Dealing With My Physical Decline and My Friends Who Refuse to Acknowledge Decline

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Saw my home health nurse today. My mobility isn’t coming back like I had hoped at all. I’m still angry about physical therapy giving up on me after only one month. I’m angry that no long term care facility had a place for me.

It’s pretty damn obvious at this point that I am wheelchair bound and need accommodations. My case worker sees it. My home health nurse sees it. My doctor sees it. My parents see it. Hell, I saw it long before anyone. About the only people who are still in denial are my friends about my age. People can be awful stupid about some things.

My friends are the type of people who believe anything is probable, not possible, through positive thought and hard work. Hell, the believe if I don’t achieve mobility and good health again, it’s all my doing. With friends like that, who needs enemies?

I think my friends are in denial because it would force them to reflect on their own mortality and that they aren’t young anymore. It would also force them to reflect on the fact that one can do everything right and still lose big. Sometimes things just happen for no reason. My life is a prime example of this.

Adapting to Change: Mental Health and the Future of Work

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Even though I don’t go out or socialize in person much anymore, I still keep busy. I was recently demonetized on Medium. No explanation and no way to appeal. Really irritated me as I was making some decent money.

In some ways, they did me a favor forcing me back into Word Press on a regular basis. Even though I haven’t been posting much over the past year or so, I was still getting a decent amount of audience. Some days I would check, and I would have 40 or so views on a single day even though I hadn’t posted in weeks. Maybe the word is getting out there.

Sure, I made more money on Medium. But I got better audiences on Word Press. But I guess nothing lasts forever. There were also a lot of complainers and whiners on Medium. I don’t miss them. First World problems in most cases. I swear people like that never had to deal with bullies and setbacks as kids.

I was bullied a lot as a kid. Ended up in several fights, most of which I lost. But I’m glad I went through it. Made me confident in my ability to survive and adapt, especially as I got older. No I didn’t enjoy it at the time. But I thank God every day I dealt with some hardship as a kid during prosperous times.

I was born in 1980 and spent most of my formative years in the 1990s. We still had the latch key kind of things. I had my freedom, like most small-town kids. And the grownups usually let the kids solve their own problems unless we got too destructive or violent. Much of that behavior would be considered child abuse these days.

Personally, I think real abuse is sheltering kids from the consequences of their actions, not teaching them how to cook or do basic repairs to household items or never letting them solve their own problems. Hitting your kids isn’t the only form of child abuse out there. I think not preparing them for adulthood and its ups and downs is every bit as abusive as punching them in the face.

In some ways I’m glad I didn’t have kids or get married. But that is mostly because of the schizophrenia. While I don’t particularly enjoy living with my elderly parents, I know I would enjoy living in a nursing home (been there, done that) or being homeless would be even worse. It’s a blow to my pride that I live with my parents after being on my own for seventeen years. But I try not to complain, at least publicly, because I know it could a lot worse.

I’ve always taken mental health seriously. Even more so now with everything changing so rapidly. I’m under no delusion that I’ll ever make enough money to support myself off writing. Vast majority of even paid writers don’t make above poverty level wages off writing alone.

I’m kind of burned out on computer games. And almost every time I try to socialize with anyone outside of immediate family, these people are in awful moods all the time. Nothing can make most people happy.

These people are going to be really unhappy in a few years when AI and automation take more and more jobs, especially since we have almost nothing for social safety nets. Rest assured; it will happen. A lot of people will eventually lose their jobs to AI and automation. I’ve been trying to tell people this for over a dozen years. About the only people who listened are my retired elderly parents and my best friend. She’s always grumpy and grouchy now, it’ll only get worse when she loses her good paying job she’s complains about almost daily.

I know it sounds like I don’t sympathize with these people whose jobs are on the robot chopping block. But you would be wrong. I lost my career and everything I worked for many years ago due to my mental illness. I did everything right; worked hard in school, stayed away from drugs, stayed away from credit cards, stayed out of trouble, etc. And I still lost everything.

Millions of people will find themselves in the same boat within several years. Not their fault a machine can probably do their jobs better than they ever could. Soon they will be cheaper too. In my case I lost my career in my twenties rather than my forties when I would have had a mortgage, a couple kids to send to college, and a retirement to save for.

In spite being surrounded by grouches, I’m looking forward to Christmas. I didn’t ask for any special gifts. I think a large dinner of spiral ham, stuffing, green bean casserole, etc. is enough of a gift. Don’t know how many Christmases I have left, but I intend to really enjoy this one. It’s just too bad that it doesn’t snow much down here in Oklahoma City.

Merry Christmas to all you Grinches

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We’re in the middle of Christmas season. Even though most people I know and hear from are in pissed off moods, I still want to celebrate. About the only people I personally know who aren’t in constant foul moods are my mom, my brother, and my home health nurse who drops in on me once a week. But, most people choose to be pissy most of time anyway. Screw them if they want to live their lives angry all the time.

My best friend of over 30 years have been in a funk ever since the pandemic. She has some bitcoin and investments that are doing well. She makes more money than the average. She essentially complains about her job, her neighbors, the politicians, etc. I dare say she’s become a bitter old hag. She’s no longer any fun to hang out with anymore. I’m thankful I don’t live in the same city as her. She’s become a buzzkill and a whiner. I’ve had it with her. I’d tell her off except that she’s enough of a grinch she’d end the friendship over that.

My dad is so hard of hearing now he can’t understand a word I say. He has to use closed captioning on his tv because his hearing is so shot. He refuses to wear hearing aids. It’s tough living in the same house as my dad and not being able to even have a conversation with him.

I’m more in the Christmas spirit this year than normal. I guess after surviving 25 years with schizophrenia, 2 rounds of congestive heart failure that should have killed me and losing most of my friends to mid-life crisis and general all-around negativity, I lost most of my fear. Most people are weak, I think.

I’m Back on Word Press Full Time

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I was recently demonetized on Medium. They offered me no explanation or means to appeal the decision. As a result, I shut down my Medium account. It was too bad as I was making some decent money for several months.

How have I been mentally? Some would argue not too well as I have made my peace with the fact that I will someday die. Don’t worry, I’m not suicidal or self harming. I have just lost most of my fear of dying. I guess a couple near death experiences and long stays in the hospital will do that.

My mobility is still limited. I put in some applications for long term care. My parents are in declining health and can do only so much. I dread the thought of losing my freedom and most of my funding. Nursing homes take almost all of your social security and disability. I also hated how no one in those facilities cares about the patients.

Since I’m probably going to a long-term facility eventually, I signed a Do Not Resituate (DNR) order. I’ll be damned to be essentially brain dead and being kept alive by machines. I saw too much of that in the eight months I lived in a long-term care facility back in Nebraska.

My blood numbers are alright. My kidney function is still off. I sleep in the recliner every night as it’s easier on my back and knees. I’ve lost some weight since getting out of the hospital two months ago.

I don’t have much planned for Christmas this year. I bought some stuff for my nephews and niece. I guess as rough as this year has been I’m not in much of a mood to celebrate. I’d say that I’m glad 2024 is over but I fear that 2025 will be worse.

Making My Long-Term Plans Come to be

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Reflections on My Recent Hospital Nightmare

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For the official record, I didn’t give up on my writing. I just took a much overdue vacation.

With that out of the way, I feel the need to update my appreciated readers on what I’ve been up to in the last several weeks since I last posted.

In early September, my parents had to call an ambulance on my behalf to take me to the hospital as I was having problems breathing. At first the doctors thought I had pneumonia, but even ten days of anti-biotics didn’t do anything other than screw up my stomach and bowel movements.

With the anti-biotics not working, one of the doctors had the gall to suggest that I might have early stages leukemia. This was in spite not having extremely elevated white blood cell counts or even so much as a fever.

In short, I spent ten days in the hospital on bedrest and the hospital didn’t even figure out what was wrong with me. I am now a believer in medical misdiagnoses being a very serious problem in modern medicine.

It turns out it was merely a virus infection in my lungs. I was also having problems with retaining water due to my congestive heart failure. My swelling took place mostly in my crotch and hips. The swelling was bad enough I couldn’t wear pants the whole time I was in the hospital.

I was put on diuretics, and I must have lost over one hundred pounds of fluids when I was in the hospital. Since I was on bedrest and having serious pain in my knees from my being forcefully taken off my three times a day Tylenol routine, I had to call a nurse every time I needed to urinate.

This annoyed some of the nurses. Sometimes they didn’t get to me in time, and I ended up peeing my hospital bed. Yeah, I’m a 44-year-old man talking about wetting the bed. Major blow to my pride and ego I tell you.

After my ten days in the hospital for my not pneumonia, I was sent to physical rehab for two weeks. My God in Heaven, that was an experience.

For starters, I wasn’t able to do much of rehab because my knees were hurting so bad I couldn’t even stand for more than ten seconds at a time. I was taken off my three times a day Tylenol regiment that had worked extremely well for almost two years while in the hospital.

Due to the forced bedrest, lack of a walker or a walking cane, I couldn’t walk the whole two weeks I was at physical rehab. After being back home for a couple of weeks, I can walk in my office with a walker. I still can’t walk well enough to get to the bathroom on my own. I feel so ashamed.

I feel like I spent three weeks in the hospital, most of it probably needlessly. I did get a new c-pap machine and got off a couple blood pressure meds.

I now take only two blood pressure meds and a couple meds for congestive heart failure. Half of the time my blood pressure is still too low, I’m talking like 110 over 55. But at least I’m not in the hospital anymore. September was a damn nightmare.

Struggles with Medium: An Honest Account of Loss and Transition | Blogging and Social Media Income Insights

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I gave up on Medium a few days ago. My revenues were going down to where I was actually losing money this month. It was getting to where it was no longer enjoyable. I feel for anyone who using blogging, vlogging, social media, etc. as their primary source of income. I bet for every Mr. Beast, there’s thousands of people no one will ever hear of.

A friend of mine has been really cold and distant for the last several months. We’ve been friends since we were teenagers. This isn’t her normal. I once suggested she seek medical help. She became so angry I thought she was going to end the friendship. So I let it drop. But she just gets darker and more despondent with each passing month. She has plenty of time to post memes and videos to Facebook. But she almost never responds to anyone who writes to her, not just me. Getting her to return texts is damn near impossible. And she NEVER answers her phone. Something’s definitely wrong. When she does text, it’s to complain about her job, the homeless in her city, the state of the world, etc. It was discouraging for a long time. Now it’s just irritating.

I recently got some in home health help. Through the state, I have a lady come in a couple times a week to do some cleaning, laundry, help putting away groceries, etc. We also keep each other company. She and I are getting to be kind of friends. She’s almost 60 years old and widowed. She’s been encouraging me to socialize more online. She knows I like gaming and is encouraging me to get involved in online gaming chats and forums. I don’t usually do online gaming against other people.

I started doing some online gaming against other people in free games on my PS5 like Monopoly. I bought NCAA Football 25 a couple days ago. I’m thinking about getting involved in some online tournaments. Nebraska is my favorite team. My dad is a University of Nebraska alum, as are several of my cousins. My favorite PS5 games are still Cyberpunk 2077 and Skyrim. I beat Cyberpunk 2077 earlier this summer. I got a second game going trying out different things. Took me two years to beat it the first time. But I didn’t play the entire time I was in physical rehab.

My brother recently bought a Tesla with self-driving capabilities. It’s mainly his wife’s commuter car. She rented a Tesla while on a business trip. Fell in love with Tesla right on the spot. My brother made a couple road trips with the Tesla. Said of the four motels he stayed out on that trip, two of them offered free charging with a night’s stay. He’s almost giddy that something like this became a reality within our lifetime. I often joke to his 13-year-old son that he won’t need to get his drivers’ license if he really doesn’t want to.

When I was still quite active on Facebook, I joked to one of my futurist groups that I wanted to ride in a self-driving EV with my robot best friend, smoking a marijuana cigar while riding past a police station on my 60th birthday. That would be in 2040. Heck, now it’s looking like that fantasy will become possible by 2030. Especially since I read an article last week stating that Tesla wants to start selling it’s Optimus humanoid robots starting in 2026. We’ve come a long way when it was just You Tube videos of cats riding on Roomba machines.

Now that my experiment with putting most of my writings on Medium has failed, I’m concentrating on longer posts on Word Press. The money was nice while it lasted.

The Future and AI and Automation from A Mentally Ill Point of View

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Been studying up on Automation, Robotics, and AI for most of the last year and a half. At least, that’s when I got serious into tech stocks. Tesla, Nvidia, Palantir, and AMD were some of the big ones I got in on. Made good profits so far with all of them but AMD.

Been watching a lot of videos on AI and Automation on YouTube the last several months. My favorites include David Shapiro, Julia McCoy, Issac Arthur, Peter Diamandis, Ray Kurzweil, among others. Currently reading the recently released ‘The Singlualrity is Nearer’ by Ray Kurzweil. Reread the original ‘Singularity is Near’ back in the winter.

It’s insane how fast all of this is unfolding. Makes me think the real bottle neck in AI and Automation advances won’t be programming, learning models, or even microchips anymore. I’m now thinking the real bottlenecks will involve physical infrastructure for data centers and even availability of electrical power and water.

A friend of mine works for a landlord who already uses AI for much of their office work and tenant services. She thinks she probably will be replaced by automation eventually. But she’s been preparing for an out for years just in case something like mass technological unemployment does happen.

As it is, I’ve been out of the job market since 2012 due to schizophrenia. Even though I found minimum wage working too overwhelming for my illness to manage (I used to violently vomit from the anxiety of going to work every day when I worked in retail and fast food), I have found other things to occupy my days. Just because I’m on disability doesn’t mean I drink beer and father children I can’t take care of. I’d love to see that trope die.

Over the years of not having a regular job, I’ve taught myself several subjects. Namely literature, writing, economics, finance, history, some science, studied on tech advances, futurism, etc. Got some of my Spanish up to date. Foreign language is one of those ‘use it or lose it’ kind of deals.

One thing I did teach myself was investing. Turns out I’m pretty good at it. I do think most people, certainly here in the US, are too short-term thinking to succeed in the market. I’ve seen it in my own family. I’m learning from their mistakes.

I originally went to college with the idea of going into medical research. Turns out that AI can do research pretty well. It can also write reports and even short stories pretty well due to ChatGPT. AI can do a lot of the academic work I wanted to do in my youth already. It’s not going to get any worse.

Even my skills with picking investments are surpassed by AI. And most of the companies with huge gains and profits the last couple of years are AI and Automation companies.

Companies are laying off thousands of workers even though they are profitable. I’m dead convinced these jobs are being automated away. Much like the factory jobs of decades ago, white collar office jobs are starting to get cut.

I do think the far future will be a really cool and excellent place. Yet, we seem to have zero plan as how to get there with as little disruption as possible. I’m convinced we are going through upheavals and changes now as big as the Agriculture and Industrial Revolutions of past eras.

I think there will a lot of pain involved in this transition. And hardly any politician is talking about this publicly. I saw that Greece recently legalized a six-day work week. That’s not even going to be relevant in five to ten years once automation is good enough to take the majority of jobs.

Don’t think for one moment that businesses will keep on human employees if they don’t have to, certainly not in the numbers they currently do. The fact that slavery was legal and accepted for most of civilized history alone proves bosses don’t want to pay workers unless they absolutely have to. Now, the slaves will be algorithms, chatbots, AI, machines, and robots.

Speaking of robots, Tesla recently announced they will start building humanoid robots to serve as common laborers. This isn’t science fiction or fake news. This is happening right here and right now. And most people are still in denial or don’t realize just how good the tech already is.

The bottlenecks of power requirements will slow down the real-world implementation, at least temporarily. Self-driving cars and trucks are already here. Heck, even my brother owns a Tesla with self-driving capacities.

Satellites and drones are already doing agriculture work. A farmer friend of mine back in Nebraska has owned a self-driving tractor that can navigate by GPS for at least five years. The future is already here, it’s just not evenly spread out yet.

As far as power goes, the growth in solar and wind power implantation has gone almost parabolic in the last several years. Next generation nuclear is already being prototyped in many places. And China has already built some thorium powered nuclear plants. Pity the USA and USSR gave up on thorium years ago.

We have all this science and tech advancing at breakneck pace. Something new comes out almost every day now. Our science and tech are pointing us to the future. It’s the social and politcal attitudes that want to drag us back into the ‘good ol days.’

Screw the good old days. They sucked for almost everyone. That is unless one was rich, a ruler, or a member of a privileged class and race. I swear our science and tech says The Jetsons while our politics are screaming Huckleberry Finn. It’s an insane paradox.

I grew up in the pre internet days. I’ll be damned before I go back.

Getting In Touch with My Best Friend from High School

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Mentally I was feeling quite depressed and hopeless for the last several days. Finally, last night, I had a decent chat with my best friend. She and I have been best friends since high school. We went to prom together one year but were never romantically involved.

My friend, who lives in Denver, has come to the conclusion that her city is getting bad enough with the crime, homelessness, drug abuse, unemployment, etc. that she’s getting her conceal carry permit. She already owns a pistol and goes to a shooting range every so often.

She works for a landlord who owns several properties in Denver. My friend often has to deal with repair orders, deadbeats, and forced evictions. Says that drug abuse is not even hidden in most of those properties. Trash is all over the facilities as are broken appliances and rampant vandalism.

She’s always having arguments with tenants who can’t or won’t pay rent, can’t or won’t vacate properties when the lease is up, rampant sanitation problems, people always wanting to fight, etc. She always carries a bottle of bear spray on her person when she’s visiting her bosses’ properties in case the tenants get too unruly or violent. She’s received lots of death threats from tenants.

Things are getting really bad out there, I’m sure almost everyone knows this. The assassination attempt on Former President Trump and President Biden’s declining health are making things even worse.

I’m so not looking forward to the November election. I’m preparing to bunker down and stay off peoples’ radars for a real long time. I think things will far uglier in the coming months and years. I don’t see any way out except batten down the hatches and plow through it with pure grit and guts.

Since I don’t go out in public much anymore, I might be able to blend in and disappear easier than some. As much as I dread living in a suburb of a large city for when social chaos does happen, I just didn’t see any other option if I was to stay in touch with my immediate family.

I used to live in Nebraska. All of my friends left that state years ago. I didn’t have much for extended family except for a few elderly aunts and some cousins that I’m just not sure I can count on when shit gets really bad. But, I never had much of a support system in Nebraska my entire life even when things were good.

Strangely, I saw a lot of this starting to develop when I was still in high school. Since I grew up in a predominately right-wing community, I was taught that those on the left wing were evil, hated democracy, hated small business, hated agriculture, and generally were not friends to the working class.

Ironically, kids growing up in left wing communities were told the exact same shit about right wingers. It’s like we were predestined to turn on each other.

I’m glad I heard from my best friend. She has the exact same concerns I do. I just don’t know how many more opportunities I will have to communicate with her until things get ugly, I’m talking collapse of nations type ugly. Nations rise and nations fall. It’s pretty much the story of history summed up in one sentence.

Writing On Medium and Making My Peace with Declining Health

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I’ve now been a member of Medium for ten months. Even though my earnings haven’t been very high, I still like that forum. I enjoy being able to connect with fellow writers and pursuers of knowledge. It gets lonely not having people in person I can bounce ideas off or talk about things like history, philosophy, spirituality, science, tech, etc. without fear of a possible argument or fight in person.

I know it’s not healthy to get most of my socializing over the computer. Then again, neither was the community I spent much of my life in. Since I signed up with Medium, it’s the first time since I graduated college that I met a large group of people who don’t hate knowledge or smart people. It’s actually comforting getting to talk to people with more knowledge than I have.

My best days usually involve a lot of back and forth with fellow writers on Medium. Sure, we don’t always agree on many things. But isn’t being able to take part in a community even while disagreeing part of being a grown up?

Summers are always a rough time for me. I usually sleep in the days to avoid the heat and crowds as much as possible. I know my sleep pattern isn’t conducive to having an active social life. Well, neither is being schizophrenic or wheelchair bound. I just do the best I can and complain as seldom as possible.

I’m losing weight again. I almost never snack, and I usually eat only twice a day. Even though I’m losing weight, my mobility isn’t really coming back.

While I continue to put in work every day to strengthen my bad heart and bad knees, I have come to the acceptance that it’s possible I may never regain my mobility. It is possible I may experience an earlier than expected death with my illnesses. I’ve made my peace with that.

In my country, talking about death and dying is taboo. I never understood why. I mean, death is part of living. I’ve seen too many people try desperately to cling to life in their elderly years even when it was obvious to even themselves that death would be a welcome relief from the chronic pain and mental decline. In many ways, it’s comforting and freeing in that I’ve made my peace with my inevitable death even before I got gray hair.

Granted, I don’t talk about making my peace with death in public or to any doctors. I fear I would be committed if I did. I have zero intention of harming myself or anyone else. It is a good feeling knowing that if I don’t want to get out to meet people I don’t like, I don’t have too. It is a good feeling knowing that, because I was helpful to people when I was still healthy, that many people are more than happy to help me out now that I’m disabled. And I don’t feel a shred of guilt for being interdependent on others. I never should have been convinced to feel this.