u/seemoreglass32 — reddlx

Image 1 — In a terrible situation and need help ASAP

In a terrible situation and need help ASAP

Hi, All ,

I am a pet sitter. I work for a private company under the table because I have a serious autoimmune disease and need to keep my Medicaid. I take my job seriously like I'm sure we all do and perform to the utmost. I work 7 days a week and not to toot my own horn, I am sought after in the company.

As I am sure is true for all US based sitters this time of year, I am very busy. I am also covering clients for my boss and another sitter. In addition, a client I've had for years reached out to me (we are friendly on personal terms as well which I now regret for reasons I'll get into) to ask me if I could sit for them from 7/1 to 7/7, company charges the normal 2x a day rate but could I stay there and they throw me some extra venmo at the end of the visits. I said yes. I get there and as I always do for overnight clients, I throw my clothes in the wash I packed and I vacuum my bag. I noticed one of their cats was scratching alot but he tends do be an itchy guy, he was on allergy meds for awhile. The reason I wash & dry my clothes right away when I arrive is because I am terrified of any kind of infestations from an Uber, lyft, or bus (I had bedbugs in 2015 and was traumatized) after I vacuumed my bag, I put them back in my bag.

I had a break in the day between my other clients so I came back to the overnight to water their plants and chill with the cats for a bit. Itchy guy was scratching some. I went back to work after 2 hours and did my other visits came back, made dinner, scooped the boxes, got the trash together for trash night and then after that saw a dead flea on thr kitchen table/counter. The cats jump on it alot. I immediately put all my clothes in the wash again including my shoes and vacuumed. I told the client but they were arguing with me about it not being a flea (it is) and they would know if their cats have fleas. They said they thing it was a one off that came in while I was watering plants. OK. I vaccum and do laundry for hours and brush both cats a ton and see nothing. The other guy scratches his ears a few times but nothing crazy, I check them both, see nothing. I finish vacuuming and the first round of blankets from the living room couches around 1am and go to bed.

I wake up at 3am, itchy guy is in bed with me. I check him and see nothing on him. When he gets out of bed I check the bedding and see a flea egg. I am not proud of myself for this but I flip out and just get back in bed and sob for an hour bc I have to start my day again at 6. I am terrified I spread fleas to my other clients. I can't tell my boss because I will get in trouble for the unauthorized overnight. It is going to be 114 degrees today. I have no idea what to do.

Why I said I regret now being friendly with these clients is that, I've had some personal issues going on, my sister is very very sick and I help care for her. At the hospital a week and a half ago insurance was screwing us over with something involving her care and the hospital was not fighting for us, in the middle of this (she had just left a crowded room with 12 other people the day before) I looked down and saw a louse on my hand. (It ended up being a stray. I did treatments and a combout anyway but saw nothing and had no bites). This caused a huge PTSD flare up and the wife of the couple I pet sit for, I ended up reaching out and talking to her about it to get some advice because she does trauma work. So she knows I have a fear of bugs and stress in my life (I live in a poor/dangerous neighborhood but we are VERY clean) and I feel right now she is using that to say well you are just having a trauma response its a one off we would have seen fleas if we had them but I think they are in denial (they live in a trendy/wealthy tourist area of our city.)

I don't know what to do. I am laying in my clients bed sobbing. I don't have any bites on me. I am afraid to take my clothes out of the dryer in case fleas infest them. (I slathered my overnight bag in Dawn and wrapped it in two trash bags). I also can't go back home because adding to the stress is that my housemate is an alcoholic.** He has a cat (the cat does not have fleas, he is vigilant with her I'll give him that). I cannot tell him why I came back from the overnight bc depending on how drunk he is he may not let me in the house he may make me quarantine or something and I still would have to go back and forth to do 2x a day visits for the flea client.

I try so hard to be a diligent and ethical sitter. I work so hard and do extra. All I can think of is that I gave/will give these fleas to my other clients if I haven't already and that my life is over. I am autistic and this is the only job I have ever not hated or been terrified at my whole life. I also made the mistake of telling the trauma worker client about my roommate so I am scared they will continue to not believe me or get angry with me. I can't stop crying. I don't know what to do. All I can think of is how my life is over and my job is destroyed. I feel like I have no way out.

**I Cannot afford to move so please don't mention that, I am stuck in that situation for now

u/seemoreglass32 — 3 days ago

▲ 1 r/Lice

This was on the rim of my toilet I finally had stopped worrying I had them, I am terrified

Is this lice??? How could it just be crawling on the toilet? Google said it was I finally stopped worrying and now I am terrified all over again

u/seemoreglass32 — 8 days ago

▲ 2 r/Lice

I'm hyperventilating in the bathroom at work, do these look like lice nits or eggs????

You have to zoom in to see, please please please tell me I can't do the combout I have no one to help I got a cheap flea comb but it broke yesterday when I tried to check, I cant afford the kits and I have a double shift today and my housemate has off work and I am so scared to tell them! I washed with dawn dish soap and tea tree the past 2 nights and took oral ivermectin (3mg) two days ago. The ivermectin expired 3 years ago but I cant afford more. I feel so hopeless and terrified. Please tell me it isn't nits or eggs!

u/seemoreglass32 — 9 days ago

▲ 5 r/Lice

Head or Body Louse? Found on my hand while visiting a relative in the hospital, I am freaking out

I am hoping someone here can talk/calm me down. I have PTSD from a bedbug infestation some years ago as well as sebopsoriasis, and ever since I was a little kid my head always itches when I get nervous.

I was visiting a relative in her hospital room on Monday, so 4 days ago, when I saw this bug on my hand maybe 15 min after sitting down on the chair there. I consulted a few sources and have been told it is a louse, not sure head or body. I am very poor and live in a neighborhood of my city with many homeless encampments. Nevertheless I am hypervigilant because of my ptsd and wash my clothes every single day if I even think I came into contact with bugs. I shower daily.

My head IS itchy but it is always itchy and hard to tell if it is psychosomatic or not as I developed stress induced formication disorder following the bedbug infestation and subsequent PTSD a decade ago. A friend sent me detergent and spray that kills lice and bedbugs, and I washed every single piece of clothing I wore to the hospital first in Dawn dish soap before the detergent arrived them then the detergent, and I sprayed down my hat that I wore and my overnight bag in with the spray. Someone on another forum said this bug looked more like body lice than head lice. There are tranq users on the streets all over where I live and I rolled my overnight bag to my sister's on wheels when she was hospitalized, I tried to stay far away from any discarded clothing on the ground, too.

It is now Thursday. My sister does not itch and saw no bugs in her bed or clothes or on her person while hospitalized. My dad and a friend of hers sat in the same chair I sat in and weren't infested. There was a homeless gentleman behind me in the visiting line at the hospital entrance angling to use the restroom and he was kind of hovering or looming over me, but I read lice could not jump? I took a lyft to the hospital because it was so urgent for me to get there the day I saw the bug, so could it have crawled on me on the lyft? If it was in my hair, would it have crawled on my hand even though I didn't touch my hair at all in the hospital? Could it have been in the lyft and crawled on my bag?

Complicating matters is my living situation is very scary and chaotic bc my roommate is an alcoholic with very extreme mood swings and I am very scared of telling him I have head lice. But is it possible I do not? I only saw the one bug, haven't seen anything else, washed my hair with Olbas oil last night and took an ivermectin tablet this morning to kill anything living on me. I work 7 days a week and am under so much terrible stress I can't handle any more. Please tell me if there is any way one body louse could have randomly crawled on me and I don't have to worry about an infestation? I am on my break at work sitting in a coffee shop bathroom crying and crying in terror grief and fear. Thank you. The first image is magnified, the second is not, they are the same bug.

u/seemoreglass32 — 10 days ago

▲ 11 r/Bedbugs

Is this a bedbug, found crawling on my hand while sitting in a hospital chair visiting my sister.

It was maybe slightly embedded but I flushed it down the toilet. There was so much going on (hospital was trying to send them home in the middle of an active angioedema flare because of insurance BS) that I wasn't focused on the bug until later then I freaked out. I had been staying at this relatives house for a week and had NO bites, NONE and saw nothing there. I have ptsd from a terrible infestation a decade ago and wash and dry my clothing every day and am hypervigilant about getting them, I don't sit on anything other than hard plastic in public. I stand on the train and I only sit on plastic bus seats. My PTSD runs my life and if I even THINK I could have gotten them again I do everything I can to decontaminate. CHAT gpt said this was maybe a louse, gemini said so too and that was bad enough but claude is saying it is a bedbug nymph maybe? I washed all my clothes in bedbug killer hygea detergent when I got back and sprayed my relative's apartment down and vacuumed. I have NO bites and I react really quickly to them because I have lupus. Is it possible this isn't a bedbug or louse? I haven't been able to sleep since this happened and have been crying every day for hours in fear and terror that I have an infestation. I also have formication from my PTSD so I can't tell if anything is crawling on me or not. Please tell me it isn't what I think!!!!! First photo is magnified second isnt, all the same bug

u/seemoreglass32 — 11 days ago

▲ 2 r/AlAnon

I don't understand what I did wrong

I just got back to my living situation with my alcoholic housemate. I want to begin by saying he is NOT a bad person, and I am not trying to frame this like I'm a saint and he's a sinner. He manages a mental health condition that disables many people and renders them unemployable, he's had a great job that he keeps getting promoted, and his reviews get better every year. I know this is true and not him bragging or exaggerating, because where he works is a management position in a store in our neighborhood some of the workers there know me as his housemate and always have wonderful pleasant things to say about him.

I am on disability and have to work under the table to make ends meet, especially now during cuts to food stamps. (I used to work in kitchens but my autoimmune disease disabled me, it's not safe for me to handle knives and glass and be near scalding water with hands that often spasm and shake due to nerve damage and intermittent swelling). My sister is disabled from a post-covid stroke and recently developed a serious autoimmune disease that hospitalized her for almost 3 months. I work for a small business that combines pet sitting and housecleaning, and I have overnight visits alot, and I was taking care of my sister's cat at her place while she was so sick, so I was gone for about 2 months. I checked in with him periodically. He knew I was very against him getting a kitten because of my job, he wasnt even going to tell me but his friend who was over spilled the beans. My strategy for dealing with my housemates unpredictable moods and drinking is to try to always anticipate his mood and tailor my behavior to never make it so he is mad at me or upset with me. I do this because sometimes it is hard to tell what will set him off and he can be nasty. A family friend owns the house but is an absentee landlord, my housemate is universally beloved by his friends and family and bosses and I know 100 percent it is only me he behaves like this with. He can be funny and charming and cool and interesting but he can also be scary and mean and weird, it's like his eyes change but that ONLY happens with me. He passed a background check and adopted a kitten, he takes wonderful care of her and takes her to the vet and feeds her and grooms her and scoops the box. At first he seemed delighted that I had come around to wanting the cat there after initially being against it (because its not like i could stop it anyway.)

I had a very long workday yesterday and my sister had just come home from the hospital and I was very tired when I got home. I could tell my housemate was drunk when I got home that night but he was chatty and friendly and I felt apprehension about being worried about what mood he might be in go away. We caught up for an hour or so and I put my stuff away and I oohed and Ahd over how big and cute the kitty was getting, we joked around, again I could tell he was drunk;

(he drinks about a handle of vodka every 2 or 3 days, and the last time I saw him when I stopped at the house to grab some clothes we were catching up and he mentioned finally calling out a supervisor at work for something unethical they were doing and in the telling he said "and because I didn't work until later that day, I had a couple shots before I left so I felt confident enough to raise my objections to [name of supervisor, and he just got his yearly review yesterday and passed with flying colors and is being promoted and getting a raise again, they have him training teams at other branches so I know he still does excellent wonderful work and receives nothing but praise for the execution of his duties despite his drinking)

Like I said, I could tell he was drunk when I got home, his voice was thick and he was talking alot and his eyes were a tad glassy but he was kind and funny and cool so I thought I would have doctor Jeckyll that night and not Mr. Hyde. One of the things we talked about while catching up was the cat having run of the house and I thought we had determined in this convo that it was ok if she went into my room as long as I was in there and had eyes on her (she likes to chew on cords and cables and I have synth cords and cables and patches for my volca). The last bit of the conversation was him telling me all about stuff going on at his work and I listened and was interested and I got onto the shower after and thought ok he's chatty but on a good mood. That's great.

I get out of the shower and realize I had forgotten to send a work related email so I go upstairs and get changed and start drafting the email, I had the door to my room open and the cat came in and she was being cute and sweet, I had my sheets in the wash so she jumped on my bed and I was petting her. Again, when he first got the cat and he was acclimating her to the house if I had to stop by for something he would always text me "make sure to come into my room and say hi to her/give her a pet!" So I thought this was right and good and ok to do. But this time she came into my room and I was drafting the email and she was being sweet and silly making funny poses on my bed. I then heard my housemate come upstairs and I thought oh this is so cute he'll see her on my bed being sweet and it will be a funny cute and sweet moment. As I heard him coming up the steps I said in a sweet gentle and loving tone to the cat "oh, is that your Daddy? Is Daddy coming?"

Instead he came in my room with this weird look on his face and said NO, WE ARE NOT DOING THIS UH UH NO. And I felt so confused trying to understand what was happening. I said oh man I am really really sorry I had a really long workday and I think I probably misunderstood I thought we had said it was ok for her to be in here, I didn't see she was at first and then I sat on my bed to write an email for work and she jumped on my bed and I was petting her, I'm really sorry I misunderstood it's totally my fault. He replied with that same weird look "I thought she was invading your space." I said no no, she jumped on my bed and I was writing an email, I thought it was cute, do you not want her in here, if not that is totally fine, I'm so sorry man I must have misunderstood what you said I worked a long day." He just repeated "I thought she had invaded your space" and walked away. The cat hung out with me a bit more but I couldn't enjoy it and had a horrible sinking feeling and couldn't understand what happened to switch things so suddenly and what I could have done wrong to make this happen. I came downstairs to heat up my dinner and he could barely look at me and had this weird like annoyed sneer on his face and I said hey man I am so sorry I think what happened was that you heard me telling [name of cat], and this is totally my fault for dumbly joking around not even thinking that you probably couldn't hear me all the way, I was saying to [name of cat] as you came up the steps "oh is that daddy? Is that your daddy?" But it probably sounded like "go GET daddy or go TO daddy", like I was trying to get her out of my room, I'm sorry about that and he said "it's fine" in this icy tone and I couldn't understand what was happening and I said "ok because I truly would never ever want to ever cross a boundary with you or the cat" and he said in the same icy tone "you did not." He went up to bed shortly after and I could barely eat because I didn't understand what happened because I tried so hard to follow the approved script I figured out to not upset or set him off to always be interested kind and to understand that I am not the main character but he is. The thing is. Is when I have tried to talk to him in the past about mood swings or behavior that has upset or worried or scared me or his drinking he mentions, and this is relevant, that I am a white straight woman and he is a brown racialized gay man so he always more to fear from me than I ever could from him. And I know he is right about that especially in our current American landscape. So I would never want to make him feel guilty or bad but I feel so anxious because I just want to know what I did wrong last night to make that switch happen. I can't afford to move I already lost my food stamps, so please don't tell to move as the solution, this is the only place I can ever afford to live and leaving would mean a shelter which are unsafe where I live. My housemate has wonderful qualities and again this negative stuff only happens to me, and I am a weird ugly disabled kind of neurodivergent (I was born 3 months premature and had to go to Easter Seals growing up) loser so this is the best I can ever hope for, especially since once they take Medicaid away or spread the next pandemic my autoimmune disease will kill me anyway. So I just want the time I have left to not make me anxious. If anyone can help me understand why his mood switched and why he said I didn't so anything but was acting like I had and how I can tailor my behavior to make this never happen again please tell me. Thanks.

reddit.com

u/seemoreglass32 — 2 months ago