We're looking at middle ocoee in TN. It both my girlfriend's and my first time going rafting. We found a guide that says they take beginners, but the rapids are most III and occassionally IV at a couple points of the trip. We're generally healthy, and fair swimmers.
Is it a bad idea for us to take this rapid as our first trip?
My partner’s mother is 66 and has had serious mental health and behavioral issues for as long as I’ve known her. Her relationship with my partner has been abusive in many ways: manipulation, guilt, gaslighting, boundary violations, threats, and using emotional crises to control people.
When my partner and I first got together, one of my biggest concerns was helping her recognize how toxic and damaging the relationship with her mother was. Since then, her father has passed away, and her mother’s mental health and ability to function seem to have declined even further.
Recently, my partner’s cat died while in her mother’s care, and this has become the breaking point.
This cat was not just a pet. My partner is in recovery from addiction, and this cat was a major emotional anchor for her. I helped her adopt the cat when she was struggling, and the bond they formed became part of her stability and routine. The cat gave her something safe to love, care for, and come home to. She was also registered as an emotional support animal.
After my partner’s father died, her mother pressured her into leaving the cat with her, saying she needed the cat because she was lonely and grieving. I was against this because her mother has a history of poor judgment with animals and difficulty respecting other people’s needs or boundaries. But my partner felt guilty, and her mother used her grief and loneliness to convince her.
We repeatedly told her not to let the cat outside unsupervised. There is an alligator in the retention pond behind the house, the neighborhood is busy, some neighbors dislike cats, and one neighbor had made a comment that sounded like a warning or threat about the cat being outside.
Yesterday, my partner’s mother called hysterically saying the cat was dead. I drove over to the house and found the cat deceased in the driveway with a head injury. I called law enforcement because it did not look like a normal accident to me. The officers also did not think it clearly looked like the cat was hit by a car, but there was not enough evidence to prove a person harmed her.
During the investigation, we learned that her mother had left the cat outside unsupervised while she went to the grocery store. We still do not know exactly what happened. It could have been a person, an animal, a vehicle, or even an accident involving her mother returning home. But either way, the cat died after she ignored repeated warnings not to leave her outside.
This has devastated my partner. She is grieving the cat, dealing with guilt over letting her mother keep her, and also trying to protect her sobriety while processing that her mother’s choices contributed to the death of something deeply important to her recovery.
The bigger issue is that this feels like the climax of a long pattern. Her mother often acts as if she knows what is best for everyone, but her decisions are usually based on what makes her feel better in the moment, not what is safe, healthy, or fair for other people or animals. She struggles to see other people’s needs as real when they conflict with her own.
Since her husband died, she has also declined in practical ways. She lost her job, cannot keep up with the house, is emotionally attached to everything in it, but also knows she likely needs to sell it. She seems lonely, overwhelmed, and increasingly unable to manage her life independently. The house is starting to deal with a roach infestation, she can't sell the house on her own, she can't bring her self to sell all the stuff in it. She has trouble making decisions, and has a seemingly worsening paranoia/anxiety disorder.
After the cat’s death, she has finally admitted that she needs help, though lord knows in practice if shes just trying to return to normality after she knows she did something wrong, or if she geniunely believes she needs help. The problem is that I do not feel safe living with her, and I do not think my partner should be forced back into a caretaker role for someone who has abused and manipulated her. We are willing to help from a distance or spend limited time with her, but living with her is not an option.
This is not just normal difficult family drama. She has threatened to lie to police before, including claiming I stole a car she had let me borrow while mine was in the shop, just to gain leverage during an argument involving my partner. That kind of behavior makes it unsafe to be dependent on her, live with her, or put ourselves in situations where she can weaponize accusations or the police.
So I’m trying to figure out what options exist when an aging parent may be mentally declining and unable to manage independently, but the adult child has been abused by that parent and cannot safely become their caregiver.
What resources should we be looking into? And, before anyone states that we should try setting boundaries, the mother doesn't believe in boundaries; She is an absolutely reactionary, if you tell her not to do something, she wants to do it even more....