u/Real_RobinGoodfellow

So! Just the other day, a v similarly-titled post in here had a lot of comments being like ‘every time I see a post like this it’s always someone whose life is way better than mine and it makes me feel crap’. I’m here to make all yall feel better… and to hear stories of those who have been where I am, and overcome! Cause I am truly, deeply in a bad place.

I’m closing in on the end of my time as a 33 year old. For some reason the leap up to 34 is striking me as particularly alarming. 33 sounds so youthful and sort of fancy-free.. 34 so undeniably mature. And I truly can no longer pretend to be still ‘in my early thirties’.

I won’t go into aaaall the gritty details but I’ve no career to speak of, am currently between houses (sort of homeless), been single five years, desperate to have another child but know my biological clock is ticking and it is realistically unlikely to happen. I’m clinically obese and the least fit I’ve ever been in my life. I have bipolar disorder, which seems mostly to manifest in grinding depression and mixed episodes. I have one child, who is the light of my life, and whom I coparent with my ex.

What I want most of all in the world is a home of my own and a chance at a family life again, and all of my friends are currently buying houses and having babies and the longing I feel for what they have is so strong it aches, and I feel myself pulling away from those friendships. I can’t really relate to my kid’s friends’ parents, who are all older (and also have perfect nuclear families with lovely homes). Nor can I relate to childfree people my age. I feel I don’t fit in anywhere. So, I’m lonely, too.

And I want to have a career. I was a driven, confident, high-achieving kid once upon a time, but so much stuff that happened in life just broke me down, and I feel like this very sad, lost person. Most scary of all, I can’t see myself in the future at all. For so long my life has just been about survival- living in poverty just getting by week to week, never able to think too far ahead. I don’t know where to even begin to go about setting myself up with a career, and often just feel like it’s too late and not even worth trying.

Basically, it’s a kind of rock-bottom… except I’ve been here for years now, and can’t ever seem to get myself out. So, there ya go: someone who truly IS incredibly behind in life for their age. Has anyone else been here, and gotten out of this sort of hole? How did you do it?

Hi all, consulting the lived-experience brains trust as the services Australia website is unclear on this matter.

I’m a single parent pensioner and currently in the process of trying to find a rental/more stable accommodation, but until I do, I have been staying in hotels and airbnbs to plug the gap.

I am wondering whether these arrangements are eligible for rent assistance. Has anyone successfully applied for rent assistance for an ongoing arrangement of this nature? What was required to do so?

Thanks for the help friendos, and good luck out there

Probably more a question that leans towards the ‘beyond’ part of Baby bumps and beyond, but I’m curious to know everyone’s takes, as there’s a lot of fellow millennials in here.

My child’s other parent and I are separated and we coparent, mostly very amicably. Recently though I have discovered through child that they have started watching episodes of The Simpsons together. I am quite uncomfortable with this as, to me, Simpsons- whilst obviously brilliant, at least in the early seasons- is not appropriate for a child.

I just think of all the sexual references, the violence (including domestic violence, with the repeated motif of Homer strangling Bart, that I remember really shocking and disturbing me when I watched the Simpsons myself as a child), and general elements of nihilism and cynicism. I was never allowed to watch it as a child (not that it always stopped me) but, by contrast, most of my peers were big Simpsons fans and I recall everybody quoting it in primary school.

So I ask ye, other parents- at what age would you consider it appropriate to watch Simpsons with your child?

Have any parents secured a nasal flu vaccine (FluMist) for your child in Canberra this season? Where did you go and what was the cost?

Yes I’ve looked online but there’s limited info especially on price. Just looking to get an idea of the ballpark as the quoted prices in articles and per AI encompass quite a range

Basically what it says on the tin. I’m not looking to just walk into some unicorn career, I’m prepared to put in the work and get the qualification, and I don’t mind a bit of hard work and academic rigour. I just want to know that when I come out the other end, I have a clear and stable career path ahead of me, with decent prospects for longevity at a liveable wage.

So far the ones I’ve come up with are all health or allied-health related. Medicine is out, for health reasons (lol).

From the earliest days of this nation-state, building population has been a major political priority. ‘Populate or Perish’ was the cry. Mass immigration has been a tool of nation-building here ever since the colonial project began. And, undeniably, most of us are descended from immigrants. After all, the only ‘true’ inhabitants of this wide brown land are the Indigenous people, who today comprise a tiny percentage of the overall population whole. We all know this.

Importing people to pad our population out is as much a part of the roots of this country as anything. To this day big business, and both major parties, have as their policy a ‘Big Australia’. With birth rates low, getting ever-lower, and a (relatively) small population to begin with, immigration has served as the primary means of building the ‘Big Australia’ dream. And it’s why to this day, Australia takes in many hundreds of thousands of migrants annually, and is amongst the easiest first-world countries of its calibre to migrate to.

It’s easy to see why government, and big business, want a Big Australia: more taxpayers/customers, downwards pressure on wages, a ‘bigger’ economy overall, a more commanding presence on the world stage. But I’m not convinced that, on the ground level, the average Australian *wants* for us to have a massive population. In this I include first and second generation migrants, who oftentimes moved here specifically *because* it was less crowded and polluted than where they came from. I’m not convinced we want to see a Canberra of 1 million people, or a Sydney of ten million. I think collectively we tend to value that our landmass is less-populated than others, and the abundance of room this leaves for the natural world.

But maybe I’m way off the mark. So tell me: do YOU want a ‘Big Australia’?

Sometimes one of the hardest parts of this disease is the sense of arrested development. I’m well aware that my parents play a more outsized role in my support system than is typical for my my same-age peers.

I was reflecting on this particularly as I came across a text from the other week when I was at a wedding, staying with my parents for the weekend, and had an early flight home the next morning. My Dad had texted at around midnight, saying “time to come home, you’ve got a very early start tomorrow”. It was kind of a joke, but also kind of not really. They def worry a lot about anything that might destabilise me, and anything that looks like erratic behaviour on my part.

I thought it was a sweet text, at the time; then had a moment later of shock, imagining any of my friends’ reaction had they received such a message from a parent. I’m 33, and I’ve also been a parent *myself* for a decade now- it’s crazy that my folks still have to look out for me this way, isn’t it?!

I’m of course very, very grateful that they do offer support; I would not have coped without them. But I do feel like an big baby sometimes :/

I had my kiddo almost a decade ago, and most of my friends are just starting to get pregnant/have babies now, meaning I’ve really got the jump on them when it comes to lots of kids media. I am looking forward to sharing my knowledge in a benevolent and wise manner, like a dad giving pointers on golf technique (not my dad, but you get the idea). Also keen to finally get their input on some burning questions, such as: just what *are* the little ragdoll carer things in ‘Bing’? What would we armchair-diagnose Norman from ‘Fireman Sam’ with? And why are the Guinea pigs in ‘Peppa Pig’… like that?

However! I was watching Bluey with my child the other night, this being a comfort-watch for him now he is a little older. As we selected episodes, he teased me a bit about all the ones that make me cry. And it’s true; I am a crier, but I know that so are MANY of my friends, and any seasoned parent knows that ‘Bluey’ is full of sneaky little emotional landmines, moments in an otherwise light and whimsical showscape that catch in your throat and have you wiping your eyes and turning your face away. Now a part of me wants to include a ‘BLUEY EPISODES TO WATCH OUT FOR’ insert in my Welcome Little One greeting cards when I meet my new little besties for the first time. Should I do it?

ETA guys, I thought I’d made it obvious, but this is NO a serious idea I am considering. Just a little joke and fun. But I’m def taking notes on laying it on much thicker next time so as to leave NO doubt

Basically what it says on the tin, I have a bunch of friends I’ve known for between one and three decades, so a long time in all cases. We all started off mostly the same way- but now approaching our middle thirties, their lives are all a lot better than mine. I’ve been really unlucky- abusive relationships, serious health problems, family dysfunction, serious mental illness. I am so happy for everyone else but sometimes the jealousy and bitterness overwhelms. And I know everybody has struggles and my friends have also been through tough times! It’s just that despite it, they’re right now financially well-off and in loving, supportive relationships. Whereas I am poor as shit and very, very single.

The reality of life is some people are simply more blessed than others. But how do you make your own kind of peace/acceptance with that?

Hello, hope this post is within scope for the page. I did try searching for similar posts but didn’t come up with much.

My dog is an almost-eleven year old small crossbreed, poodle with some small terrier (possibly schnauzer). He is very healthy, spritely, and seems generally well, decent appetite etc. I took him to get a checkup and his vaccinations last week. The latter were somewhat overdue and he hadn’t been to a vet in ~18mos, but he’s rarely around other dogs, and as said, perfectly healthy.

The vet did the shots and a checkup of his body, said he was in good condition and very healthy. She asked if I had any concerns and I pointed out a funny black mole he has had on his front paw for some time, growing slowly. Note, she hadn’t noticed it during her examination. She took a needle to it and extracted some cells to look at under a slide, then told me they have ‘two nuclei’ which is a sign they’re malignant. She recommended surgery to remove the lump, extensive testing to determine staging, and possibly chemotherapy down the line.

I am Australian so our human health care system is far less corporatised and profit-driven than in the US. We still have public healthcare. However, veterinary care has been largely taken over by private equity, with two main ‘groups’ now owning the majority of vet clinics in the country, including this one. This context is important because I am both naive to and therefore suspicious of the motivations and practices within a corporate, for-profit system. And I have been concerned at this practice in the past with a propensity for over-servicing.

So now I’m trying to work out what to do. I understand time is of the essence here. But I don’t want to subject my old(er) dog to surgery unless strictly necessary, as I understand surgery itself to contain risks. So- in your opinions, does the procedure the vet used to ‘diagnose’ the melanoma seem legit? And would it be worth getting a second opinion from a different practice about the lump?

Thank you for any support and advice! I’m sounding very clinical and dry here I know, but I have been absolutely beside myself at this situation. This dog is my soul dog, I think of him as my firstborn child (and I *do* have a human kid, too!- so this I think conveys the depth of feeling I hold for the delightful little creature). I always like to do a lot of reading and try understand a situation, but have found reliable information hard to come by on this matter (and much of what’s out there seems contradictory)

I’ve been looking for a rental in Melbourne for months now, but the reality is I just can’t, realistically, afford *anything*.

Single parent, have my kid half the time, so need my own place; and even if I went for a share house, I’d need two rooms, which would end up costing as much as a flat anyway, plus risk exposing my kiddo to potential harm.

I’m looking at spending at least $500 a week. That’s 26 thousand a year. My last job I was on $56k pre tax if I worked full-time (I was part time), realistically I will struggle to find a job paying more than that given my skills and background. I never finished my degree, and have a disability. The places I’m looking to rent at that $500-a-week mark are largely dumps; unloved long-term rental apartments with mould, cracked tiles, disgusting kitchens. Last sold for 200k in 2014 but still raising rent at every opportunity.

It just feels impossible. Obviously someone in my position was never able to live a *luxurious* lifestyle, but even ten years ago a basic level of housing stability was affordable; and if you go much farther back than that, public housing was far more readily available. Albo didn’t live a life of luxury as the public-housed kid of a disabled mother, but he did have stability, security, and a mother who was able to put food on the table cause she wasn’t spending 70% of her income on rent.

Idk it just feels like a person like me really isn’t a viable economic unit any more. It’s making me seriously depressed. But misery enjoys company- there’s solace in not being alone. And I’m sure I can’t be the only one feeling like this. Anyone wanna commiserate??