📝 Alex's scrapbook

I'm overwhelmed! 2025-08-20

Sep 19, 20259 min read

  • Wed 2025-08-20
  • I’m feeling fairly overwhelmed right now!

1. In Spain, helping my Dad in hospital

  • There’s been a whole saga of my Dad being in a Spanish hospital
  • I hadn’t spoken to him all year, and then I heard that he’d been in hospital for multiple weeks, and had stopped replying to messages
  • Saga of one of his friends flying out to find him, discovering him post-heart operation, very confused, etc
  • Then his friend had to leave, and I flew out last Friday (it is now Wednesday)
  • I’ve been visiting the hospital multiple times a day, and it’s been difficult in a multi-valent way

Stressful because:

A hospital in a different country = language barriers

  • It’s near Benidorm, so I think there’s a lot of built-in frustration at tourists
  • They seem angry at my Dad for not speaking good Spanish, and it’s been very difficult to get good information out of anyone
  • So I think we’ve been more “out of the loop” than in a typical hospital experience. I got here on a bank holiday Friday and was told I’d have to wait to speak to a doctor on Monday to learn anything, and when I spoke to a doctor on Monday, she only gave me 1 minute of her time
    • When I said “lo siento, hablas English?” she said “no 😑”, and then when I tried asking my questions in Google Translate Spanish, she spoke English perfectly. And then, when I tried to confirm what she said to me once she went and printed out his medical report, she refused to speak English, and only answered my questions in Spanish. It actually feels like my first ever experience being discriminated against, so I guess at least that’s a good reminder of how privileged I’ve been up until now 😅

I’m the only one here, he’s totally dependent on me

  • There’s multi-valent frustration here, because it’s my Dad’s fault that he doesn’t have a loving family to support him right now, IMO, so it feels very frustrating that I’m doing everything, as I’m the only person who will. (That is, no loving wife, no multiple children, etc)
  • I’m the only person who has visited him since I got here, I feel bad for him re: how bored he must be
  • He currently can’t walk, so he’s been totally stuck in bed
  • The nurses in Spain apparently don’t do things like showers, help with shaving, etc, so either I do it or no one does. They’ll do bed baths for him, but if he wants a proper shower, it has to be me who helps

Early mornings, late nights

  • I’m a 40 minute drive away
  • I’ve been arriving early because he fell off his bed a few times in the night (prior to me arriving) and was stuck on the floor for multiple hours, so he wants me to arrive as early as I can in case he’s on the floor
  • And he wants me to leave as late as possible so that I can be the last person he sees and make sure that no nurse moves his phone or emergency button out of his reach (which has happened multiple times)
  • So, I’ve been getting ~6 hours of sleep since I got here
Solutions
  • I’ve taped little signs in Spanish
    • One next to the emergency button: “please don’t move this out of his reach - he can’t get out of bed on his own”
    • One next to the light: “please don’t turn this off at night, as he’s fallen off his bed in the night and been disoriented in the pitch black”
  • Seems to have helped - the last few mornings, the light has been on and the emergency button still accessible, when I’ve gotten to him

I find my Dad to be very frustrating

  • I hadn’t spoken to him all year, and I thought “oh shit, that was dumb, he could have died, now’s a great time to reconnect”, but actually I’m very reminded of why I hadn’t spoken to him all year
  • So there’s this multi-valent frustration/resentment/disappointment at our connection and doubt that it’ll ever substantially improve, and lack of genuine motivation to try. So there’s a feeling of being stuck here caring for someone who mostly just frustrates the shit out of me

Life logistics have been messed up

  • Because of leaving early in the morning and getting back late at night, I haven’t been able to do a clothes wash yet, and have worn the same socks for 3 days, lol. And I had a big pile of washing up that I didn’t face for a few days, and then there were all these tiny ants on the kitchen counter 😅
  • I haven’t done a food shop, I’ve been living off hotel cafeteria food and vending machine food
  • I haven’t had time to go to a gym → I was just getting into the gym, and was really enjoying swimming, now I’m not exercising at all

Doing a bunch of admin stuff

  • A good kind of 4 hours a day has been taken up by travel + spending time with my dad + trying to converse with staff + figuring out his visa extension stuff + trying to figure out what he’ll do post-hospital + keeping his friends and family updated
  • It’s like a sudden job
  • There was also of course the admin/logistics stuff of “ok, what flight do I get, how do I get to the airport, when should I rent a car, where should I get it from, when should I return it, are there any last-minute Airbnbs, which Airbnb do I go for, where can I work from”, etc etc
    • And associated monetary costs of same

Still have admin stuff to figure out

  • How to extend his visa
  • Where is he going to go once he’s discharged? He can’t live alone, but no family member has room for him. Nursing home?

Isolated!

  • There’s no one here with me, I’m not sharing this all with a sibling or another parent or anything, it’s all on me
  • My dad’s friends have been helpful over message but I’m the only one “on the ground”

2. Not useful at Outcapped yet

  • As a result of traveling here and having a bunch of draining tasks to do re: my Dad, I’m behind on Outcapped, and as it’s a contractor gig, not working = not getting paid
  • It’s stressful because I’m only 4 weeks in and haven’t gotten into a good rhythm yet

Role definition

  • I’ve mostly been doing confusion mining, which isn’t explicitly part of my role
  • I’ve spent 3 hours this week proposing a new role or AOR (with an “organisational clarity” focus), and I feel like I’ve been neglecting my object-level deliverables that have been assigned to me, which feel difficult to prioritise vs the meta-level definition stuff

3. Other projects

Work trial for Probably Good

  • I have a 3 hour (unpaid 🙄) work trial for Probably Good which is due today. I’m going to email asking for an extension - it’s already 15:40 here and as per the title, I’m feeling overwhelmed. I definitely don’t have the resources to lock in for 3 hours - I need to do something useful for Outcapped first, prioritise the gig I already have innit

FRI interview

  • I have an FRI interview tomorrow. I don’t feel particularly well resourced for it, but it’s off the back of passing their work trial (shockingly!!! I thought I did dreadfully) and already having a decent model of what they do (e.g. Model of FRI) and having a very clear story of why I’d like to work for them (it’s a part-time research assistant role, and I think it’d potentially fit really well with my whole “learning to think”/“being a professional meta-cognitist” thing)

Call tomorrow to discuss an AI safety role/org

  • Someone I met at EAG emailed me re: an AI safety role they thought I might be a good fit for
  • I was meant to have a meeting with them tomorrow - I just emailed asking if I could have some more info async, as I’m quite overwhelmed atm b/c my dad’s in hospital, etc
  • My gut is that AI safety isn’t for me, but good to get some extra info in case the org is really cool or something

Ship It Week

  • I’m going to a 10 day container → What is Ship It Week? (2025-08-20)
  • I think this could mean another 10 days of kinda neglecting Outcapped, which I’m worried about. Or, squeezing in 1-3 hours of Outcapped work and missing out on opportunities at Ship It Week

Ethics tutor

Group house with Simmo

4. Things to be grateful for

  • I’m grateful for my youth and mobility! Nothing like seeing your bedbound parent to make you realise how lucky you are to be fully mobile and able to go anywhere you want
  • Love having a hire car! I haven’t driven in ~2 years and it’s really fun

5. Solutions

My dad is recovering well

  • Initially, he was disoriented and paranoid and wanted me to be in the hospital as early in the morning as possible and as late at night as possible.

  • He’s been completely stuck in his bed, unable to move on his own. He now has a zimmerframe, and although he can’t stand up on his own, perhaps he’s only a few days out from being able to do it - it seems to be mostly a psychological block

  • So, I think his dependence on me should reduce with each passing day

  • And he’s stuck in hospital for another ~3 weeks, so that gives lots of time for him to get stronger

  • implicit huge sense of obligation

  • Byron Katie

  • what is my role? why am I here? could i reinvest this time at a different time?

  • trapped sadness in voice message

  • somatic experiencing, Byron Katie, IFS

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