First Monday after time change. It’s feeling more like late spring here in Oklahoma than late winter. Already had several thunderstorms and some tornadoes in this state.
I now transferred my permanent mailing address to my facility. I can get amazon delivery to the facility, at least as long as the front desk person signing for my packages actually does their job and brings it to me. I had a package delivered today that was supposedly signed for by a sectary early today. It still hasn’t made it to my room. All of the staff is acting clueless even though amazon clearly stated who signed for my delivery. I do hate it when people treat me like I’m stupid.
Haven’t been sleeping well at nights the last week or so. We have a dementia patient on our wing who screams all night, every night. Management has been made aware of the situation but still refuses to do anything about it. This is the second time I had to deal with a screaming dementia patient since early February.
I don’t have much planned for St. Patrick’s Day. I will wear green and I do have some alcohol free Guiness coming. I guess that’s about as crazy as I’m going to get this year.
Updates, March 2026
We are turning the calendar from February to March. It feels like spring a few weeks early. And things are going alright for me. I have lived in my current home for six months now.
Most of my pain is gone. I have been in my current apartment for six months. Made friends with a significant number of staff members. I often avoid other residents because too many of them are in foul moods most of the time or are too sick to do much of anything with. I’m still following a regimented diet but it isn’t so bad. At least three hot meals a day every day is my new normal.
Physical Therapy is on temporary hold
Decided to take a break from physical therapy around Christmas. I was doing it twice a day five days a week and ended up in severe knee, back, and hand pain. For a couple weeks my hand hurt bad enough I couldn’t even use a fork or knife with my dominant hand. So, I had to give up on therapy, at least for the time being.
Neighborhood Drama
There was a dementia patient living across the hall from me for a few weeks. He yelled and screamed continually whenever he was awake. It was keeping me awake most nights. Finally, I filed a complaint with management. After several days of back and forth, the dementia patient was moved to a different facility. After a few stressful and hectic weeks, things are starting to return to normal in my neighborhood.
New Friends Among the Staff
I have three nurse’s aides I’m really close with. One works mostly weekends, is a couple years older than I am, and has a heart of gold. She’s really nice, likes to listen to my stories, and is very good at her job. She always moves swiftly and with a sense of purpose.
A second nurse’s aide usually worked the night shift so she and I would often talk win the middle of the night when all of her work was caught up and I couldn’t sleep. Haven’t seen her for a few weeks. Last I heard she was transferred to another wing in the facility. A third nurse’s aide usually works the afternoon shift and is really nice to me. She was the one who let me know I could actually get Door Dash delivered to my room here in the complex. She’s fluent in Spanish (I took some Spanish classes in high school) so I get to work on bringing my Spanish back up to snuff with her when she’s between assignments.
Like every home or workplace, there are a few people who rub me wrong. I try to avoid them as much as possible. Some arguments aren’t worth the while. But I get along with probably 90 percent of the staff.
New Glasses
Recently got glasses. Had laser eye surgery back in 2007. I went over 18 years without glasses. I use my new glasses mostly for reading. Made a huge difference. Got me interested in reading and writing again.
I’m Reading Books Again
Started reading the Old Testament again, namely the old King James Version. Picking that back up after several years without my nose in books very often.
Finding Permanence After Several Years of Chaos
After several years of my living arraignments being anything but permanent, I have finally found a for life home here in Oklahoma City. Had to live with my parents for almost two and a half years before I got into a wheelchair accessible home. It was a rough two and a half years.
I love my parents and have made my peace with the past, but their house was not handicap accessible. Even the front door and sidewalk wasn’t wide enough for my wheelchair. But I’m in a much better situation now. My parents still come to visit a couple times a month, for which I am thankful for. Got a visit from an aunt and a cousin from Nebraska I hadn’t seen since before the pandemic shortly before Thanksgiving. It was fun catching up with extended family.
Weight Loss Updates
I’m still losing weight. Not exactly sure how much I have lost but I know I lost at least 100 pounds between Labor Day and Christmas. My goal is to eventually get to my old high school weight. I definitely feel a difference both physically and mentally.
I’m having a good Christmas season so far. Got to talk with some old friends over the phone for over an hour today. She found a new job a few weeks ago that pays more than any job she ever had. Her husband (also a friend of mine) is still working 60+ hours a week as a delivery driver. They think he will try to find something in academics soon now that they aren’t living paycheck to paycheck anymore.
Our conversation covered mostly history and geopolitics. I don’t have many friends I can talk about those things with anymore. Most of my friends are having tough times with mid life crisis kind of things. I miss those conversations about history and current events. It was like being back in college, if just for only one hour.
I sleep most of the daylight hours anymore. I think part of it is depression and part of it is anemia. I’m not looking forward to probably having to go back to a long term care facility. But my mobility isn’t coming back and my house isn’t handicap accessible. My parents aren’t in good health and probably have only a few years, at best, left. Part of me all three of us won’t make it to see 2030.
It really breaks my heart to be in decline just right as things are really changing science and tech wise. I am convinced that we as a society will make more scientific progress in the next 20 years than we made in the previous 300. That is, if the politicians and voters quit screwing up.
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.
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.
Another day of being mentally stable. Haven’t had any kind of breakdown in over three months. It helps that I avoid stressful people and conflict as much as possible. Do most of my socializing online these days. It’s just easier to type what I’m thinking than just verbalize it. My illness makes me pick up on subtle cues very easily. I often pick up conflicting cues. Makes it really tough to read people, especially in person. 
Since many of my in-person experiences have been quite negative over the years, the default is that when someone goes out of their way to see me, I assume I’m in trouble. My family thinks it’s tragic that I always assume the worst when people come to see me in person. It’s even worse when I am summoned into an authority figure’s office on their terms. I’m keenly aware of power dynamics to the point it’s crippling.
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.
Updates are in order. I’m still on the waiting list for low-income housing in Oklahoma City. The housing authority is actively seeking a place that is wheelchair accessible. I should be moving up the list as the waiting lists were updated and many people who are no longer looking for places are being removed from the list. I have no idea how long this wait will be. My friend in Denver who works for a large landlord said that out there, she’s heard of horror stories about low income people waiting over five years to get into a place. In my case I am doing alright here in the suburbs. I can run a wheelchair well enough now that I can navigate my parents’ entire house except for doorways. I have to fold up the wheelchair and walk though for the doors. Haven’t been outside since the current heat wave started. We’ve had many days of 100-degree Fahrenheit heat since mid-July. Not exactly sure what that translates to in Celsius, I’m thinking 40 something degree Celsius.
Made some new friends since I moved to Oklahoma. Staying in contact with old friends from back in Nebraska. One friend was someone who lived in the same complex I did. We are both homebodies but share several similar interests. I regret not visiting her in person more when I still lived there. But the last two years I lived in Kearney were during the height of the pandemic. I didn’t visit many people in person those two years. Did a lot of reading and writing though. Moved out of Kearney in June 2022 and went to physical rehab for eight months. Moved in with my parent in February 2023. Lost over 180 pounds between February 2020 and February 2023. Sadly, gained about 20 pounds back in the last six months. Too much sugar and carbs. I was easily losing weight when I was eating mostly grilled, roasted, and baked meats (mostly chicken, turkey, and pork) and vegetables. I gave up most carbs, most sugars, most fast food, etc.
Saw my physicians’ assistant yesterday via teleconference. It was for my sleep apnea. I needed to renew my prescription so I can get replacement parts for my CPAP machine. As my machine is only three years old, it should last at least another three to four years. But it works so much better when I replace worn out parts regularly. Since I don’t use distilled water or oxygen, it’s easier to keep clean. And I just use the nasal units rather than the full-face mask. My doctor thinks if I get back to losing weight again, I could possibly be off the CPAP entirely. I think I should be able to get back to losing weight now that I’ve adopted my pandemic diet again.
My blood pressure is stable. Has been for weeks. I have to see my general practice doctor again by the end of August for general checkup. He wants to see his heart patients every three months. I see my new psych doctor this month too. Since my psychiatric health has been stable for the last few years, I should be doing just routine maintenance. I do have occasional psych flare ups, but they usually don’t last long. I have found if I limit stress the flare ups are fewer and further between.
Making most of my own meals now. While my parents are thrilled with my ever-increasing independence, I think my mom is kind of sad that she doesn’t cook for me very often anymore. I think my dad is kind of sad that I don’t watch Westerns with him much, certainly not like what I did in the first few weeks I moved here. I buy most of my own groceries, pay some in utilities, and order my own home supplies via Amazon. As there is a huge Amazon facility in our metroplex, almost everything is next day delivery. I’m still not washing my own laundry just yet. Our washing machine is in a tight closet that is impossible to navigate with a wheelchair. My knees are chronically hurting due to bad arthritis. If I take Tylenol every day, it seems to negate it some but not enough to restore my ability to walk without serious knee pain.
Even though I don’t eat most of my meals with my parents anymore, I still talk to them in person some every day. During the pandemic I made a point to call them at least once a day. In some ways I am not in a real rush to get my own place. The big reason I need my own place it that I can’t afford their house on my social security disability pension. Sure, the house is paid off entirely, but I still couldn’t afford property taxes and maintenance.
Shortly after I moved to Oklahoma, my new social security case worker told me that since I was diagnosed with schizophrenia at age 20, I should have been able to qualify for social security payouts based on my parents’ income and not mine. Since both of my parents were medical professionals, that alone would significantly increase my benefits. So we applied for benefits increases. Naturally we were denied. But denials are standard in disability cases, at least here in the USA. I plan on hiring a lawyer to appeal this case. I had to lawyer up when I first applied for social security in the mid 2000s. Even with a lawyer my case took over two years to resolve. Since I no longer was covered by my parents’ insurance, I needed a high-risk emergency health insurance. It was a rugged two years waiting for that verdict.
I’m hanging in there overall. I’m just ready for some fall again.
Few people may know this, but at one point in my life I was seriously considering a career in academia. For six months in the year 2005 I was an MBA student at the University of Nebraska at Kearney. To pay for my tuition and provide some living money, I worked as graduate assistant. I taught several seminars on computer basics, proctored exams, did some academic research, etc. I loved it. At least, I loved everything except some of the insane hoops we had to jump through. I was initially accepted into the program with the provision I had to pass calculus within the first six months. I never had to take calculus in my undergrad college. I thought it strange I had to take calculus when I had zero interest in doing statistical analysis or accounting. Even back then, I knew a lot of accounting was going to eventually be taken over by computer software and AI. Needless to say, my bosses weren’t impressed when I had to drop calculus at midterm but was doing quite well as a teacher and researcher. I eventually was fired from my grad assistant job because of my grades, namely in calculus. I was offered the chance to stay in the program but without the job. Since I had no way to pay for the program, I walked away. The thing was I had zero interest in statistical analysis. I really just wanted to teach, namely personal finance, investing, and economics.
My economics classes were my favorite classes in undergrad. Our instructor started his career working for an agricultural commodities broker firm. In short, he helped farmers find buyers for their crops and food processing facilities find farmers who were selling their crops. Agricultural commodity broker, the linking of sellers and buyers, was actually John Rockefeller’s first major break before he built his first oil refinery. His biggest customer was the Union Army during the Civil War. So my economics instructor had real world experience before he became a teacher. I had a banking and investing instructor in college who was a licensed CPA and I think a fiduciary (think financial advisor who makes money through hourly consulting fees and not sales commissions). My business law instructor taught only business law as he was a full-time lawyer as his day job. My accounting instructors were all licensed CPAs. My management instructors were all small business owners before they went into academia. As far as I could tell, every single one of them took a pay cut when they went to teach at my small college.
Since I had been inspired to learn more on my own while in college, I continued my education after I left college. Best thing college ever did was 1) Teach me how to learn for myself, 2) Teach me how to form my own conclusions, 3) Be able to find good advice from people even if I disagreed with a significant amount of their other thoughts, 4) Not kill my natural love for learning. I eventually learned how to ‘read between the lines’ on my own, but can we honestly expect 21 year old people to truly know how to spot liars and frauds with true accuracy?
Overall I value my intellectual freedom more than anything else.
This going to be a long post, but please bear with me. I have a series of questions as a bit of a thought exercise and discussion that doesn’t often get discussed in public, not even by futurists: How soon do you think it will be before we see mass technological unemployment and the 21st century version of The Luddites?
Only in the last few months has the mainstream media started even talking about AI replacing and augmenting human workers even though I first read about in on futuretimeline.net back in 2013. Read Ray Kurzweil’s Singularity Is Near and all the works of Peter Diamandis shortly after. Neither of these guys, nor any other techies I’ve read in the last ten years, have discussed in detail how we as a civilization manage this transition.
Every mainstream economist seems to think automation will create more jobs than it eliminates because that’s the way it’s always been. High rollers like Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger previously said AI will amount to nothing, at least publicly. But these are the same guys who missed out on the computer and internet revolutions years ago. Their investors missed out on a lot of profits by these two not putting even a few percent of their holdings into Silcon Valley firms like Facebook, Twitter, Tesla, and Google when they first went public. I was telling everyone I knew to buy a few shares of these companies back then. I would have but forums like robin hood didn’t yet exist. God forbid peasants like me make a few bucks through the stock market.
Been trying to tell everyone I know about this ever since 2013. Most people outside my facebook techie groups, until recently, thought I was a hopeless dreamer at best and a liar at worst. It’s only a matter of time before the mainstream media starts discussing technological unemployment as a daily lead story. And I am convinced the public at large will panic in unexpected ways, like people hording toilet paper during covid. But far worse.
Been recently reading about The Luddites in early 19th century England burning down textile plants and killing factory managers. These skilled craftsmen were suddenly without means to support themselves even though they spent years working on their craft. Imagine if college educated white collar workers with tens of thousands in student loans and hundreds of thousands in mortgage debts find themselves unemployed by the millions over the course of several years?
Half of Americans already have less than 500 dollars of emergency savings. Almost half of current retirees have zero saved up besides social security in my country. Social security is a “pay as you go” system. Has been ever since it was instituted in the 1930s. And it’s funding comes from taxing current workers to pay for the retirees and disabled like myself. There are US government projections that the social security fund could run dry by 2035 if massive changes to the tax system and funding aren’t implemented. Since congress seems determined to fight among itself and do nothing, this could become a reality.
If this industrial revolution we are currently living through destroys more jobs than it creates, like some in my techie groups on facebook have been predicting for several years, how do we get the displaced workers and fear driven public on board? In my country, debt to gross domestic product (think annual wages if nations were individual workers) is already over 120 percent. Granted this isn’t as bad as many places, but my congress already wants to massively cut programs. That’s why it’s very possible the US could default on its loans eventually.
Over half of this money is owed to US citizens. Only 2 percent is owed China anymore. They, along with dozens of other nations, have been slowly getting out over the last several years. So even foreigners know something is fishy about US money. Discussions on raising taxes haven’t gone anywhere for decades. We’ve actually been lowering taxes for years. My countrymen still complain about taxes even though are tax rates are lower than most developed countries. In theory, we can print money as long as people are willing to us it. Granted that’s how hyperinflation happens (meaning money becomes worthless). It happened even in the very advanced nation of Germany in the 1920s. Currently happening in Argentina, Turkey, among others. That economic collapse ultimately resulted in the Nazi Party taking power. Don’t think it can’t happen again in other rich and advanced nations. I’ve been scared of something like this happening in my own country ever since I read ‘1984’ and ‘Fahrenheit 451’ twenty five years ago. I’m more scared of it than ever now.
How do we handle the displaced hundreds of millions of workers who simply don’t have the skills to level up or self-educate? Do we try to institute a UBI system with our current economics and politics? Knowing my countrymen like I do, this will probably not be popular even if 50 percent of the workforce loses their jobs to automation. We can’t even get Universal Healthcare or High-Speed Rail even though most developed countries have had these for decades.
Do we drop the prices on everything so even people living on part time gig work and welfare can afford the basics? Do private foundations pick up where government can’t go? Do we just put 3D printers in every home, vertical farms in every town, and make money as unnecessary as possible?
The ‘Not In My Backyard’ attitude is strong in my nation. We’ve known we have a shortage in affordable housing for years and we still won’t build cheap housing in most places. Personally, I’d rather live next door to a nuclear power plant than a cattle yard or oil refinery. Can we solve homelessness with rapid 3D printed homes and just sell these homes for cheap or even outright just give them away? Knowing my countrymen’s attitudes towards the homeless and poor, this doesn’t look like that will fly either even though we already have the tech to make this work. Most people in my society simply have no empathy towards the struggle of others until tragedy effects them directly. It’s why we had over one million people die from covid even though we were among the first to rapidly produce vaccines and effective treatments. A significant chunk of the populace, including most people I personally know, still feel lockdowns and mask mandates were a violation of personal freedoms. This is the case even though most people in my social circle know at least one person who died from covid. Some people are epically heartless and soulless. And most people in my social circles are regular church attenders.
I don’t know the answers to any of these. I haven’t seen any of this discussed by the public at large. This isn’t even on most politicians’ radar. Andrew Yang discussed this in 2020 only to get one percent of the primaries votes and dismissed as a communist. I still remember the press and his political rivals dismissing him as Comrade Yang.
This isn’t the first time a fringe candidate was dismissed but years later proven right. In 1992, Ross Perot warned that globalization and free trade would destroy the middle class in America and most developed nations. He was dismissed as a crank by everyone from CNN to Saturday Night Live. Sadly, he was proven right years after the fact. We can’t count on most governments as they are decades behind the curve. It wasn’t until recently that the Biden administration appointed an “AI czar.” Remains to be seen if the incoming Trump administration will do likewise.
They are about ten years too late. I’m interested in hearing how other nations are planning on dealing with this. I truly believe we can have a great future as a species where even the poorest of poor people live well. But we seem to have no plans to manage the transition. Any thoughts? I always enjoy hearing from my readers.
Hi! my name is Sebastian (You can call me Seb!) ...welcome to my Blog. I'm a photographer from Worcester, Worcestershire, England. Thanks for dropping by! I hope you enjoy my work.
Hi there, thank you for checking out my blog page where I write about Bipolar, adhd,bpd and ptsd which I struggle with daily. This blog is to both educate and give others hope. I also write about my drug addiction in hopes of giving other people encouragment and hope for a brighter, annd better future.Thank you. sincerly, Emily Thorn.
A Life Of Mental Illness 