u/naivemelody9

Hello!

I’m hoping someone might be able to help me with some info about mental competency and how and when family is informed in certain kinds of situations, or when family is able to ask a doctor for medical information or share information about a loved one. I know in general HIPAA prevents this, but I believe there may be some situations where it is permitted?

In general, is a spouse allowed access to medical information for their spouse? I would assume not because there is always a chance of abuse or other situations where sharing this info with a spouse might be dangerous, but I’m not certain.

I’m also wondering, if a doctor determines their patient may not be mentally competent to handle their own medical care if and when they would alert a family member, how it is determined who that family member is, and what that might look like?

Additionally, if a family member has information about a patient’s medical or mental status or information about their alcohol or drug use or prescription abuse that they do not think the patient is sharing with their doctor or symptoms they may be hiding or good at covering up with medical professionals, if and how they could share that with their family members doctor?

Any other related info that may be helpful would also be appreciated.

Thank you!

I am not asking for medical advice.

Hi all!

Thank you for taking the time to read my post!

My partner and I are planning to visit Thursday, October 8th - Wednesday, October 14th. We're still forming the general plan of our trip before we start figuring out the details and booking things, so I'd love some feedback on what we're thinking and any changes we may want to make before we sort out exactly where we want to stay and what we want to visit!

Our potential plan is:

• Arrive in Dublin on the morning of Thursday, Oct 8
• Stay in Dublin 1 night, leaving on Friday, Oct 9
• Arrive in Galway late morning or afternoon of Friday, Oct 9
• Stay in Galway 2 nights, leaving on Sunday, Oct 11
• Stop at Cliffs of Moher?
• Continue on to Dingle Peninsula
• Arrive in Dingle Peninsula evening of Sunday, Oct 11
• Stay in Dingle Peninsula 2 nights leaving on Tuesday, Oct 13
• Arrive at Killarney National Park late morning or early afternoon of Tuesday, Oct 13
• Continue on to Dublin
• Arrive in Dublin evening of Tuesday, Oct 13
• Stay 1 night in Dublin
• Fly home on Wednesday, Oct 14

Thanks again for any input or suggestions!

I’m curious how others came to decide to quit. Was it one event, a realization, a gradual decision, or something else?

Thanks for sharing.

Please be kind. I grew up learning to be a people pleaser because of my family dynamics and I have a very hard time saying no. I’m trying to be firmer in my boundaries but without much experience saying no to things I often don’t know how to do it or what to say.

My grandmother passed away last year and left me (36f), my sister (34f), and my parents (69f and 68m), some money in her will. She traveled a lot, and my parents want to take a week or two family trip to Italy with some of the money we inherited. When my parents first brought it up I already knew I would never want to take a trip that long with them, especially to somewhere I can’t run home from easily. At the time I just sort of said “maybe!” because it was a vague idea then.

I spoke with my dad yesterday and it sounds like he’s trying to start firming up the plans, so I need to start firming up how I’m going to say no.

In many ways I’m fortunate to have had the life I did growing up, as I always had my needs met and lived a pretty comfortable life. My parents never yelled at me or abused me. However, my dad was never very interested in me or my sister, my mom was always weirdly flaky and inconsistent, and they’ve always been extremely passive aggressive with each other and my sister and I learned to play the peace keeper role and to be happy and pleasant all the time to keep things pleasant in the house. As an adult I learned my mom was addicted to prescription pills most of my life and that’s what caused a lot of her inconsistency and instability in life. She’s now gotten back into abusing alcohol after her doctors have begun weaning her off her pills, and my dad resents her more than ever but also enables her and does not confront her about her issues. She clearly has been having memory issues but neither of them is doing anything to try to figure out what’s going on or address it.

We’ve had only one or two frank and direct conversations as a family about our problematic family dynamics, only because I made the conversations happen and ending with my mom still fully in denial and my dad still not stepping up to help my mom or try to change or fix anything. It really feels like they don’t like each other at all and they still don’t seem to ask about or be interested in me beyond the same role I had growing up to make them happy and keep the peace. It makes me incredible anxious to be around them. I only go to visit them (they moved 7 hours away) once or twice a year and I get so anxious the weeks leading up to the visit.

I’ve done a lot of work to put up some boundaries, to not feel as responsible for “fixing” them or helping them when they won’t accept it or change, and trying to speak my mind and bring up difficult but necessary conversations. However, I’m still learning and still struggle with it all.

Anyway, I now am in a position where I need to tell them I don’t want to go on this trip, but I don’t feel like I can tell them it’s because they make me so anxious that I wouldn’t be able to enjoy myself. Is there any way to say this in a less harsh way or have some sort of reasonable excuse? I know they’re going to be so upset if I say no. I feel like I need to give them a reason but I don’t want to be too honest and direct that I really hurt and upset them. Or should I be? Part of me feels like maybe it’s a good opportunity to try to force a conversation about our issues, but I also don’t want that responsibility to lay completely on me when probably nothing will come from it like in past conversations. Just looking for some advice and guidance.

TLDR: spending time with my parents makes me incredibly anxious, they want to go on a long trip overseas and I am having trouble figuring out how to say no as a chronic people pleaser and the peace keeper in our family.

I have a tattoo I’m interested in getting covered up! I only have black and gray ink tattoos. Any local suggestions for an artist to help?

I am so confused every time I walk in there and they haven’t sold out and aren’t packed. I think they have the best pizza I’ve ever had! Also just such nice people and a really fun spot. I just played a couple rounds of super smash bros while waiting for a fresh delicious pizza to come out. What more could you want?

Anyway, go eat at Inside Out pizza on Passyunk if you haven’t already. You’ll be glad you did.

My partner and I know we’d like to buy a house together and some point and know a lot of what we’d be looking for, but we feel sort of stuck getting started? We don’t even know if we’re really in a financial situation to be able to buy a house in modern day America, and if we are, what we could afford. Not knowing what we could afford we don’t know where we could afford to live and not knowing where we could afford to live keeps tripping us up because advice we’ve heard from friends and family usually says to start by finding a realtor who works in the area you’d like to move to.

Is there someone we could talk to or some sort of guidance on how to get started with the very basics? Like something or someone to tell us if we should even start seriously looking and what we could afford? We really just don’t even know how to seriously get started on this and so far friends and family haven’t provided much truly helpful guidance.

Thanks in advance for any advice or suggestions!

Hi everyone! Just joined the group and it’s my first time posting. I’m looking for a little advice on how to handle this.

A little background - my mom was, apparently, a very serious alcoholic before I was born but was able to get sober. I believe she was truly sober for a while but at some point got prescribed some pain meds and eventually ended up on Xanax, oxy, and adderall for decades. I didn’t realize fully what was going on until about 5 years or so ago when I was 30-31 as her and my dad did their best to hide her addiction and mental issues from me throughout my life and yknow, you just sort of grow up thinking your parents and family are normal until you become an adult and realize the truth.

She had an incident where she went missing for a few days a few years ago and ended up totaling her car and a bunch of other stuff that shed light onto her situation. Since then I’ve been trying to support her to get help and her doctors have been weaning her off her meds. Predictably, she has turned back to alcohol and has been drinking a lot. I don’t see it often because they live 7 hours away but my dad and a concerned family friend have told me about it.

My sister and I are going to visit next month and my mom texted me yesterday asking me to bring her some tanqueray and had a whole thing about how my dad wants to drink gin and tonics on their deck in the summer and he lets her get gin and tonics at the bar and lots of “oh honey it’s fine, I love you so much, I would so appreciate it” sort of niceties.

I have no intent to bring her the alcohol, but I’m not sure how to navigate saying no. My dad is a big craft beer nerd and likes a good whisky so my sister and I often bring him nice bottles and things he likes that he can’t get where they live. Because of this, it feels hypocritical or like she’s gonna throw it back at me that I’ll give my dad alcohol but not her. I am very non-confrontational and, while I’ve gotten better, still have a hard time saying no and holding my boundaries. I just don’t even know how to phrase a text back saying no. I don’t know how much reason I should go into or if I should keep it simple. I don’t know if I should address her alcoholism (which she has not acknowledged and we haven’t talked about in the open yet) or just leave it at “no”.

Any advice on how to reply would be much appreciated! I just need a little feedback and support on how to handle this as I haven’t had to confront her alcoholism directly with her yet

Thanks in advance. ♥️

TLDR: alcoholic mom wants me to bring her liquor when I visit. How do I say no when I’ve gifted my dad (not an alcoholic) alcohol before and she and I haven’t openly discussed her being an alcoholic yet?