u/canellap

I’ll start by saying I have a therapist and we do address this topic. Sometimes I feel like I’m too far into the guilt mentally to see it clearly, though.

My mother is kind and loving much of the time, and she shows me unconditional love, even if sometimes her passive aggressive side shows. So, I feel this baseline level of guilt over not visiting or calling her. And I can’t explain to outsiders why I don’t want to be around her, people in her life just believe that I’m stand off ish and cold. Negligent, (she is 70, I’m middle aged).

When making everyday decisions for what to do that month or where to travel, how do you deal with the guilt of choosing boundaries?

I have a second floor balcony / I live in a condo near a lot of wild area. I have a bird feeder and I’ve been committed to cleaning up every evening to deter rats. But last week I was busy dealing with a death in the family. And voila, like magic, my balcony is covered in rat droppings almost overnight. Way more than I’ve seen before!?

Context: this happened before but to a far lesser extent, just one rat and a little bit of poop. I got live traps, relocated the rats, it cleared up for MONTHS. I only filled the bird feeder once or twice. I let the poop dry in the sun for a few days and then swept it up. And yes I know getting rid of the bird feeder is a good idea so pls no lectures.

I’m overwhelmed by the amount of poop to clean up this time. It hasn’t been sunny enough to UV disinfect or dry it out naturally, and it’s misty/foggy each morning lately so it gets damp all over again.

How can I clean this up and disinfect?? I don’t want to put dilute bleach all over my patio… it would wash into the gutter and onto the plants below my balcony in a greenbelt. I don’t want to harm birds or the bees that come to my native balcony flowers.

As for getting rid of the rats, I already have a strategy for that. I’m mostly worried about clean up.

Had a right lobeectomy because of a whole lot of large nodules, surgery went smoothly, recovery was smooth, I was feeling really good and even had a spike in energy. Around 16 days after it, I had blood work done and it showed my TSH was off the charts high. My endocrinologist put me on 25mg of levothyroxine right away.

I started taking it, didn’t really know what to expect or if I’d even be able to tell if I was going hypo. That was about a week ago. Now—I feel awful. Every day since the labs I’ve been feeling more and more fatigued. I can’t get warm. Headaches.

I’m supposed to give it 5 more weeks, do follow up labs and they’ll adjust my dose if needed. But WOW do I feel like crap. I am bone weary, just no physical energy at all. And that’s saying a lot bc I’ve had fatigue from RA and fibro for half my life.

All I’ve read are horror stories about how people don’t feel better after taking a thyroid hormone replacement. I can’t be like this… I have a job and I need to work. Is there anything I can do??