Gas Leak: When it rains, it pours
I woke up this morning to two missed calls from the pet sitter. My mind immediately went to a worst-case scenario, but thankfully everyone is medically fine. However the cat accidentally turned on the gas on the stove, so there was a significant gas leak all night. My first thought was my turtle, who might not be as able as the cat to communicate if he was sick, and who also has vulnerable lungs due to being a turtle. Good people came through and helped me out and, according to maintenance, the apartment is safe again now. But it was a huge scare and it’s hard to be here getting treatment when I’m worried about my cat. He’s never done anything like that before, so I think he’s breaking down from being lonely. I’m discharging by the end of the week, but I definitely thought about leaving earlier just to be with him, especially because he has an attachment disorder from kittenhood and I think the Mom Guilt of abandoning him for two weeks is justified. A wise person said, though, that being apart for a few more days will be worth it in the end. My cat needs me to be healthy so I can fully be there for him.
People who do harm are usually not self-limiting
In other news, I got this visual voicemail from the human rights officer at HBM last week:
I feel like it’s worth noting that I didn’t get a missed call on 7/31. But the bigger thing is that I just think it’s messed up that HBM is being allowed to handle this internally. I told Justina while I was there that my housing was at risk. Now, I’m dealing with an eviction notice, in large part because of her. But it’s unlikely she’ll actually do anything now to solve the problem, especially given her track record of incompetence.
It’s like the old adage: “You don’t go talking to a mosquito about your malaria problems.” Which is also the motto I’ve applied to my relationships with my parents. The mosquito is going to sting you, because that is the nature of a mosquito. You can’t even blame them, because the mosquito was just being a mosquito. In life, the person who causes a problem is almost never the same person who fixes the problem. This is especially true with a mosquito, because they do not have the cognition to do any of the things they’d need to do to be helpful. In these cases, the best thing is to get a good doctor to treat the malaria, and a mosquito net to prevent further spread of illness. If the mosquito could not prevent damage in the first place, it would be stupid to expect her to reverse that damage.
Sometimes in life, a person is a mosquito. They’re doing what they’re going to do, and what they’re going to do is harmful. But this is the reason these situations cannot be handled with conflict resolution. The other party isn’t even able to take moral responsibility for causing harm, so external forces need to be applied to keep them from causing further harm. It’s ridiculous to even try to picture resolving a conflict with a mosquito who gave you malaria. How does that solve your malaria? DMH should have done something to control HBM. But that still wouldn’t have helped me, because I have major trauma and an eviction notice. And you can’t reverse trauma by acknowledging the obvious reality that the mosquito obviously didn’t transmit malaria (trauma) on purpose and isn’t morally responsible for the consequences of her actions. She’s a mosquito. She’s not responsible for anything. So she shouldn’t be practicing medicine.
Anyway, I decided to apply the quote above and I didn’t call back the HRO because there’s literally nothing they would be able to do for me now. I’m just back in the all-too-familiar situation of trying to build a life while surrounded by arsonists who keep burning it down.
