Finding out what someone’s TRUE opinion of you ...

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I lost my best buddy, constant companion and source of unconditional love on December 3, 2012. Her name was Ana (short for Anastasia) and she was a part of my family for 10 years and 8 months. She was very petite (6.2lbs), but had a much larger than life personality…one of a kind and much more than ‘just’ a cat! =)

I’m finally at the point where I can at least consider the idea of getting another cat. I still have my grandmother’s 15-year old kitty, Morris and he misses his sweetheart (Ana) almost as much as I do. I think we both are ready to welcome a new feline (and female) into our home.

I started checking out Petfinder every few days about a month ago. The first day I started looking, I found a 3-year old calico named Jenny and instantly sent an adoption application to the rescue organization that had her. Due to a change in email address of the lady who is currently her ‘foster parent’, I didn’t get any sort of response until a few days ago, almost five weeks later.

Jenny is still available for adoption and we’ve scheduled a home visit so we can meet her (Jenny) and her foster mom. It may seem like a lot of trouble to some folks, but I think it’s great that this organization goes to such effort to make sure it’s a great fit for all persons and other pets involved. These animals have already been abandoned and lost their home at least once, so they do everything possible to make sure it never happens again.

The application to adopt was five pages long and, among many other questions, they require the name and number of your veterinarian. It also requires a signature allowing your vet to give them any information they request. It also allows the vet to speak freely and openly about you and your current or previous pets.

Prior to contacting me a few days ago, they contacted my vet’s office first. I actually have two vets, a semi-retired husband and wife, who run an animal clinic in a tiny, rural town in North Georgia. The director of the rescue organization called and left a message asking for a return call from either one when they had a moment to talk.

They returned the call that afternoon right after they saw their last patient at 4pm. The call lasted for almost 90 minutes and both of my vets, the two vet techs and the receptionist spoke on my behalf. In the words of the rescue group’s director, “I have dedicated the last 32 years of my life to animal welfare. In that time, I have contacted references as part of the adoption decision making process. In all of that time, I have never had an entire staff of a veterinarian’s office speak so candidly and with such genuine affection and admiration for an adoption applicant!”

“I know that you have a home visit scheduled for this coming Saturday and I have no doubt that it will go great. Separate from that, several of our long-time volunteers and my husband I would consider our privilege to meet you in person. We would love to take you to dinner one evening next week if you would feel comfortable doing so. I would consider it an honor to meet someone held in such high esteem for his love of animals. Please let me know if you feel comfortable doing so and we’ll schedule the date!”

I read this a few hours ago and I can’t even think of the words to explain what I’m feeling…

Yes, I think cats and dogs are the world’s greatest gift from God or Mother Nature or whatever you believe in. I take stray animals to the very to be spayed and neutered if I can safely catch and transport them. My vets try to do it for free, but I insist on paying for the medical supplies required ($10-$12 at most).

I have a neighbor with three cats that he doesn’t take care of and they live outside. I take them in annually for a rabies shot and check-up, which pisses him off. He even threatened to call the police on me, I can’t think of a better reason to go to jail. But I also left him a note and copy of my land plot from the county. His ancient single-wide mobile home is sitting more than 14 feet over the property line and on my land. I have almost 10 acres and 1.6 acres of that is located across the street, which is where he lives. I could care less than his trailer is on my land, but if he calls the cops on me for taking his neglected animals to vet at my own expense, he’s going to be moving that heap of tin he lives in at least 24-feet to the NW (14-feet plus legally required 10ft buffer).

Anyway, I’ve always loved animals and taken care of them. I didn’t have a lot of friends growing up (look up a condition called Avoidant Personality Disorder or AvPD to understand why I had few friends and didn’t trust most humans). But animals have always made me happy and I love taking care of them.

I am very grateful to my vets and their staff for being so kind. I never knew that they felt so strongly about me. They’re always so nice, but I just assumed that was just professionalism. My self-deprecating way of thinking makes me want to list all my faults and share them with everyone so they’ll know I don’t deserve their admiration and affection. But I’ll shelve that for my therapist, if I ever decide to seek on again.

I feel obligated to accept the dinner invitation. I know it was extended out of kindness and it would be very rude to decline. But what about the folks at my vet’s office? Part of me wants to get in the car and drive up there (it’s 55 miles away) and give them all a big hug and thank them…then tell them all of my negative personality traits and that I’m not worth of their lofty (inflated?) opinion of me!?

Or maybe I should put some of the self-help books I’ve read (dozens) to use and try to just accept their opinion of me? Sure, I have a dark side and I can be an asshole sometimes, but I have some good traits, too…why can’t I just accept that?

2

!. You deserved their praise. I’ve found that no matter what your personal psychological limitations, if a matter is important enough, one is likely to overcome those limitations. It says a lot that animal welfare is so important to you that you even risk trouble with your shitty neighbour. Kudo’s.

  1. If this were a Hollywood script, you would go to the party, violin music would swell, and you would come out of your life long shell and get lots of meaningful social contact.
    In reality, if you go, you will be both tense and elated. No doubt you will beat yourself up over your imaginary social shortcomings afterward and feel awkward for weeks afterward if you visit the vet again.

  2. Please resume therapy.

  3. If you go, you might as well explain in advance what you explained here. “Gosh, It meant so much to me that you endorsed me to the pet committee. Really it did. But while I really want to come to your dinner, I’m torn because I’m not really good with people. I have avoidant personality disorder. "
    Thensee what they say. Maybe they’ll say: “oh, that’s okay, come anyway and we’ll make accomodations”. But, if they reply: " Oh, in that case, we won’t impose on you” you’ve give them a graceful out. And if you do come to dinner, expectations will be so low that you will quite likely be a huge success. :slight_smile:

Think of yourself as that mistrustful mangy cat that still is very hungry and wants to be fed :wink: . You would treat her with kind patience, no? Maybe those people are willing to do the same for you.

3

Thank you so much for your input and advice! I truly appreciate it.

I didn’t take the time to fully explain ( Adult ADHD-Inattentive) about my experience with AvPD. I was a painfully shy, socially awkward child and teenager. Just the thought of walking into my high school each morning would routintely causes a panic attack!

But 20 years after high school, at the age of 38, I am a different person. I still struggle with being in situations with groups of new people if I’m on my own, but I do quite well even in those situations if I have a wingman.

If I had to put a measurement on how much my symptoms have improved, I would say that I’m about 90% better. I still struggle with low self-esteem, self-deprecating thoughts and comments (often disguised as ‘humor’), and allowing new people to get close to me can be a major challenge, but overall life is so much bette rthan I ever thought possible.

Most of the improvements in my life have occured over the last five years. I moved back to my hometown to help my sister take care of our elderly grandmother (dad is an only child and didn’t live in the area). One of us stayed with her day and night and she spent a lot of time in the hospital in the last two years of her life. So I had to cope with seeing a lot of people that I hadn’t seen in 25-30 years. A lot of them were cousins that my sister kept in touch with regularly, but I had avoided contact with most of them for 25 years or more!

Three of those cousins are now among my dearest friends! It turns out that they always felt so bad me because I was so shy, but they always wanted to get to know me better and never knew how to ‘reach’ me! I go out to L.A. twice a year and spend 7-10 days with one of them and her family. We talk at least once a week on the phone. The other two are sisters and I rarely go two days without texting, emailing or calling at least one of them. All three of them are very outgoing, friendly and (I’m gay so this is pervy) they are all drop-dead beautiful…and they admit that we’re family on their Facebook pages, the ultimate proof of acceptance and love! :smiley:

I’ve heard that life is a process of constant learning and, for those wise and brave enough, applying what is learned to improve ourselves. Long story short, I’ll keep on trying because things just keep getting better! :smiley:

4

I once had an employee of mine put me down as a reference for another job. I was sad to see him go, but it was a much better opportunity for him than what I could offer. His new employer called me, and apparently I gushed about him. He got the job, and on his last day, on his last break, he had his wife drop off a lovely houseplant, and a wine aerorator. It sounds awfully odd, and it was probably less than $20, but it was a great, thoughtful thank you for me. They were both things I’d mentioned wanting, but hadn’t gotten for myself.

Instead of driving out to the vet, I’d say to come up with something that will make their office or their lives a little brighter. A few months of a delivery service of some type can be great (Chocolates, dog toys, kids toys, wine), if pricey, some artwork, or a rug or other furnishings for the office, etc…

And if you want to deliver these things personally with a great big hug… that’s ok, too!

(Oh, and don’t forget a cute pic of Jenny!)

5

Thanks so much for sharing the ideas. Your story about the gift from you employee proves that it is the THOUGHT that counts.

Back in May 2008, when the company where I worked went belly-up, almos5 overnight, I was unemployed for the rest of 2008 and it scared the hell out of me! At the age of 33, after more than a decade of climbing the corporate ladder (and having my income climb from barely $25k per year to the low $160s), I lost my home (a super-cool 3-level townhome near downtown Atlanta, but I was way in over my head with a $2600 mortgage & HOA fees AND a $785/month car payment…I lost it all and have no oen to blame but myself! I look back now, five years later and remember working 90 hour weeks and living (existing) on a few hours of sleep most nights. I even have two stomach ulcers that bleed once in a while and make me feel like I’m dying, all so I could pay for expensive stuff that I never had time to enjoy…but remained constantly stressed about paying for them!

In hindsight, hitting rock bottom , losing my house and my overpriced Volvo- it was a ‘spiritual’ clensing (I just made that up, but I think it fits). I moved back ‘home’ for one week before I realized one essnetial thing that I needed in order to rest and regroup so I could heal (emotionally and psychologically- that thing I required was the ABSENCE of my MOTHER!!! I lover her more than anything, but she uniintentionally makes all bad situations much worse and I couldn’t figure out how to start my lfie over again with her negativity and lack of boundaries…so I moved next door to my grandmother’s. My step-grandpa had just died a few months earlier and my parents and I actually co-own the house because my dad I built it with our own hands and the land it sits on was mine…but I’m getting wayyy off track here…

After I moved back to Green Acres, as my friends call it, I was very conservative with what little money I had. I had to file bankruptcy in 2009 and most of my retirement savinsgs is now gone between paying creditors and dealing with the bankruptcy.

I’m the friend that everyone calls when they have a computer problem. If it’s a hardware issue, if I can find the parts, I can fix it. Software issues aren’t nearly as easy and I lack the paitence anyway. So one of my sister’s coworkers called me and asked if i could look at her laptop and she’d pay me $50 just to figure out if it was worth repairing or not. I told her I’d be glad to take a look, but I wouold’t take her $50.

This person had helped my sister with a lot things including babysistting my nephew for free and cooking dinner for my sitster’s family every night for a week when my sister had to have a hysterectomy. I would never charge her for anything but parts. I live in the boondocks (before paved roads, it was a three day ride and a boat trip to get here) so I met her halfway between her work and my house. She was expecting the worst and the laptop was barely 1yr old and had cost $1300!

I was thrilled to discover that the one of the two RAM modules was defectiive and that was it. I also had one to replace it so it didn’t cost anything. I went ahead and gave it a full clean up and ‘tune-up’ to speed things up a bit. I surprised her with at work with it, then ran out to avoid her forcing money one me.

She called me that night crying she was so exciteed and thankful. She’s a single mom and had a tough time financially (husband was killed in a car wreck when their son was three) so she doesn’t get child support. Her mom left her and her dad for another man 15 years ago and they’ve never seen or heard from her agian…so the girl has had a shitty life and I was proud to do anything I could to make it a ltitle easier.

She called my mom (they iknow each other) asking what she could give me as a thank you. My mom told to she’d thjink about it and get back in touch in a few days. The next day, my mom and I went to ROSS (it’s like Marshalls orTJ Maxx if you aren’t familiar) because I had NO casual summer clothes. One year ealrier and I would have had a personal shopper at Nordstrom do my shopping…God, i was such a douchebag…

Anyway, at ROSS I found a nice laptop messenger bag that I loved and I needed a new one desperately. But I couldn’t even spare the $29 to buy it plus one end of the shoulder strap was comign loose brecause the actual stricthing was unraveling. So it would need to be repaired also and I needed shorts and undies more.

A week or so later, Sarah (the girl with the computer) pulls into my driveway and suprises me. She hands me a big gift bag and when I dug thru the tissue paper, there was my messenger bag that I wanted so much! I found out (from mom) that they knocked another $10 off for the shoulder strap issue. I also had no idea that Sarah had a sewing msachine and knew how to use it! She removed the stiching the both sides totally removing th shoulder strap, then re-attached so the stiching pattern and color woudl look perfect- it is stiull gorgeous over four years later and it’s one of the sweetest giifts anyone has ever given to me!
As for my my vets office, there’s nowhere to eat for over 10 miles, so they brown bag it every day and only take 15-20 minutes for lunch. I wonder how a catering platter form Chick-fil-A or even some Pizza and salads would go over?