Struggles With Career and Finances

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One of my friends works for a trucking company. The company recently announced no raises or bonuses for the next year. And this was before one of their largest clients cancelled their contracts. She’s worried she might be getting laid off within the coming months. I think she has good reason to be worried. Companies have been laying off white collar office workers since the end of the pandemic by the thousands even though they are still profitable. I’m convinced many of these layoffs can be attributed to the rise of cheap automation and AI. Another friend of mine worked for an internet provider in a major metro area during the pandemic. He was classified as an ‘essential worker.’ Caught covid three times, his wife died of ovarian cancer, and he still got laid off (along with his entire department) in spring 2022. My best friend works for a real estate management company, makes decent money, has no student loans, but still can’t afford to rent a one bedroom apartment in her city. She could do much of her job remotely (and wants to move to a cheaper rural area) but her company refuses to play ball with her. Another friend of mine is a teacher in a rural area in the Midwest. He has three small children. Even his house has doubled in value since he and his wife bought back in 2017. This isn’t a fancy suburb, it’s a small farming town. He says most of the available housing is being bought up by well to do retirees from out of state. In some cases, these people just use these places as rentals. Since wages in rural areas are already lower than urban areas, many of the locals can not afford to even rent these houses they could have easily afforded even ten years ago. Many people can’t even afford to be renters, unless they have roommates, second jobs, government assistance, help from family, or all of the above.

Everyone I know is struggling. About the only person my age I know whom isn’t struggling is my brother. He works as an electrical engineer for a defense contractor. He’s in his mid 40s, has a masters’ in business and engineering, and makes really good money. But even he could be subject to getting laid off in favor of a younger and cheaper engineer. His wife works for the same company. It’s possible they could both get laid off at the same time. While engineering jobs are safer than accounting or most office work, there still is no such thing as job security anymore. We are all hired guns these days. Your boss simply does not give a damn about you, how hard you work, how loyal you are, your family, your community, etc. They simply can’t afford to anymore, especially not with the competition being world wide and now including automation, AI, and robots. My parents had to compete with only other Americans. My generation had to compete with the entire world. My nephews’ generation has to compete with the entire world and machines.

Bosses don’t care about workers any more than they are legally obligated to. Never have. Never will. It’s why slavery in it’s various forums was (and still is) so big. Slavery used to be accepted as normal and even legally protected for most of written history. Minimum wage laws became a thing precisely because bosses would pay even lower if they could. And don’t even get me started on company towns and stores. Those are starting to make a comeback in some places. And since much of the work can now be automated, outsourced, etc. to machines, they really can get away with making it obvious they don’t care about workers and their communities.

I have to admit, seeing my friends and family struggle in their early 40s makes me kind of thankful to have schizophrenia. Sure, the paranoia, delusions, hallucinations, depression, and chronic anxiety suck, but at least I have some kind of social security disability pension, easy access to medical care, low-income housing possibilities, etc. The medical treatments may not be top quality, but I’m not going to go bankrupt if I get cancer or have to have a long term stay in a mental hospital.

In some twisted ways developing schizophrenia in my late teens and struggling really bad in my twenties until I qualified for social security disability was a blessing in disguise. Sure, it took me many years to realize it, but I am debt free, child free, never been married or divorced, have some emergency savings, and I get to spend all day every day just expanding my knowledge and learning new skills. In some sick backwards kind of way, I stumbled into my dream life. I always wanted to be a scholar.

I always felt more at home in old libraries, museums, art galleries, writers’ conferences, and educational sites on YouTube then I ever did even in my own house. For me, getting to acquire knowledge is the greatest job I could ever have. It might not pay well, but it has taught me how to live (and acquire some savings) even on disability wages. Sure I’ll never get rich and own a nice house in the burbs, but I don’t want to be a homeowner.

In my case, it’s better to be a renter. I can easily move, if need be, I don’t have to worry about fixing my own toilet, don’t have to mow lawns or shovel snow, have easy access to public transit and Uber services, etc. Besides, does anyone really own their own home outright even if it is completely paid off? Try not paying your property taxes and HOA fees and you will find out pretty damn quick who really is in charge of your castle. In short, I may not have good health, children, a wife, a career, prestige, etc. Yet, I feel more content and at ease with my lot in life than most of my friends and family who do have such things.

Survival Instinct During Mental Illness and Great Changes

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Got another notice from the city housing authority yesterday, stating that I was approved for yet another waiting list on yet another apartment complex. Been burned too many times to get excited about it. I filled out the online application. Yet I expect nothing to come of it. I’ve just settled in for the long haul. It’s very possible a wheelchair accessible low-income place ever comes open before I die. I’ve come to accept that things rarely work out like they’re supposed to.

As much as I would love to have my own place again, I have made my peace with the idea that I very well may have to live with my family for the rest of my life. My parents are elderly and in declining health. I may have to go live with my brother. I don’t know how that would go as my brother and I didn’t have much of a relationship as children and we don’t have much in common as 40 something adults. It’s a huge blow to my pride that I may never be on my own again. But at least I am still alive and fighting. Some days I don’t know what keeps me going other than old fashioned survival instinct.

I’ve only recently realized just how powerful the survival instinct in a person is. I’m beginning to understand how people can eat out of garbage cans, or even each other if things got bad enough. When I saw the movie ‘Alive’ as a teenager back in the 1990s, I was squeamish about the survivors of the plane crash in the Andes mountains eating their own dead in order to stay alive. But, until I saw that movie, I didn’t realize that Catholics (whom most of the survivors of that crash were) considered eating human flesh extremely evil. But many of them did survive long enough that some of the healthiest survivors were able to hike out of the mountains and get help. They survived for I’m guessing over 4 months in the Andes Mountains until they were rescued. And this was based on a true story about a soccer team (I think) back in the 1970s. I imagine some of them are still alive today in 2023.

Things have been really challenging ever since my old friend Pastor Verne died in 2014. In the next ten months, I lost two more close friends and my last grandparent. In October 2015, I was in a car wreck that did over 5000 dollars worth of damage to my car. Since I was not at fault, the other driver’s insurance covered my car repairs and medical treatment. I messed my back up pretty bad and had to have three months of chiropractic therapy. Even after the therapy was over, I was still anxious about driving. I gradually drove less and less. In 2017, I started buying everything online and having it delivered to my apartment. I guess it was a good trial run before the pandemic hit in 2020. In 2019 I sold my car and started having severe knee pains all day, every day. The knees hurt so bad that I become homebound. I complained about the pains to my doctor in December 2019, but nothing was done. I was scheduled to have a follow up appointment six months after. In March 2020, the covid pandemic came to America. And everything changed after that.

Since the hospitals and clinics were overwhelmed with covid patients, I decided to shelter in place. I have preexisting conditions, like schizophrenia and sleep apnea, that probably would have made covid worse. Much to the irritation of most of my family and former friends (I have lost close to 75 percent of my previous friend base due to contentious politics and culture war garbage and no longer feel safe going to family functions), I treated covid like I had gotten drafted to go to war. I sheltered in place until I got my first vaccine in May 2021. Between March 2020 and May 2021, I never left my apartment without a facemask or hand sanitizer. Most of my family and neighbors were upset I did this, but I didn’t ask for anyone else to do the same not even once. Sure it was lonely spending day after day alone. But I read alot, lifted arm weights almost daily, got serious about watching my diet, gave up sugar and most carbs. Between March 2020 and February 2023 (when I left Nebraska for Oklahoma) I lost over 170 pounds.

In September 2021, I was diagnosed with congestive heart failure. Once that got stabilized, I went back to my apartment in Kearney. For the first three months I had a home health nurse come check in on me once a week. This was going great until it was suddenly discontinued after only three months. When I applied to get back in the program, I was denied and told it was only temporary for everyone. My doctor refused to renew my scripts through telemedicine (even though my psych doctor did so with psych medications all through the pandemic). Since I had no car anymore, and public transit in my previous hometown was essentially non existent, I could no longer make it to my appointments. My family was 500 miles away at the time. In May 2022, I started having heart failure issues again.

This time I decided I wasn’t going to repeat the past mistakes. I requested going to assisted living in a place where, not only could I get my heart problems stabilized, but I could also get physical therapy too. I found a place in a real small town a 2 hour drive away from my hometown. My initial plan was to stay there for a couple years, rehab my heart, get my meds straightened out, and then relocate to Oklahoma City where the rest of my family now was. My parents moved here to Oklahoma City in 2018 to be closer to their grandchildren. I would have moved down here sooner, except the pandemic and heart failure made me take a several year detour. In 2018, I wasn’t ready to abandon Nebraska just yet. After spending the pandemic alone and almost dying of heart failure on two separate occasions, I realized that I had no future in Nebraska.

My move to the long term facility was a life saver and a life changer. I made lots of friends there, mostly with the staff members. Most of the staff were in their 20s and 30s. They were optimistic go getters, really encouraging, and really cool people. Turns out my recovery went faster than I expected. My minimum two years there turned out to be only eight months. I moved out for good on February 6, 2023. Ironically, February 6 was the exact same date I moved out of my childhood farm village for Kearney. Kearney was a college town of 35,000 residents. I lived there from 2005 to 2022. I loved it there, at least until the chronic physical health problems started. I was pretty much a shut in from 2019 to 2022, granted most of this time was during the pandemic. My mom lost one of her best friends to covid. The lady who sold some land to our family when we still owned some land in rural Nebraska also died from covid. One of my best friends worked for an internet provider in a major urban center. He was classified as an essential worker, caught covid three times, and he and much of his department were still laid off when the pandemic started to lift in 2022. Most of the nurses and doctors I made friends within long term care caught covid multiple times. None of them ever went into detail, much like veterans don’t talk about their experiences in war much I imagine. One doctor said she saw “many” people die from covid. That’s all she would say about it. Angers me that many people in my country still don’t take it serious. It’s like they don’t care that millions of people died from the pandemic, including one million in our own country. Attitudes like that are sick and soulless.

Been in Oklahoma since February 2023. Got my new doctors lined up. Met a couple of my case workers. Met some of my neighbors. Made some really great friends within the last few months. Reestablished a couple friendships that had fallen apart during the contentious politics of the last eight years or so. I’m still afraid of going to family functions. Probably always will be. I do great in one-on-one situations. But I do terrible in group settings. Always have. Even as a teenager, I despised group assignments in school. The only partner I ever had in any group assignment that put in the same effort I did was my best friend. She still is my best friend even in our 40s. I just don’t trust anyone to put in the same effort I do in anything I’m involved in. Probably never will.

There’s lots I love about living in an urban area. I love the diversity in cultures, diversity in small businesses and restaurants, and I love living in a place that people actually want to move to. First time in my 43 years of living I lived somewhere that wasn’t slowly dying. First time in my entire life that I’ve lived in place that is overall optimistic and hopeful about the future. It’s so far better than anywhere I have ever lived, at least for me. Sure I will miss the cold winters and the cool evenings in summer, but I am starting to adapt to the new surroundings. It’s the diversity in cultures, people, and thought that I love so much about being in an urban center. I’m starting to feel like I finally found my own personal tribe. First time in my entire life (other than my years in college) where I feel like I’m not a complete outcast for loving nerdy things like history, philosophy, economics, and science fiction. After 43 years of painful searching, I may have finally found my people and permanent home.

70 Questions Answered by A Life Of Mental Illness

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01: Do you have a good relationship with your parents? Yes

02: Who did you last say “I love you” to? My best friend S

03: Do you regret anything? Yes. Who doesn’t? I regret not buying a few shares of Apple shortly before the Smart Phone came out. I regret not buying Facebook or Tesla shortly after they went public.

04: Are you insecure? Isn’t everyone insecure about something?

05: What is your relationship status? Single but have plenty of friends.

06: How do you want to die? As a wise old man saying to the hospice nurses “I wish I worked more, was more rude to people, and spent less time with friends and family” just to mess with their heads.

07: What did you last eat? Steak and garlic mash potatoes

08: Played any sports? Football and Track in high school

09: Do you bite your nails? No

10: When was your last physical fight? In 7th grade

11: Do you like someone? I like many women but not enough to do a romance.

12: Have you ever stayed up 48 hours? Yes

13: Do you hate anyone at the moment? Yes. Stupid, short tempered, and short-sighted people.

14: Do you miss someone? I miss many people.

15: Have any pets? A ten-year-old former stray cat named Kit Carson who came to my house one day and never left.

16: How exactly are you feeling at the moment? Buzzed off coffee and kind of chatty.

17: Ever made out in the bathroom? Among various other places.

18: Are you scared of spiders? Yes, especially the ones that can jump.

19: Would you go back in time if you were given the chance? I’d go to the future but not the past. The past kinda sucked unless you were a king or rich.

20: Where was the last place you snogged someone? What is snogged?

21: What are your plans for this weekend? Not watch football or baseball.

22: Do you want to have kids? How many? Nope. I already have several nephews and nieces.

23: Do you have piercings? How many? No. But I have some really cool scars from misadventures of my younger days.

24: What is/are/were your best subject(s)? History, Economics, Chemistry

25: Do you miss anyone from your past? Oh yes. Many people.

26: What are you craving right now? World peace. Deep space exploration. Fusion Energy. Robot Friends. Crazed blood thirsty madness like that.

27: Have you ever broken someone’s heart? Oh yes. A few of them might have even deserved it.

28: Have you ever been cheated on? Don’t know. Don’t care.

29: Have you made a boyfriend/girlfriend cry? Yes.

30: What’s irritating you right now? People who fear change.

31: Does somebody love you? In what ways? I never understood why the English language has only word for love when like the Ancient Greeks had several.

32: What is your favorite color? Gold, Silver, and payday Green

33: Do you have trust issues? Yes. Who doesn’t? I mean, who wouldn’t love to have a well-stocked trust fund?

34: Who/what was your last dream about? It was the one when I had to redo high school as an adult but could walk around naked and no one seemed to mind.

35: Who was the last person you cried in front of? My mother.

36: Do you give out second chances too easily? No.

37: Is it easier to forgive or forget? Neither are easy.

38: Is this year the best year of your life? No, but it’s far better than any of the 2020s so far. For sure.

39: How old were you when you had your first kiss? 17

40: Have you ever walked outside completely naked? Only on the family acreage but not like just go for a nude stroll in the downtown during rush hour.

51: Favourite food? General Tso chicken. Don’t know how many battles the good general won, but I’m sure his soldiers always dined well.

52: Do you believe everything happens for a reason? No. But I believe we can allow things that happen to be catalysts for change.

53: What is the last thing you did before you went to bed last night? Took my pills, took a leak, and almost tripped over my cat.

54: Is cheating ever okay? Why commit to a marriage if you’re going to even consider straying? If one wants to screw around, go ahead. Don’t get married or in a long-term relationship. Define what you want from the very beginning.

55: Are you mean? Only to stupid and rude people once they test my patience too much.

56: How many people have you fist fought? Not counting defending myself from school yard bullies, three or four.

57: Do you believe in true love? I don’t believe any human is capable of never failing love. Nothing finite is.

58: Favourite weather? Cloudy, chilly, and rainy.

59: Do you like the snow? Yes.

60: Do you wanna get married? Egad, no.

61: Is it cute when a boy/girl calls you baby? No.

62: What makes you happy? Reading, deep conversations, Papa John’s, and sparkling flavored water.

63: Would you change your name? Only if I was hiding from the law.

64: Would it be hard to kiss the last person you kissed? No.

65: Your best friend of the opposite sex likes you, what do you do? Maybe occasional kissing and hugging. But certainly, no marriage.

66: Do you have a friend of the opposite sex who you can act your complete self around? I can act myself around ALL of my friends of the opposite sex. It’s why the majority of my friends are opposite sex.

67: Who was the last person of the opposite sex you talked to? My friend C

68: Who’s the last person you had a deep conversation with? My friend M

69: Do you believe in soulmates? Oh yes.

70: Is there anyone you would die for? To quote General George Patton, “No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it to make the other bastard to die for his.” Hopefully I never have to find out if this is true for friends as well.

Labor Day 2023 and My Labor of Love

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Today was Labor Day, the unofficial end of summer. I can tell the days are getting shorter and the sun sets earlier. I’ll be so glad once cooler weather starts up for good. Didn’t do much this Labor Day weekend besides reading and some writing. Been sharing some of my older posts from years ago. Some of those seem as relevant as ever. Shared some posts I wrote during the pandemic. Hard to believe that all started only three years ago. Feels like ten years ago some days.

Everything I have set out to accomplish since I moved to Oklahoma seven months ago is accomplished except for finding my own place. I have zero idea when a place will open up. Could be any day. Could be several years from now. Currently living in the guest room of my parents’ house. Yes, it is a blow to my pride being a 43-year-old man living with my elderly parents even if I buy my own food and pay my share of the utilities. But I know people who have it far worse. People sometimes tell me I’m lucky to be disabled and get cheap health care and a pension for not being able to work. Sadly, they are right. But I think my being lucky says far more about our current system than anything.

Believe it or not, I would love to be cured of schizophrenia and heart failure. I would love to work again, preferably be self-employed though. I have always worked long and hard. Always will. Even on disability I easily spend 60 to 80 hours a week on reading, writing, and researching. Have ever since I left my last “traditional” job back in 2012. If anything, I work harder and longer now than I ever did when I worked for someone else. I didn’t do nearly as much writing and research when I worked for other people, especially in my twenties. I do more reading and writing now than I ever did even in college. I just don’t get paid or credit for it.

I don’t really care if I don’t get paid for my writing and research. I don’t care if many people agree with me on anything. I write because that is what I am good at. I don’t care if it makes me even a cent. I will continue to write as long as I am mentally sharp enough to. Unlike most physical skills, mental skills don’t usually deteriorate until old age. It’s why even though I have physical health problems, I can still manage my life. I write because I have a mental and even physical need to. If I make money, it’s cool. If not, no big deal.

Late August and Transitioning into Early Fall

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Been staying up late most nights lately and usually sleeping until late morning. It seems to help with my depression and anxiety. I generally do better research and writing in the overnight hours when the house and neighborhood are quiet. Of course my mom worries about me keeping such odd hours and sleeping so much during the day. As of right now it’s not effecting my anxiety or even blood pressure. It seems to work for me right now.

I think I’m losing weight again after gaining 20 pounds in the first three months I moved to Oklahoma. I try not to focus on numbers so much as I do how my clothing fits, how many aches and pains I have, and how much I actually eat. Since switching to mostly meats and vegetables, I have found that I eat less often and my hunger is more manageable. I usually eat once if I’m up in the middle of the night.

I’ve been quite stable this August. Normally, August is the toughest time of year for me. Last August when I was in physical rehab was quite tough. I had issues with my roommate and my aches and pains in my feet and knees still hadn’t completely cleared. Summer 2022 was tough. I actually made my peace with the fact that I might not live long enough to move to Oklahoma. Thankfully, that never came to pass.

Mentally I have been, for the most part, more stable since I moved to Oklahoma City than when I lived-in small-town Nebraska. I always felt like an outsider in such small areas. I didn’t make many friends as I have such odd interests. Most of my friends no longer live in Nebraska. It took me 42 years to move to an urban area, but I’m glad I finally did. I would have come here several years sooner if not for the pandemic and unresolved health issues. But eight months in physical rehab seems to be exactly what I needed. I certainly wasn’t going to get the immediate and intense help I needed living in low-income housing in Kearney.

I really don’t like socializing in person as most people don’t share my interests and I don’t share the interests of most people. I haven’t sat down and watched a sports event from start to finish since 2015. And that was an in person minor league baseball game. Those are fun. And often cheap. Last time I went to a minor league game in Omaha, I was able to get a seat within reaching distance of one of the dugouts, buy two hot dogs, and a soda pop for less than 25 dollars. I’d rather go see a minor league baseball game in person than go to the movies. At least with baseball I can sit outdoors for three hours, socialize with my neighbors between innings, and crowd watch. Oklahoma City has a minor league team too. If I ever regain my mobility, I’m going to make a point of going to at least one game every summer. I like watching baseball in person more than watching it on tv. And most football games have too large of crowds for my liking.

It is obvious that summer is coming to an end. We are in the last days of August. Schools are back in session. Baseball playoffs will be starting in a few weeks. The leaves will be changing soon. I will be interested in seeing how autumn here in Oklahoma differs from back in Nebraska. Leaves in Nebraska usually start turning in mid to late September, corn harvest is in full swing by early October, and the first frost is usually by mid-October. We’ve just had a week of 100-degree Fahrenheit. Hopefully, it’s the last real heat wave for the summer. The nights are getting noticeably longer.

Been going through some of my old posts from previous years. I’m thinking about sharing some time appropriate posts from the past. With September being only a few days away, I might repost some of the blogs I wrote five years ago, two years ago, last year, etc. I started doing that some with the facebook page for this blog. And my traffic is starting to increase again. My traffic had been low during the pandemic and when I wasn’t posting regularly during physical rehab. It’s now starting to pick up again. Eventually I’m probably going to monetize the blog and see if I can make a little money on the side. I’m definitely planning on promoting more and posting more. I think I have enough materials now I should be able to do something like a Throwback Thursday every week.

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Good Times and Bad Times With Schizophrenia

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College Years and How I Became a Blogger

Hobbies and Mental Illness

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I’ve had lots of hobbies over the years. I liked fishing when I was in high school and college. I did intramural softball when I was in college. Did speech and school plays when I was a teenager. Did football and track in high school. Started writing in college. Wrote poetry for several years. I started this blog after a series of essays I wrote about living with mental illness. Wrote rough drafts for two novels when I was in my twenties. I found a love for computer games in my thirties. The Civilization series, Railroad Tycoon series, Total War series, Stellaris, and Sim City are probably my favorite PC games. My favorite games on PlayStation 5 are Skyrim, Cyberpunk 2077, God of War, FIFA Soccer, Madden NFL, and Call of Duty. I also collect books. I love to read, mostly nonfiction. My favorite genres are nonfiction science, biographies, philosophy, economics, personal finance, and history.

Hobbies helped me find new meaning in my life once it became painfully obvious, I couldn’t hold a regular job anymore. I haven’t worked a regular job since 2012. Yet, that’s when I got serious about writing. Over the years I’ve written in this blog regularly. It’s part memoir and part journal. I’ve gotten readers from most countries all over the world. Haven’t made much money off my writings.

For the first few years of my writing journey, I self-published several books. There was the forementioned mental illness essays book, several poetry books, an advice book, and a novel. I went through the print on demand route. Ended up selling several dozen copies. I’m kicking myself for not saving some of those Word files. I’m thinking eventually of putting some of my blog entries into book form. Just a matter of copying and editing. I have hundreds of entries on this blog. There certainly has to be at least one book in there.

In short, writing is one of those hobbies that has taken on a life of its own. I’m thinking of eventually taking the next logical step and trying to get some of these writings publicized. I’m probably going to monetize my blog too once I get the funding. I almost have enough to make this a professional blog. I have found more meaning in writing than I ever found in any job. It’s the best job, but worst paying, I ever had. I hope to change that starting real soon.

Looking Forward to Autumn, Friends and their Mid Life Crises, Dealing with Extreme Weather, and Refusing To Tolerate Stupid and Rude People Anymore

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Saw my general practitioner a few days ago. My blood pressure is stable and good. Everything else seems to be going alright. School started here in Oklahoma City last week. My parents will probably be going to school activities again once the weather cools down. With as hot as it’s been the last several days, it’s hard to believe that autumn is only a few weeks away. First college football games start next week. I guess I’ve lost interest in most sports besides the Olympics and World Cup. My interests have changed as I aged.

Haven’t had much contact with most of my friends all summer. Seems like most of them are going through midlife crises and are very angry and upset all the time. I’m grateful I went through my worst trials in my twenties. I don’t think I could start over at this point in my life, certainly not while fighting schizophrenia and heart failure. I still get depressed and despondent a few times per week. I definitely don’t like socializing in person. Most people are too obnoxious, rude, and angry anymore. My parents went to visit my brother and his family a few days ago. I made the point of not going to see them. I just hate socializing with people who refuse to back down and try to make everything a battle. I have enough inner battles of my own.

My best friend is suffering really bad right now. She’s always depressed and irritated. Has been for a couple of years. But this is worse than normal. I reach out to her when she goes on about no one reaching out, but she goes almost silent when I do try to get her to open up. It’s depressing to watch my friend of 30 years on the downward spiral. I try to tell her family that this isn’t normal. Naturally, no one is listening. It has always angered me when people ignore obvious facts. I never understood the line of thinking that a problem will go away if it’s ignored long enough. I swear, no one learns from the mistakes of the past or even their own. It’s really aggravating. It’s like some people want to self-destruct.

I sleep a lot in the afternoons lately. Helps me to avoid the worst of this summer heat wave. We knew climate change was coming for decades. We didn’t do enough to prevent it, let alone adapt to it. I am encouraged that renewables and next generation nuclear is being rapidly adopted. It still angers me that my nation pulled out of the Paris Climate Accord.

It also angers me that many of my countrymen (including most of my family) actively fight against the rebuilding and reinforcing of our nation’s infrastructure. I get that maintaining water systems, power plants, and highways aren’t as sexy as spending taxpayer money on defense and advanced research, but seriously, who doesn’t need clean running water or highway bridges that won’t collapse. We in the US have known our roads, railways, power grids, etc. weren’t keeping up with demand for many years. Only now are we truly addressing it. We’re also starting to bring back much of our manufacturing (granted it’s primarily done by machines). Interest rates are finally going back up, which they were artificially low for at least 20 years. I heard people complain about low interest rates. And now those same people are complaining about rates going up. Make up your minds already.

This level of insanity and cognitive dissonance are two big reasons I refuse to attend social functions anymore. It’s absolutely painful to listen to people howl on about things they know nothing about. I know nothing about quantum physics or marathon running, but I won’t comment on either one. Neurotypical people are absolutely frustrating. They aren’t even worth the trouble anymore, at least not as far as I can tell.

It’s one of the reasons I’m actually kind of glad a new place hasn’t opened up for me. At least here in the suburbs I don’t have to socialize if I don’t want to. At least I have some privacy, even if I do live in my mom’s guest room. Yes, I am a 43-year-old schizophrenic man living with his mom and dad. Never mind that I lived on my own with this diagnosis for over 18 years. I should be ashamed to live with my parents because so many people tell me I should be. But I’m not. Most people have zero clue with mental illness means. It’s one of those things no one will understand until it affects them personally or someone they care about. But cases of mental health problems are increasing. And they will continue to increase until we stop shaming people for the so-called weakness. I am glad that mental illness is easier to talk about publicly now than 20 years ago. I just hope the younger people struggling with mental health problems don’t have to suffer alone like I did in my teens and twenties. It is not weak to talk about problems. Never has been.

In some ways I’m not really looking forward to moving out on my own again. It’s actually nice to have some help around the house now that my mobility is gone. Not having easy access to interpersonal assistance is the biggest regret I have about not getting married. Yet, the mental illness would probably have made me impossible to live with. That, and I think people give up on marriages, friendships, employees, jobs, etc. too easily anymore. I just didn’t trust anyone enough to believe they wouldn’t abandon me when things got bad. I never will trust anyone enough to believe they won’t abandon me when things get tough. Everything is conditional and negotiable as far as I’ve seen. That’s pretty much the story of civilization. Nothing lasts forever. Sadly, neither do friendships and marriages. And I certainly don’t trust my neighbors anymore. I’m really not looking forward to returning to public life.

If I had my way, I’d just stay in my parents’ house and take over after they die. I know social security disability will allow disabled people to own their own house. But I’m not sure I could afford the property taxes in the suburbs. There are lots of Uber drivers and public transit available even in the suburbs. My brother and his family probably aren’t moving, barring anything major. Electricity is quite cheap down here, probably be even more so if we got solar panels and backup batteries installed on the house. Some of my neighbors have those. Every time I go out on the town, I see at least one Tesla. It feels good to finally live somewhere that seems to actually want to be part of the 21st century. I’m loving it. Wished I would have moved here years ago.

August 15 2023

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I have an appointment with my new psych doctor this morning. Means I have to venture into the downtown area. Pretty much just a get to know each other kind of deal. My mental health has been pretty stable. I’m actually excited about going into the city at large today. I normally keep to my suburb as my town is big enough it has everything I need within a few minutes of my house. First time I’ll be in the city in a few months.

The summer has been real hot for the most part. One the days it’s cooler than normal, it rains. We haven’t had the problems with fires this summer like we did this spring. I’m looking forward to autumn.

Was turned down for an apartment complex I applied for. Turns out the place is for mostly senior citizens age 62 and up. Since I’m only 43 I don’t qualify. It seems like most places that are easily handicap accessible are mainly for elderly. Looks like the wait is going to continue for the foreseeable future. I just don’t understand why, in a nation that have obvious affordable housing shortages, we don’t just build more places. Sounds almost like a lack of a supply to meet the increased demand. But, it’s not like young people don’t want to have their own houses and apartments. It’s that we can’t afford most of what is available.

Making most of my own meals now. I can now navigate my wheelchair through everywhere in the house. The doors are too narrow for a wheelchair to get through. But I can hobble thru until I can find a place to sit. I’m up quite late most nights. But I usually get more done at nights than during the day.