All of you are starting to really anger me. Tracystoke with her post:"yawn ,yawn ,get out and about and sniff smells" is about as disrespectful and rude as it gets. The others nitpicking and thinking they have all the answers and solutions to secrecy's desperate cry for help. I understand that he gives reasons why he can't do certain things that are suggested to him. Why is he being accused of making excuses. I see cold heartless responses and "You are the problem" when met with lack of an instant "Eureka!!!" moment default everyday suggestions that really can not work in his situation. He has and told us he has been diagnosed. He has to battle a mental illness. He is depressed. His home situation is deplorable. Does everyone think he really is possibly lazy, or doesnt want to have a job or bother looking for one, etc. etc. etc.??? HELLOOOOOO! He is reaching out for advice and telling someone with his illness and home situation to go get a job, or stay with someone else, etc. just doesn't cut it. I am sure some of the people mean well. I myself am on disability, with a couple illnesses with no cure. By the way, I also have Narcolepsy. I am stuck in an abusive situation just to keep a roof over my head and not end up homeless. Secrecy, I have a couple suggestions, and will understand if you have difficulties with them. Just try your best. The first good thing you are doing for yourself is asking for help, and sticking to your guns and not dropping off this thread and giving up (at least to as far as I have read). You do sleep so much with depression, let alone any other problems with it. If you can, try to get on several different additional forums such as one for Mental health or depression, looking for work is an insane undertaking at this point in your life. Does everyone really think that if secrecy gets a job how can he actually function with the mental and physical state he is in? Number 1, try to get help with depression, maybe getting medications, help with how to COPE with your home situation. Number 2, try to get from Mental Health doctor a referral to a sleep center to get tested for Narcolepsy. If indeed diagnosed with that too, medicine will do wonders and get you in a regular sleep cycle. If you don't have it, then,you know depression is a big factor. I am not going to guess or diagnose, just adding on to what you have told us. If you try and work with Mental Health, (therapy/meds), learn to cope with home situation (for now, not forever),(through therapy and/or support forums) - ask the people at mental health if you can qualify for their housing. Most Mental Health facilities in just about every town in the US has rooms, group homes, apts. set up for their patients. if they don't, I know they have referrals to agencies that will help. I wish you the best of luck and many blessings for your recovery from the nightmare you have been living in. Do not give up! I have a list of how to help or not help people with chronic illness written by Not Done Living: DON�T assume because I look well that I feel well. Looks can be very deceiving. Many days I look great, but I feel terrible. DON�T tell me you know how I feel. No one knows how anyone else feels. Two people with the same disease may feel totally different. We all have varying thresholds of pain, and pain cannot be measured. DON�T tell me about your great-aunt GERTRUDE and her illness, and how well she managed in spite of it. I am not AUNT GERTRUDE, and I am doing my best. DON�T tell me, "It could be worse". Yes, it could be, but I don�t need to be reminded. DON�T decide what I am capable of doing. Chronic physical illness doesn�t affect the brain. Allow me to decide what activities I can participate in. There may be times I might make the wrong decision, and if I do, I�ll know it soon enough. DON�T be upset that you cannot ease my pain. It won�t do any good for both of us to be miserable. DON�T ask me how I feel unless you really want to know. You may hear a lot more than you are prepared to listen to. DON�T assume because I did a certain activity yesterday that I can do it today. Chronic illness and pain is ever-changing. DON�T tell me about the latest fad �cure�. I want to be cured more than anything, and if there is a legitimate cure out there, my doctor will let me know. DO learn everything you can about the disease. The more you know, the better equipped you will be to know what to expect. DO realize I am angry and frustrated with the disease, not with you. DO let me know you are available to help me when I ask. I�ll be grateful. DO offer me lots of hugs and encouragement. DO understand why I cancel plans at the last minute. I never know from one day to the next how I will feel. Chronic illness is like that. DO continue to invite me to all the activities. Just because I am not able to bike ride along with the gang does not mean I can�t meet you for the picnic at the end of the trail. Please let me decide � If I cancel activities, please do not stop inviting me. I do not deserve to be shut out or forgotten and left alone. Do not give up on my life, I have a hard time doing that myself.

Talk to his pediatrician. Chewing the skin off the tops of his fingers is something to worry more about than uncomplicated nail biting. It might be associated with a medical problem, or with excessive stress for which he may need the help of a child counselor. If he is wounding himself, at 7 that's a good sign that you should talk to his doctor about it. It's not regular nail biting. (if he's just chewing dead skin or calluses that's probably not a huge problem but if he's making himself bleed doing this or giving himself bruises or pinch marks talk to his doctor). When you talk to your son, what kinds of things does he say? Ask open-ended questions and encourage him to talk. He may not know why he does it (or he might have an idea). Children can have problems that they need specialized help to learn how to manage (children can feel compulsions, and those are not the same as habits of choice which can be stopped at will or by a bad taste). If they have OCD, that can give them a whole world of stress on top of whatever 'normal' stress is and they would need specialized directed help to learn how to do that. if he started with his nails, has been talked to and not only seems unable to stop by himself but he has progressed to chewing the skin of his fingers, you will likely need to consult with professionals who know more about serious habitual behaviors and who can recommend 'next' people to see and explain why those recommendations are made P.S. Sometimes behavior changes which don't seem related to observable stress issues, or things like that in a person's life can have medical causes. It's usually better to get them checked out and ruled out (even if it feels 'too much', than to find out later there was a medical cause because sometimes there is and it wouldn't be treated the same was as a nail biting habit would be).

Kristie, I don't think it's a matter of money. (How would you feel to think that you are sitting here today merely because some hotshot on Wall St. decided to give the economy a jump one year?) For rural families in farming and agriculture, it PAYS to have children. For families in the cities and suburbs, it COSTS. C'est la vie. You can't be led by your pocketbook. Otherwise, if finances stay tight, you and your husband may end your reproductive-potential years with your beloved children still backed up in time, unexpressed. But lest thou be overcome by schmaltz, there is another caution as well: is this h*ll of a tired old world something you want to bring them into? Wait a minute; that's schmaltz too. Well, to sanitize the philosophical discussion in a way that it does not provoke too many unstable emotions, I will couch it this way: The world contains 6,050,000 individuals. And there are enough problems with that sheer number as it is. The poorest of the poor (or the dirt flo' po', as they say in some locales) have many children. Sometimes because they don't know how to prevent conception, and other times because they simply want to have many children. In India the people believe in karma and reincarnation, and thus believe that by bringing many children into the world they are facilitating extra lives for souls who have in past times departed. This is a religious belief, of course. IMHO, after 9/11 it is just too late in the history of our nation to try to have a baby. Our nation is going to go through more h*ll. No, I don't believe what the administration says, those cocky Texas-accented remarks of "coming back stronger than before". And I don't believe that the Soviet Union really fell, either. It's just playing dead, and then they will suckerpunch us with some type of attack. However, before you call me a doom-'n'-gloomer and hit the back button, let me explain. Doom and gloom aren't the main point, just examples of things to take into consideration. When discussing the prospect of having children, balance is key. Balance practical logic, philosophy, and last of all, emotions. If you overdo practical logic, you will end up with dehumanizing, Communistic (I would have typed Naziesque but then I would have violated Godwin's Law), economic ways of thinking about people. If you overdo emotions (far more common), you will end up being led by your six/seven basic emotions to places totally irrational. Philosophy is the balance stick: your philosophy tells you where the right balance is between reason & emotions. Some disagree on where that balance is. Couples often "protect" unexpressed children by holding them back during times of economic adversity or other undesirable things. Others feel that "existence precedes essence", and that the privilege of life itself is more valuable than anything money can buy. After all, would YOU kill yourself because you got a small paycheck? (This line of thought states that only a position holding life itself in supremacy is a balanced position.) Others want to have them as early as possible regardless, because they want to know their children while still young, and share more years of their lives with them. A couple who have a child at age 20 get to share 20 more years of their lives with that child than they would if they had the child at age 40. Happy New Year, Kristie! And may the Year of the Dog be well filled with balance!

Once they've been nicked, oh boy! Imagine if someone had to clip your nails, and from time to time you got cut to the quick? Owie! Anyway, I used to take mine to the groomer or the vet but he hated it so much. The vet did the best - they'd have me hold him, then they'd take just a tiny sliver. Okay, but his nails were starting to look all "Dracula" LOL. So a girlfriend finally showed me the right tool and method to do with my dachshund. I bought a "guillotine" style clipper, not the usual kind. Then I lay him on his back on my lap or in a chair (which he doesn't mind - some dogs DO mind being on their back for you, so your mileage may vary!) When he's on his back, I can see his black nails from the bottom, and cut each one carefully. The guillotine doesn't make any noise. It's more like a quick slice through the nail. I do a little at a time and do it twice a week. Here's a page that shows the type I got - the first 3 are guillotine style - the last ones are the typical ones - the ones that are more "butcher"-like! If your Abbey doesn't respond to anyone's ideas, you may just have to have her sedated at the vet to do it. Poor girl.