EthanRuby

What advice can you give to job seekers with depression or other mental illnesses?

For instance, I realize that job postings often say things like "5 years experience needed" but you're supposed to ignore that and apply anyway. To someone with anxiety, low self-esteem, etc - they may not be able to ignore it.

Or someone may not be able to imagine themselves fitting into any role, thus have trouble figuring out what jobs they really could do/would actually enjoy.

Or perhaps a severe phobia gets in the way and would need to be worked around.

That sort of thing. There's got to be tons of situations people have that are big roadblocks to getting a job, but employers don't seem to really care about people and won't give anyone a chance if they don't immediately look good on paper - and that's if the person was even able to get past the roadblocks involved in turning in the application!

We have two cats, male and female siblings a little over 2 years old. Soon after we got them, the male began defecating in our tub - loose stools most of the time, so we knew he had tummy trouble. We tried probiotic powder, moving where their boxes are (we have 2 boxes), a change of their wet food, and Metronidozole at our vet's recommendation. After the medicine, the problem stopped and everything was fine for a month or so.

But now, the female is defecating in the dining room off and on. It seems like it will happen for about a week, and then a few days of using her box normally, then back to the dining room for another week or so, etc. These stools are solid, so we figured it was probably not something medically wrong. Doing a full clean of the boxes didn't help, and I have also tried out different levels of litter in the box. If I see her sniffing around the boxes then walking away, I'll put her inside, and sometimes she will use it.

The only ideas I have are:

• Could it be due to not drinking enough water? She has always tried to drink from our water glasses, but when I immediately pick her up and put her by her own water, she walks away. We tried putting out one of the same glasses that we use, too, in case that was a preference, but she still walks away when I put her by it (though I do occasionally see her drinking from it at other times, so we've kept that out).

• Could she not want to use either box after her brother has defecated in one? This could possibly explain why it's an intermittent problem, since they might need to go at different times each day or I might happen to clean the box in-between (I clean after breakfast and before bed each day).

I'm at a loss for what to try. Do you have any suggestions? Thank you!