I doubt that anyone will read this because there are no previous active topics listed in the forum. Anyways, I am ashamed for feeling this way, but I don't like my grandma. We have no relationship. The only similarity between us is our blood. She is my dad's mother. You probably wonder why I feel such animosity towards a relative. Well, as I mentioned before, she's my dad's mother. So why is it that my mother spends all day with her, feeding her, giving her medicine, changing her clothes, giving her a bath when it's not even her own mom. Yes, my dad works full time, 7am-5pm. But I fail to hear a conversation between him and his mother...it only occurs once every two weeks. My grandma started living with my family 2 years ago. She borrowed my sister's room. My sister now has to share a room with me and I'm 18 years old. Don't I deserve some privacy? My parents obviously think I can manage. But that's not the real problem. The real problem is that she is here. I get frustrated and annoyed when I'm watching tv and I hear her a few feet away, breathing (she has emphezema because she used to work in a salon and smoke, but she wasn't a chain smoker). It feels like my whole atmosphere is being disturbed by her presence. She usually complains that she's hungry when she in fact had dinner 2 hours earlier. This goes on daily...it never stops. My family minus grandma went into counseling one time. It didn't help. I couldn't just spill out my feelings in front of a stranger. My mom cried during the session... I almost joined in to, but I held it back. I think my dad's choice of bringing my grandma into the family was wrong...completely wrong. It has taken away a part of me and my sister's childhood. I feel completely distorted.

think 'nursing home'

That was always a consideration, but my dad won't budge. I'm sick of watching her deteriorate.

I like how there were 12 views, yet only 1 person replied. I understand that I probably have 3 views total, but still.

sounds like your dad is going to lose more than his mother

He's already lost me. I don't feel a connection with him. The only relationship we have is in our blood. The rest of my family agrees that my grandma needs to go into a nursing home, but my dad fears the abuse. He doesn't get that not all nursing homes abuse. Many have good reputations. I definitely don't want her to live with us anymore. I'm going crazy, but I fail to show any signs. Everything resides within me. Sometimes I hit myself or throw myself against a wall when it's too much to handle.

By the way, how old are you?

31

I surely hope you don't bottle too much rage up, as the cork-pop might be unpleasant . Hopefully you can hang in there until you are able to move out and take care of yourself. In the meantime, try to avoid injuring yourself too much and stuff

i don't know if this is much help, but keep in mind that this is your dad's mother. people change a lot as they grow older, and i'm sure your grandma wasn't always like this. the person your dad knows is someone completely different than the person you know, or even that your mom knows. this is someone who has raised him since birth, and because of people's natural dependency on their parents it's hard to find the best place to hold a relationship with such a person.

but, on the other hand, if you're 18 then my advice to you would be if you're that unhappy at home then you're old enough to live on your own so just get out of your house as soon as you can. it's considered bad to run away from your problems, but i think that it can be beneficial to step back from them for a while because it's a lot easier to see the big picture of something from far away than it is from close up.

Moving out would be like abandoning them. It's already hell on my mom who by the way gets 70% of the caring load ... even though grandma is my dad's mom. My dad works full time, but my mom works part time. I don't know. Also, I don't have enough strength to move away. The independency would be overwhelming. I would like to have my own apartment in a couple of years, but I'm just not ready right now.

sounds like your mom is enabling your dad too much. She has the power to make things right, but she must confront your dad and draw the line.

She already has...mildy. She'd never go overboard and have a real confrontation. Sad to say, but she has disrespect my grandma by ignoring her and using an aggressive tone. It upset my dad and he kicked her out of the house. Luckily, she came back home that night. It was devastating for me and my siblings. I found it hard to function.

well, it seems that your dad will not be stopped from imposing his unreasonable demands so the reasonable solution will be to leave. It will not be long (few years at most) when it will be natural for you to move out anyway. Perhaps the rest of your family that feels similar to you will follow you.

But I don't want to move out yet. I'm not ready. As sad as it sounds, I don't really have anyone else to fall upon. None of my friends even know about what I am going through. Letting them in would make me feel weak and naked.

No hour at home is left for me to enjoy.

But you could care less.

I'm sure you can hang on for a few more years, as you will eventually feel old enough to move out (as will most of your friends). Are you planning on going to college? If not, are you thinking about what kind of career move to make?

btw, I liked the humanforsale.com website

I'm already in college right now. I'm a freshman. The work load is bad, but not too bad. I'm handling it okay so far. I don't know what I want to be when I grow up. Nothing interests me at this point in my life.

excellent. that site is fun.

Do you work? If so, where? Was it something you've always wanted to do, or did you just settle into it.

sounds like you are doing fine. Your family must live near your campus, otherwise you would live on campus right? I enjoyed living on campus, it was my first real break toward independence. I would suggest trying it, if possible.

As for me, I am sort of an 'eternal' student (slacker who never quite gets kicked out of academia). I've spend much time in academia (switched undergraduate major in my fourth year), punctuated by a good amount of time working odd jobs and daydreaming about interesting stuff. I've often thought I might be ADD, but never did anything about it. I am currently working on a Ph.D. in atmospheric science at UNR (Reno, NV), which I hope to be done with in two years. I always was a weirdo as a kid in that I was a fanatic of violent weather. This has translated into a career in atmospheric science. However, in my college years I enjoyed lots of weed-smokin' where I became fascinated with philosophy and science (physics in particular). Turns out that this period of slacking was extremely valuable to me, even if it has delayed the completion of my academic education.

And you can always do post-doctoral study to keep the slackin' thing goin'. Ever read the Heavy Weather science fiction by (I think) Bruce Sterling? The whole midwest becomes a permanent tornado like the red spot on Jupiter.

It's available in paperback in most book stores. Go to the science fiction section and look for Sterling. It's a good story. About 5 or 6 years old now, I think, maybe more.

Did you read about the atmospheric effects of nuclear detonations in Scientific American a couple of months ago?

I bet that the mean global lightning rate increases in response to introduction of significant quantities of radioactive species

That might happen, or maybe it will bleed off charge and prevent lightning. The main effect of high altitude bursts is ionization that disrupts radio communication. Also the EMP is nasty and far-ranging. It frys electronic gear of all kinds.

I'm doing my dissertation on lightning initiation, and the new theory is that runaway breakdown (MeV electron avalanche) is essential to lightning initiation. I'm providing a hybrid take on this theory by reintroducing the older low-energy processes into the picture, with the new runaway effect being merely a precursor that enables the low-energy processes.

my guess as to the effect of introducing radioactive species into the atmosphere is that we have more lightning events, but that these events are generally weaker. I suppose that, given enough MeV electron sources, lightning could be quenched altogether; however, I do not think we have reached such a threshold.

Interesting. You could test that hypothesis by dispersing tritium oxide (really heavy water) aerosol from a balloon. You would need to do 20 to 100 tritium tests with an equivalent number of control events (plain water aerosols) to get a good statistical basis for lightning counts. I estimate it will cost about 200 thousand dollars for the research. You should write a grant application.

there are other ways to go about it, using naturally occurring differences in atmospheric concentrations of radioactive species. For example, there is less radon over the ocean which should result in differences in lightning properties (presumably less often, and perhaps more severe events). Also, incoming cosmic rays are seen to be the most significant source of MeV electrons; if we can accurately monitor the spectrum and quantity of such incoming rays, we should be able to compare to lightning observations. In any case, there is strong evidence linking cosmic-ray shower/runaway events to lightning initiation.

It's just a matter of obtaining and analyzing the data. Looks like a dissertation.

honlesty i belive she should go to a home. ok maybe that does SEEM like he owuld be "abandoning" her but really it wont be bcuz if he went and visitied her how bad is that? ovioulsy he isnt doing the job of taking care of her anyhow. you really shoudlnt throw urself agaisnt the wall, its bad habbit to get into. trust me. it will casue more harm then good. try writing or soemthing. i tihnk you should sit down and talk with them about it