Personality Disorders Community Check-in: October 2nd–October 8th
Hello, PD Support Community!
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💜 How has your week been so far?
💚 What's something that you'd consider to be a strength or something you're good at?
If you prefer not to answer these questions, feel free to say hello, ask for a hug, or share anything else that's on your mind. 🤍
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@QuietMagic
My strength is my honesty.
My ability to adapt.
And never taking life too seriously 💜💕
@Amanda84
Hello! Hope you're having a good week. (Or if not, then I hope that the adaptation is working its magic. 😊)
@QuietMagic
I'm good, can't complain 🥰
Hi!
My week has been ok. I just seem to be in a low that's lasting longer than I would like.
I'm very good at cooking and baking in my job, that everyone eats everything!
@CelticStar7
Hi, sorry that that low has been happening. (Is that related to what you posted about earlier in the week?)
That's a great skill! Being able to make food that people enjoy and want to eat. 😊
How has your week been so far?
My week has been so fulfilling, being here at 7 cups, learning how you all operate. My heart is breaking wide open with all your expressions. Kindness is a revolution! 🐬
It is a honor to see how people reflex back to each other. It's beautiful.✨
Thanks everyone for being so open welcoming, brave, there for each other and a place to be ourselves.
It's like a retreat here you can choose what you want to do. I just found the mindfulness chat. Going to that this afternoon. Looking forward to it.
Good at: loving kindness = unconditional friendliness 🐸
💚 What's something that you'd consider to be a strength or something you're good at?
@SkillfullMeans
Hello, glad that you've had such a fulfilling week and that you're enjoying 7 Cups so far. 😊 It's definitely a pretty unique culture as far as internet social spaces go.
And loving-kindness is a great thing to be good at: helps you and helps people around you (unconditional like you said so it goes all over the place). 💜
@QuietMagic
💜 How has your week been so far?
so so perhaps?
💚 What's something that you'd consider to be a strength or something you're good at?
probably moving forward. i would say XD
@daydreammemories
Hi there 💜 Makes sense that you'd say "moving forward" with all of the transitions/changes that have been happening lately (that you've mentioned in prior check-ins) that you've been able to navigate pretty well. Hope that things continue to stabilize and solidify
@QuietMagic
Thank you, i appreciate that
@QuietMagic
💜 How has your week been so far?
Incredibly stressful
💚 What's something that you'd consider to be a strength or something you're good at?
I'm intelligent
If you prefer not to answer these questions, feel free to say hello, ask for a hug, or share anything else that's on your mind. 🤍
Despite answering, I still wanted to say hello, hugs would be great, and I hope everyone's upcoming week is great😊I
@K87
Ugh, sorry that your week has been so stressful. 💜 (And I agree with the strength you listed based on our interactions so far.) Has it been more stressful than usual, or are most weeks incredibly stressful?
@QuietMagic
Thank u, my favorite thing about myself and the only thing I've never doubted is my intelligence, thank u.
This week was worse than normal. I'm the executor of my aunt's estate and have been for almost 2 years and everything was fine or so the lawyer for the estate and I thought. She lived in Pennsylvania, but was buried in Maryland so the orphans court (that's the one that deals with wills, it's a strange name, though) said the estate could be probateed in Maryland, the lawyer has been practicing for an eternity (he's an old family friend and was requested by my aunt in her will to represent it and the executor, me) so I assumed between the court and the lawyer they knew what they were talking about and Maryland was fine.
But then we needed a lawyer licensed to practice in Pennsylvania (mine's licensed in Maryland and new Jersey) to help with selling the house because I have to sell a house and car, I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing, but it will be interesting to watch. We had a 1 hour phone consultation with the lawyer in Pennsylvania who did her will and it cost $3600 which is apparently how much he bills per hour, thank God the estate is paying, but I hated him. He was sexist and dismissive and I absolutely hated him. I told the lawyer no, nope, never. So he's trying to find a few other options. The lawyer who we had a consult with decided to tell Pennsylvania about the probate in Maryland despite the house being in Pennsylvania and now Pennsylvania is demanding everything be transferred to them and started over, I basically spent the last 2 years wasting my time while being overwhelming stressed trying to deal with cousins she hated who weren't in the will, but ended up splitting our uncle's amount because he died and my cousins and I are his next of kin. They were calling at 3am demanding to know why the mail takes soo long and other ridiculous stuff that led me to blocking 2 out of the 4 and refusing to speak to one in particular and told the lawyer he had to deal with him because I refused after his stalker like behavior. The last thing I had to do was sell the house, now I have no idea what I have to do because it's starting over and I don't understand how it can truly start over unless they expect people who received money or something else from the will to return it so I can resend it which is nuts. Also, because of my disabilities, I don't drive and I live in Maryland, I don't know how I'm expected to get to Pennsylvania whenever the lawyer I eventually hire summons me or worse, the court. Technically a lawyer can try 1 case in a state they aren't licensed in as long as a lawyer that is licensed in that state vouches for them, he has a few friends licensed in Pennsylvania but different kind of law that he said he'd call this weekend and ask them to vouch for him, but there's still the slight issue of Commonwealth states having different laws in general and that probate laws vary from state to state, we technically still need someone who knows the estate laws there.
The part that upset me was the sudden devastation I felt when I found out it had to be started over in a different state, it felt like I literally just lost her again. I agreed to be executor so I could execute the will and she could then be at peace and I could actually grieve her, but now she won't be at peace anytime soon and I have to put off properly grieving her.
She was more of a mother than my actual mother. Next to my husband, she was the most important person in the world to me and it was really sudden when she died. I honestly still don't know how I'll be ok without her, and the lawyer understands that because they were friends and he's known me my entire life. He tells me stories about her and actually cares, I refuse to hire a lawyer that isn't like him, which means this may never end.
So there was that, and I also tripped off the sidewalk and broke my foot and ankle, I've always been an overachiever, apparently 1 broken bone just wasn't enough. I have to wear this huge cast thing that's impossible to walk in which I suppose is the point since I'm not supposed to walk for the next 4 weeks. When I go back to my doctor, if it hasn't gotten better to some extent that he didn't explain, I have to get surgery.
So yea, it's been way too much stress. I will have a nervous breakdown if it gets worse.
@K87
Wow, that is so much to deal with. 😨 (And that's on top of all of the stuff that I spotted in your user bio.)
Just paraphrasing my understanding:
General situation
- You've been working for the past 2 years to try to execute your aunt's estate. You were very close and all that was left was selling the house.
- The aunt lived in PA but was buried in MD. The court and your lawyer in MD who's a family friend were confident that it was okay to handle the will in MD.
- For the last step of selling the house in PA, you needed to reach out to a PA lawyer. You had a consult with a PA lawyer who helped your aunt do her will, and he's basically a cartoon villain. 😅 He was dismissive/sexist, he had exorbitant fees (estate is paying for but still), and most significantly he destroyed 2 years worth of work and emotional labor by reaching out to the state of PA and triggering them to demand that everything be transferred to PA.
Impact - miscellaneous
- This potentially means having to spend more time dealing with the awful cousins (who were so bad that you've already blocked half of them)
- The demand from PA is confusing/stressful because it doesn't really make sense in terms of how to handle it (if people have already received money, are they supposed to send it back?)
- If you get summoned to PA (by a PA lawyer or a court), it's unclear how you're supposed to get there (living in MD, unable to drive)
- There's this issue of finding a lawyer who can help with the PA work. The MD lawyer is trying to reach out to get someone to vouch for him in PA where he isn't licensed--or to do the work themselves--but the laws might be different enough that he still needs someone to help him who knows PA law inside-out. You also want someone who is a decent human being, which maybe narrows the list further.
(I wonder if the 2 years lost was because of some subtle PA legal thing that the MD people had no chance of knowing about and only a PA lawyer would be familiar with. Or alternatively, if the MD people were right, maybe it would still help to have a PA legal expert who can argue with the state of PA and say "no, it doesn't need to be transferred; here's what your own law says".)
Impact - primary
Your aunt was really important to you and you still haven't been able to grieve her loss because:
- 1) You've been locked into managerial/high-functioning adult mode of dealing with all of the estate stuff
- 2) you feel like you haven't been able to fulfill her wishes yet (i.e. she's not at peace)
***
Also the foot/ankle on top of everything else (oh no 😢). Yeah, I guess immobile/non-functioning leg is what the cast is supposed to do, unfortunately. I hope it works and you're able to avoid surgery. (I wonder if the Ehlers-Danlos is connected to the tripping event being enough to cause broken bones?)
I hope the MD lawyer is able to find a good PA lawyer who's the same tier of human being as he is and not a Bond villain like the other PA lawyer. 👀 It doesn't solve everything (e.g. cousins, delayed grieving, transportation) but at that point you'd at least be able to start to outsource some of the legal/logistical problems and mental load and know that there's someone trustworthy and knowledgeable helping you. (Not saying that the MD lawyer isn't trustworthy. You just need a second person from PA who's also trustworthy.)
@QuietMagic
Ur right about pretty much everything u summarized.
I don't want it switched to Pennsylvania so I refuse to deal with finding a lawyer there. I found out that the lawyer has to practice the same type of law as the one they vouch for, unfortunately none of his friends practice estate law (they could represent us in PA if they did) so they can't help by vouching for him. He needs to find a lawyer (I'm not helping). I told him my one non-negotiable demand is that the lawyer must agree to him being second chair. If they won't agree in writing, nope. I asked him to put together a list of a few lawyers who are willing to agree to that in writing that I won't hate immediately and I will agree to have a consult with the ones he puts on the list, but I'm not getting involved until that point, I'm too stressed to deal with it, he agreed.
Baltimore formally agreed to transfer everything to PA yesterday, yah, and I have no idea what's going on because the lawyer thing is kind of vitally necessary to figure that out. I told him to take his time.
He asked if 20 days was enough time for me to sell the house and I started laughing hysterically, I told him 20 years may not be enough time, I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing and I'm the last person that should be selling a house, I don't even understand owning one. A monthly mortgage sounds like rent, they have to pay for 7 different mandatory utilities (wifi, streaming, etc aren't included in that list because they aren't mandatory). They actually have to pay a yearly subscription to be able to use an ambulance if necessary, $50 for 1 person and $70 for a family...that's crazy, what if ur visiting and aren't family? Do they show up, check u out, say ur having a heart attack or something, but because u don't have a subscription u need to get to the hospital on ur own? That's insane. Oh, they have to pay for fire hydrants, but there aren't any near the house.
I'm confused and baffled. I don't know why anyone would want to buy the house if paying for all that is necessary. I wouldn't. So I have to sell a house that I personally wouldn't recommend given everything extra they will have to pay for. This is going to be an unmitigated disaster lol.
I have to get a realtor, but I don't know how to do choose one of those, the lawyer needs to.
I'm not very good at being an adult, but he's ancient and doesn't seem to understand millennials aren't that good at being adults, he doesn't know why I don't know how to pick a radiator or why owning a house is so confusing to me, a monthly mortgage is basically rent, I don't understand why u have to pay anything monthly if u own it and his attempts to explain are pointless, I still don't understand and I'm ok with that. I'm not very confident I'll actually sell it, and 20 days, especially when I have barely any time or a way to get to Pennsylvania, is impossible and borderline delusional.
I can't wait for the insanity I'm going to be forced to deal with...oh I blocked all of my cousins. They aren't going to help, they are only interested in the outcome so I'll unblock them when there is an actual outcome.
🤯
@K87
Hey, I'm glad you were able to delegate the task of finding the PA lawyer, and that sounds great keeping your family friend involved as a second chair. It's just too much and you don't want to have anything to do with it until you have a list to work from. (And makes sense that the estate has already been transferred to PA.)
I'm also a millennial and have been renting for my whole adult life, so I can empathize with not understanding anything about home ownership or buying/selling (because I haven't needed to know anything). I wouldn't want the hassle, but I guess there are people out there who really want to own a house! Hopefully one of those people is interested in buying, lol.
The mortgage thing is basically like you're buying the house, but instead of paying for it all at once you pay in smaller chunks over a long period of time. After you finish paying the smaller chunks, you do actually own the house. It just takes a long time (decades). Having to pay for utilities (e.g. electricity, internet/TV, water) is normal whether you're renting or owning... but having to pay for the ambulance and fire hydrants sounds kind of weird! I guess there are all kinds of quirky local things with cities and homeowners associations.
And glad you got rid of the cousins for now. 😊
@QuietMagic
My next task is figuring out how to get an electrical inspection and if it is passes they install a meter...they had electricity before, what happened to the meter? The lady said they have been known to disappear⁉️She also couldn't actually tell me how to get in touch with a person who is supposed to do those in the various townships (I can't figure out what a township is, and no one has been able to explain it because they have lived in PA their entire life and are surprised it's not a thing everywhere, I've never heard of that term mentioned before about any other state, just PA, maybe it's a commonwealth thing.
She suggested I Google it, which was not very helpful because I don't even understand what I'm attempting to get completed, all I know is that I have to do that before the electricity can be turned on, and I achieve that by completing an application once I call periodically to see if they have the inspection results....they won't call me and there's never been less than a two to three hour wait, but at least I have the option to keep my place in line and have them call eventually.
I also found out that I have until 2/2/2026 to sell it because that's the date the bank will sell it if I haven't. The best part of my day was that I woke up at like 10 and started calling people from mortgage companies and their lawyers, utility companies, random people who u I found after following the electric companies advice to use Google to find someone to do whatever they are supposed to do, and having them all be unable to do what the electric company said they could do lol, and most of all, I think today set a record for how many times I've ever been hung up on in 1 day.
I don't want to own a house, I prefer to rent because I can call maintenance and it's suddenly all better without an insane bill, it seems like it isn't an investment, but rather an expensive headache. Being responsible for everything that breaks or needs to be replaced or even to get rid of a hornet nest (I refused to get out of the car, I'm allergic, and called orkin to destroy the monsters and it was almost $500, that seems expensive, but I also would've paid pretty much anything to get rid of it, it's not my money. But renting means the owner deals with that kind of unpleasant surprise). Not that most of our generation can actually afford to, but I definitely don't want to buy, renting is easier to understand (I had to ask for an explanation about soo many different things and even words in the context used, that I feel dumb, and soo confused that I'd rather stay that way renting is soo much simpler.
Now I have to figure out how to sell a house, yah
@K87
I feel the same way on renting being easier! You submit a work order and things just get magically fixed without having to pay money, contact contractors, etc. You're not dumb--there's just never been a need to learn/know certain things if you're not owning or selling a house. 😊
I asked Gemini for help with figuring out the whole electrical inspection thing: who to contact, what to ask, etc. I don't have enough information to point you to the specific website, organization, or phone number (and it would probably be inappropriate for me to ask you for more detailed information that might be personally identifying)... but below are the general steps it came up with. (It also suggested delegating to the lawyer as a possible option though.) Might be able to skip Step 1 if you know the name of the township. Apologies if this is stuff you've already tried and it didn't work, which may be the case. 💜
TL;DR = find the phone # for the local government's "code enforcement" office online and ask them about the process for a residential electrical inspection for a home sale
Step 1: Identify the Exact Local Government Office (The "Township")
This is the most critical first step to find the right phone number. The "township" is just the name for the local government in that specific area (like a city or borough). Every property in PA is located within one.
How to Find It: The easiest way is to use the property's address.
Go to a search engine and search for "[County Name] property records" or "[County Name] tax assessment office."
Most counties in Pennsylvania have a public online portal where you can enter a property address. The search result will provide a detailed report on the property, which will explicitly name the "Municipality" (which will be the name of the township, borough, or city).
Once you have that name (e.g., "Springfield Township"), you know who to contact.
Step 2: Find the Right Department Within That Office
Now that you have the name of the municipality, you can find the specific department responsible for inspections.
How to Find It: Search online for "[Municipality Name] code enforcement" or "[Municipality Name] permits and inspections."
This will lead you to the official government webpage for that department, which will have the correct phone number, address, and office hours.
Step 3: Make the Call and Ask the Right Questions
When you call the Code Enforcement/Inspections office, you can use a script to get right to the point:
"Hello, I am handling an estate and need to get a residential electrical inspection for a home sale. The goal is to have the utility company reinstall the meter. Could you please tell me about your process?"
Here is a checklist of crucial questions to ask them during the call:
Do I need to apply for a permit first? (Often, an application and fee are required before an inspection can be scheduled).
Who performs the inspection? (Do you send a municipal inspector, or do I need to hire a certified third-party agency from a state list?)
What is the application process and what are the fees?
How do I schedule the inspection?
Once the inspection passes, how is the electric company notified? (Do you notify them, or do I receive a certificate to send them?)
A Very Important Possibility: The Third-Party Inspector
Don't be surprised if the township office tells you they don't do the inspections themselves. Many smaller municipalities in PA "opt-out" and require the homeowner to hire a state-approved "Third-Party Agency" to perform the inspection.
If this is the case: The township will tell you this on the phone. You would then search for the "Pennsylvania UCC third party inspection agency list" online to find a certified company in that area to hire