because he only has a girlfriend I guess.

The worst part is my husband is the youngest, the rest are all pushing thirty or over thirty. You’d expect less childish behaviour from them.

Recently we’ve also noticed that all three of them come up with stories that don’t exist, and if you play into them they add on to it. So for example MIL said a month ago, that when my husband was down in his room he was telling her everyone he invited (but her) and then walked away and she had to beg to be invited. I was standing right there in the hallway. He asked if she wanted to go because he wanted her there, and she said yes.

I played along with it and said he actually was going to ask you with a golden ticket and flowers which is why he left, to go grab them. And she started crying and saying she wish she knew, and that he just seemed like he wasn’t going to invite her at all. And she’s glad he still sees her as someone he gives flowers to and it’s not just me.

I don’t get why she played along because I added on to her lie, surely she knew I lied. Didn’t seem like it though.

Anyways, would love to hear thoughts and opinions since everyone around us is making us the bad guy.

reddit.com

u/Holiday_Preference47 — 3 days ago

▲ 46 r/bengalcats

PKD diagnosis in bengal

My bengal cat, noodle (6.5 years) got diagnosed with PKD four days ago. It is devastating to know she is suffering, however they did mention it was acute.

I’ve only had her for a little over 3 years, and before she was with me she was with someone that exploited her for lots of kittens, and she was giving her away because “she’s sickly.” She was spayed 2 weeks before I got her, I sort of knew what I was in for but also she behaved just fine with me and it would have never occurred to me she was sick. She doesn’t hide very often, she uses the litter box just fine, she’s super playful and full of energy, huge appetite, and drinks a lot of water.

Since I’ve gotten her I’ve taken her to the vet (twice) a year for wellness checkups, her bloodwork has always come back normal, everything was seemingly fine. We don’t know what caused the flair up, but roughly a week ago I noticed her pupils were always dilated, which felt off to me but otherwise I mean she was normal. A day and a half before we took her to the vet she cried out and vomited bile (first time ever since we’ve had her), and she stopped eating. I was very worried, but we decided to wait it out a little because we had just moved countries and were paying off all the expenses that come with that.

Took her to the vet, they said she looks healthy overall, maybe it’s pancreatitis so we will do lab work, and otherwise it may just be gas or nausea and she was given SubQ fluids. Labs came back and she was in the emergency zone for kidney failure. She was hospitalized for three days, doctor said they need to find the cause as it can be an infection, a birth defect or cancer. They did an ultrasound and saw cysts, so she was diagnosed with PKD. The vet explained that her left kidney did feel oddly bigger than it should be and that explained it, and the left kidney had shut off and the hospitalization will be to hopefully jump start it, otherwise they’d need to remove it. Her labs improved within a day, so they told us it was definitely acute. She’s been put on a special diet, will need phosphorus management medication.

She’s on a couple of medications for pain management and they think she might have a UTI so she’s on antibiotics. Overall I’m revealed she’s not in any danger zone now, but I’m also constantly stressed that I’ll miss the warning signs the next time. I keep calling the vet to ask if she’s okay because she’s doing this, and that, measuring the size of her pees. She has a final checkup Monday and maybe like can go back to normal (somewhat).

The vet told us that there are clear warning signs of kidney or urinary issues, that being:
- drinking more water than the average cat
- huge pees and very very small pees

These are ones that we missed. The others were obviously, lethargy, lack of appetite, vomiting, dry noses, and diarrhea.

She said that if any of these are relevant it’s important to do a full exam for a cat (ultrasound, xray, bloodwork, etc) to see if they can catch it early or before episodes. I figure, this information might be useful to someone.

We did spend about $6K on her treatment, and that’s on the lower side of the estimate as if she were doing worse and responding worse, they’d have to do more.

Her new diet + meds + supplements are around $200 a month now. But I was told it shouldn’t affect her quality of life, which is important.

Doing my own research it seems PKD is generally rarer in well-bred bengals but I have no real whereabouts about my cats breeding. Symptoms show between age 3-10 and kidney disease or issues is a leading death in cats.

Prior to me having her, noodles diet consisted of Costco big bags for $20 dry food, after getting her we tried to switch her to wet food, we tried different types, did 80/20 and gradually more wet food in dry to get her to eat it and she would just go on hunger strikes. We don’t know what changed but the vet got her on wet food on the hospitalization and supposedly it’s enough that if we don’t see her drinking water as often it’s okay? Regardless I still make it into kitty soups so she’s getting enough water.

I don’t know how to stop worrying about her, I am terrible when it comes to overthinking. I’ve taken her to the vet over hairballs, not playing for a day, etc. I thought I was doing everything I could to prevent anything bad with supplements, a decent brand of dry food (N&D), multiple water fountains, lots of playtime and monthly grooming, I just feel so defeated. She’s my first cat ever, but before that I pet sit an ex-friend’s cat who passed away from kidney failure under my watch. She was a very symptomatic cat, I kept called and begging the friend to let me take her to the vet and was told no. After about three days I said fuck it, took her myself and paid out of pocket, they said she was a lost cause and to put her down. I called the friend and they said they can’t afford it and to just let her die, but I couldn’t see her suffer so I asked if it was okay if I paid to euthanize her and I was told yes. I got pet insurance when I first got noodle because I never wanted to be in a situation where I had to choose between money and care, and I tried so so hard to prevent it.

Now I’m broke, can’t even go to work because the vet told me she needs in person monitoring until she’s fully back to normal. Her insurance got out of paying the 80% saying that it was genetic and I should have known so it’s pre-existing.

I would do anything to keep her happy and alive, I wish she had ways of just telling me, “I feel fine,” so that I could feel some relief.

Everyone tells me I’m on high alert because my father just passed away from kidney failure less than a year ago, but I really think she’s like idk, my cat. I wasn’t sure what flair to put on this, so I just put help.

I hope everyone’s kitties feel safe and stay healthy, and my hope is maybe you got something out of this post (hopefully) to not blame yourself if your kitty is sick (terrible spiral), and maybe help some people that are already on the edge of “is my kitty sick?” With symptoms.

u/Holiday_Preference47 — 6 days ago

▲ 8 r/RenalCats

PKD diagnosis

I don’t really know if I want advice or support. For context I got my bengal cat from someone who was going to put her down because she was sickly. That someone was a breeder, and they put an ad up on Kijiji saying she’s $600 and if no one wants her she will be put down as they can’t care for her. I got her in 2022, she was 4 years old.

Tried to get her on wet diets, impossible, she went on food strikes. She has always been incredibly small and has had terrible diets. She had yearly wellness checkups at the vets. I tried to get her into brushing, nail clipping, anything, but her previous owner never used to do anything so she simply did not was to try it.

Over the short time I’ve had her, she’s been a pretty energetic and loving cat overall. Shes had accidents, pretty litter always pointed towards kidney problems but blood tests never did.

March of this year we moved to the US from Canada, and she’s been relatively fine. 5 days ago she started peeing in the corner of my room, I figured she was getting stressed out by the other cat whom we’re trying to introduce her to through a mesh door. Then next day, she eats, 30 mins later cries and throws up and her appetite is gone. After 12 hours of waiting to see if she will eat I took her to the vet. The vet told me it’s probably nothing serious, but they’d like to do blood tests to make sure it’s not serious and $2000 later we are told she has PKD.

For the last few days she’s been at the vet for around 8~ hours getting IV, pain meds, anti nausea, etc. Tomorrow is her last day. Supposedly she’s had good improvement and the numbers and such we were given was BUN 104 to 62, creatinine 16.8 to 4.7, and SDMA 45 to 16. I don’t know what this means but vet says it’s positive so I’ll take it as positive.

Or try to at least, I was told it’s acute and something might have caused this and now I’m thinking of all the possible things I could have done to prevent this. My brain is thinking of how to make sure it never happens again, somehow (god bless the vets) they managed to get her on wet food.

I don’t know what to expect for next steps, I feel like the vet is telling me I’m overreacting but I’ve only heard bad things about PKD, that and with my fathers death from kidney failure not even a year ago just has me sick to my stomach.

What can I do to prevent episodes? What should I avoid? Any tips would be appreciated, any support or advice or anything. I’m thinking so negatively and I need help getting out of my head, I need to know what to expect.

u/Holiday_Preference47 — 8 days ago