Family dysfunction is the gift that keeps on giving. I’m 50 and still have to deal with the ramifications. The pandemic has really brought up the issues in part because Taiwan is going through a strict lockdown.
Side Note: It’s killing me how seriously Taiwan took one spreader. Granted, they are a landlocked country with many people and little space, but, my god. Back in the beginning, Taiwan took it very seriously. They have a culture of mask-wearing, anyway, so that wasn’t a hard sell. But, they heavily enforced it by fining the offenders and telling people to report their neighbors for not wearing their masks.
Now. This would not work in America for many reasons. One, it’s problematic to have people policing their neighbors–I should hope that is evident without me saying anything. In addition, Taiwan is tiny in comparison to the United States. Anyway, the result was that Taiwan did not have a case for several months. I want to say nine or ten, Then, they had a careless pilot who had Covid and went all over town in one night. That’s how they got their current breakout case. They went into immediately lockdown and were sternly warned about the consequences of breaking the regulations. They reached a high of 800 cases a day and now have had 0 cases for a few days this last week.
Here’s the problem. My father is an extreme extrovert who doesn’t exist without the attention of others. He can’t entertain himself and he’s used to others doing things for him. He was the president of a research company and had an EA who did everything for him, including printing out his emails so he could read them.
In addition, my mother has treated him like the most important person in the world ever since they got together, which was over fifty years ago. When I was a kid, there were things my brother and I weren’t supposed to tell our father because he couldn’t handle it. We were not supposed to upset him and he was the only one allowed to express any emotions.