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Margaret Killjoy is just a joy to read. Her hook for this article, an anecdote about arguing with a pedant on the train, is just such a good way to introduce the article.

Hi There. I’ve been a full time caregiver to my extremely ill wife for like ten years now. I don’t have any backup and I have to be on every single day. I bring this up because I know it is extremely taxing to do this sort of work. And I love that I can help the person I love the most in the world every day be a little less miserable. It sucks but that is life.

Now, I am in a marriage and even then most people think I’m crazy for doing what I do. As far as I can tell, you don’t have any bond but friendship with your friend. That is great and I’m so happy that you were able to be there for them. You did an amazing thing for them and I’m so happy you exist. You are an amazing person for doing it. But they were able to get the help they needed.

You are under no obligation to continue, you’ve already gone way beyond. If they are doing things that harm themselves, you do not need to burn yourself up to help them. This would be true even if they were just relapsing without the self medication. You personally deserve time to yourself.

Just tell them that you love them, and that you think their decision to take substances other than their meds is harmful and as long as they are harming themselves you will continue to be distant. (If that is what you feel).

Anyways, I can’t tell you how great you are and I’m glad you exist. But you deserve to live for you sometimes too.

1. No. I’ve been very lonely for a long time. I play computer games with friends once a week. That is the extent of my socialization along with an occasional chat with my folks on the phone.

2. I don’t have the time or inclination to see other people who are caregivers. The time I do have to myself I spend running (early mornings) and playing games or programming in the afternoons.

3. Answered above. About three or so hours a day to do me stuff, but that depends on cooking or other things (I cook everything she eats from scratch, long story why).

There is light at the end of the tunnel for me. She finally has a doctor that seems to know what is wrong with her. One of her symptoms that befuddled doctors for years is gone after starting treatment (she was hospitalized with it). And even without that I’m hopefully going to get a full time caregiver or two in here in the next couple months. I have friends vetting people. So things are looking up for me at least. And hopefully my wife starts to feel better, but if not I’m setting myself up for a more sustainable future. I can’t burn my whole life helping her. I’ve done this for years and I will end up in an early grave if I don’t get help.

Now onto what you asked about. I think your situation is more complex than I originally thought. It is a closer relationship. But if my wife found the cure to her illness, and then started drinking alcohol which brought back her illness, I would have a very very very hard time going back to care for her. We’ve had things that were similar. During a good time she tried to lead a normalish life, but her body isn’t built for it. I warned her and warned her and warned her. This ended up to a relapse that had persisted for five years. I feel a little bit of resentment from that, but not much because she wasn’t doing anything nuts. Just having people over for tea parties, and little things like that pretty frequently. And she wasn’t 50% when she was doing that. But she was doing maybe 20% of what a normal person would do.

If she started to party and take substances that interfere with her medicine I would have a real hard time getting on board with caring for her. She hasn’t made a decision to make her sick. She just is. Fate was cruel to her. And if we had our lives back and she messed with her treatment I would be massively resentful and maybe unwilling to he despite my great love for her.

No shit

He is probably too busy destroying the property of his poorest constituents for anything else.

I can’t believe that having a COP in another petrostate isn’t going to be uplifting. It even did a genocide recently up there in Nagorno-Karabakh and then bragged about how the depopulated area was so environmentally friendly. Anyways, fuck Azerbaijan.

This works in factorio really well

This is true. Being a job creator is hard work and they should not have to deal with peasant quips and jabs.

I chose to vote for Blue last presidential election and Biden made a real difference with the IRA. Much to my surprise. It isn’t enough, but it is a step.

One thing that I’m hopefully about is that solar is so cheap now so that will continue to roll out like crazy unless someone places huge tariffs on imported goods… oh shit. I just found out about the massive tariffs that fascist is wanting to put in place.