u/miocchidesu

My father passed in 2019. It was sudden. He complained about having terrible head aches at the beginning of March, we found out a cancer he was cleared for had come back and he was gone by March 27th.

I've been absolutely devastated ever since. I have genuinely never been the same. The damage it has caused me emotionally is unimaginable. I live a normal life, but I'm just so fragile. It doesn't take anything for me to think of him and start crying. If I hear any rock songs from the 90s' or even before (A genre we both shared.) I almost always start bawling. I love these songs.. but now they're painful to hear.

It's been 7 years. It hasn't gotten any easier for me. I'm in so much emotional pain sometimes I don't know if I can bare it.

I feel bad for my spouse, who always has to deal with it. He does so with compassion, and hasn't ever said anything negative to me about it. But I know the way I let this affect me has to be draining

I was in therapy for a few years. I don't have access to it anymore. When he died I dove into self help heavily, I guess it didn't help. In general, I am more or less always engaging in self help, but again not sure if it ever really helps me. Maybe I just have more of an understanding.. but in the end I feel so at the mercy of my own emotions.

I'm scared that it will always be this way. It feels impossible to cope. It's impossible for me to understand what happened and let it go.

Does anyone have any advice for me?

Not sure how else to title this. I just want to vent a little bit and see if anyone else can relate. I find the rituals of wishing people happy mothers day, happy birthday, happy fathers day, ect, extremely stressful and taxing.

I have always felt this way and thanks to my mom making a huge deal about me not calling her for mother's day, I realize I think i genuinely fucking hate it. I told her weeks ago that I would come over, make us something for an afternoon tea and we would celebrate mother's day on monday because I knew I would be exhausted on sunday. To be honest i wasnt even thinking about mother's day on sunday because I was cleaning and I get a passive text from her talking about "happy mother's day to me.." I sent her gifs and a text saying sorry I had just woke up and I loved her, ect. Then on monday before I head over there she tells me how she was so sad I didnt call her and she waited for me to call her all day.

This caused a huge argument that we miraculously came back from, but it just has me so frustrated. Like I really cant understand. I don't give a shit about people wishing me anything, happy birthday, merry Christmas, ect. And I would even go as far as to say, it bothers me a little bit when I get these texts because then theres pressure to respond. So essentially I go through these holidays feeling a certain amount of pressure to send off quick messages to the people im closest to, and like I'm in a social contract, I often do. For mother's day I guess I just checked out though because I even forgot to text my best friend happy mother's day.

Its frustrating because I feel like it shouldnt matter but I know to some people it does. I guess I resent thst I am unable to opt out without it being a personal attack. I'm just exhausted and anxious.

We have a lot of cats. Whatever number you think is too many, is the amount that we have. We take really good care of them together. I've always considered myself a zoo manager only for cats. I am very much dedicated to their health, diet, quality of life, a clean living space and immaculate litter boxes. We have never had an issue with our house smelling "like cats" and people who come visit are amazed by this. We give them everything and work very hard to provide that for them.

We started out with 2 cats like any normal couple would, 10 years ago. In March of 2019 my father passed away to an aggressive cancer. I was there for all of it and it really did a number on me. 2019 was, in a lot of ways, very much a blur for me in the after math. That June, we rescued a cat that was starving and suffering on a camping trip that turned out to be pregnant. The babies needed a lot of extra help and attention to survive because the mom couldn't produce enough milk, so i ended up basically sleeping in my closet losing sleep to help care for these neonatals to keep them alive. (There was an additional complication that made me have to keep so close) We tried looking for homes but had a bad experience and ended up keeping the litter. Ultimately I was too attached and couldn't let them go.(but we also really couldn't find homes we trusted.)

Over time we picked up a few more for one reason or another.

I love them. They are my entire world and have very much become a part of my identity. I really became a home-body since my dad died. The bond I have with them and level of comfort they bring me is indescribable. My husband loves them too. He was the reason we adopted some of the ones after the litter, and has always welcomed the ones I wanted whole heartedly. He is the best cat dad ever. He plays with them and cuddles and everything.

The last hand full of years his allergies have been terrible. It started out it would just be seasonal and then the last few years its pretty frequent if not constant.. He cant breath through his nose a lot of the time and until recently was abusing over the counter inhalers for relief. Hes also taking a lot of the allergy meds which or course dont help anymore, but enough to where he still takes them since they're better than nothing I guess.

People have of course told us its the cats, and us being in denial we thought it couldn't be that. I genuinely thought it had to be a dust allergy paired with other things.

Anyway he started Curex earlier this year. The allergy drops. Even his online doc dismissed it was cats in their initial video call. Well they had him go get tested and of course, cats are at the absolute top of the charts. Following dust, dogs, pollen, and a ton of other things. It was a lot to be honest, but cats is level IV abnormally high.

Its been 24 hours that I've sat with this information. I spent the first 24 obsessively trying to figure out what we can do to combat it. I bought some solution to whipe them down with to kill the proteins that cause flare ups, bought some neutralizing spray, hunted down a dehumidifier on market place to help fight the dust mites or what ever (we live in fl btw so tbh we needed one anyway) among other things. We already have 2 rabbit airs and a small hepa filter in the bathroom, and I can tighten up on my deep cleaning for dusting the walls/ceiling/ect. I mop once a week but could definitely do it twice.

On hour 25, as I was scooping their boxes,  I had a break down. I genuinely feel so fucked up and sick to my stomach.

Right now, he is being so great and supportive. He's reassuring me that we are keeping our cats. But I can't feel the comfort. If those drops don't do their job, and our aggressive interventions don't help, that leaves us with a house that is robbing my husband of his health and quality of life. I know he can't live like this for 20+ years.

The idea of re homing my cats is destroying me. I know first hand how hard it is to find good, solid forever homes. We picked up our other cats from fostering(mostly through a rescue)and failing. I really feel like I can't breathe when I think about them going to a place that ends up hurting them or abusing or abandoning. I am even going to go as far as saying it's bringing up traumas of grief from losing my dad. Not to mention at this point I always believed i would have cats in my life until I died. I am really so lost and hurt. I dont know what to do and I don't even know why I'm here posting this. I guess I just need to get it out and hoping someone will tell me something that I can make sense of.

We have a lot of cats. Whatever number you think is too many, is the amount that we have. We take really good care of them together. I've always considered myself a zoo manager only for cats. I am very much dedicated to their health, diet, quality of life, a clean living space and immaculate litter boxes. We have never had an issue with our house smelling "like cats" and people who come visit are amazed by this. We give them everything and work very hard to provide that for them.

We started out with 2 cats like any normal couple would, 10 years ago. In March of 2019 my father passed away to an aggressive cancer. I was there for all of it and it really did a number on me. 2019 was, in a lot of ways, very much a blur for me in the after math. That June, we rescued a cat that was starving and suffering on a camping trip that turned out to be pregnant. The babies needed a lot of extra help and attention to survive because the mom couldn't produce enough milk, so i ended up basically sleeping in my closet losing sleep to help care for these neonatals to keep them alive. (There was an additional complication that made me have to keep so close) We tried looking for homes but had a bad experience and ended up keeping the litter. Ultimately I was too attached and couldn't let them go.(but we also really couldn't find homes we trusted.)

Over time we picked up a few more for one reason or another.

I love them. They are my entire world and have very much become a part of my identity. I really became a home-body since my dad died. The bond I have with them and level of comfort they bring me is indescribable. My husband loves them too. He was the reason we adopted some of the ones after the litter, and has always welcomed the ones I wanted whole heartedly. He is the best cat dad ever. He plays with them and cuddles and everything.

The last hand full of years his allergies have been terrible. It started out it would just be seasonal and then the last few years its pretty frequent if not constant.. He cant breath through his nose a lot of the time and until recently was abusing over the counter inhalers for relief. Hes also taking a lot of the allergy meds which or course dont help anymore, but enough to where he still takes them since they're better than nothing I guess.

People have of course told us its the cats, and us being in denial we thought it couldn't be that. I genuinely thought it had to be a dust allergy paired with other things.

Anyway he started Curex earlier this year. The allergy drops. Even his online doc dismissed it was cats in their initial video call. Well they had him go get tested and of course, cats are at the absolute top of the charts. Following dust, dogs, pollen, and a ton of other things. It was a lot to be honest, but cats is level IV abnormally high.

Its been 24 hours that I've sat with this information. I spent the first 24 obsessively trying to figure out what we can do to combat it. I bought some solution to whipe them down with to kill the proteins that cause flare ups, bought some neutralizing spray, hunted down a dehumidifier on market place to help fight the dust mites or what ever (we live in fl btw so tbh we needed one anyway) among other things. We already have 2 rabbit airs and a small hepa filter in the bathroom, and I can tighten up on my deep cleaning for dusting the walls/ceiling/ect. I mop once a week but could definitely do it twice.

On hour 25, as I was scooping their boxes,  I had a break down. I genuinely feel so fucked up and sick to my stomach.

Right now, he is being so great and supportive. He's reassuring me that we are keeping our cats. But I can't feel the comfort. If those drops don't do their job, and our aggressive interventions don't help, that leaves us with a house that is robbing my husband of his health and quality of life. I know he can't live like this for 20+ years.

The idea of re homing my cats is destroying me. I know first hand how hard it is to find good, solid forever homes. We picked up our other cats from fostering(mostly through a rescue)and failing. I really feel like I can't breathe when I think about them going to a place that ends up hurting them or abusing or abandoning. I am even going to go as far as saying it's bringing up traumas of grief from losing my dad. Not to mention at this point I always believed i would have cats in my life until I died. I am really so lost and hurt. I dont know what to do and I don't even know why I'm here posting this. I guess I just need to get it out and hoping someone will tell me something that I can make sense of.