Category Archives: Self improvement

Blog Goal for 2023: Exceed 2,477 views!

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Screenshot of the stats page from the WordPress app.

What is 2,477?

That is the all-time most views for the blog, which happened in 2020. I was close to topping it last year in 2022 but fell short at 2,254 views.

Screenshot of the stats page from the WordPress app

My blogging goal for 2023 is to exceed these numbers. The plan (the CRAZY plan) so far to meet this goal is to post twice a week, or 104 posts in the year. This was 26 more posts than in 2020, when I wrote 78, and more seats than in 2021 and 2022. One thing to note about the 2020 stats is that I posted 28 times with a total of 841 views because I wanted to. I will not repeat that because I worked part-time then, and this was before I had Long Covid.

Ah… I regret making this decision to post twice a week… That’s a total of 104 posts in a year.

My goal for 2023 is to exceed 2,477 views.

For new bloggers, it is wise to ignore the views each post gets and the overall views your page receives. This is because it is more important to focus on discovering and polishing your writing routine, discovering how many posts you can publish that are high quality and stand out from other blogs, mastering the art of writing and blog writing, learning about and increasing mastery of SEO, and patience because it takes time to build an audience. Of course, if your blogging goal is to use it as a journal or post whatever for whomever, this doesn’t apply. That is okay too.

I’m the type of person that likes stats and feedback. Math is not a strength, and I was all right at it in school. I like stats and analytics because of the book Moneyball by author Michael Lewis. I got into this book right when the Seattle Mariners baseball team was a few years into its playoff slump, and this book led me to Sabermetrics which Bill James pioneered before Oakland A’s General Manager Billy Beane was introduced to the concept to become a successful baseball team with a small budget.

(The movie adaptation is solid and I would recommend watching it. If you are interested, I would recommend reading the book and watching the movie, as both are excellent for their formats.)

When I started blogging a couple of years ago, I naturally started the same process of figuring out how to be successful with the information I had available to me with the resources I had at the time, which weren’t much. I was at rock bottom emotionally, recently laid off, and barely hanging on with unemployment, the pandemic started, and everything shut down. I didn’t feel safe seeing friends or family. While I was living with my mother, she had her own struggles then to face, so I had to learn to support myself and learn how to heal on my own at the darkest time in my life.

Thankfully I gave therapy one more shot and was assigned an excellent therapist who was part of a wonderful mental health organization called Sound Mental Health.

For me, blogging is multiple things. I use it to track my life, journal publically, grow as a writer, and challenge myself. It is a way to hold myself accountable and prove that I can do better and deserve better. I like blogging because it’s a perpetual goal to write. Being an excellent writer is one part of it. In this world, to stand out, you have to acquire skills in multiple areas. If I want to be an author, showrunner, or professional writer, I need to view writing and my brand as a small business.

Naturally, as I change, I want the blog to change and grow. Therefore, I like the traffic to my blog posts to increase and the blog traffic to grow.

Blogging and this website are something that I have complete autonomy over. Its success or lack of it is tied to how much time and effort I put into it.

Blogging/writing makes me feel alive.

I feel I best express myself through writing. I think it’s the one way I can impact the world.

Blogging feels better than being an anonymous message board person. People read and react to your comments, but it’s not the same as coming up with an idea for a long piece, writing it, editing it, and posting it online for everyone worldwide to see. It feels good when people follow you and connect with what you wrote. It feels good to build something that is yours.

At times it makes me crazy because I’m pressed for time. I need to write before work because I’ll be too exhausted to write after work. Bloggers need day jobs like most creative people. Sometimes I do have the energy and clarity of mind, but… I have no idea what to write. And the only way to get it done is to grind the post out one word at a time until you discover inspiration.

Quote: By replacing fear of the unknown with curiosity we open ourselves up to an infinite stream of possibility. We can let fear rule our lives or we can become childlike with curiosity, pushing our boundaries, leaping out of our comfort zones, and accepting what life puts before us. Alan Watts
Source

No more excuses, Reilly

One day the pandemic will end, and I won’t have to be afraid of catching a deadly strain of covid. Maybe this will be in a year from now. Once China recovers from this current covid wave, the world will feel safe. There is the threat of the XBB strain here in the US, but thankfully I live in a city and state with a high vaccination rate. As long as I avoid packed places, continue to wear a mask, stay up to date with vaccine boosters, and avoid conservative political dominant areas of Washington state (because the vaccine rate is lower here and every other conservative dominant county of the US), I’ll be safe. All that and avoid socializing in big groups in winter in closed spaces. All I can do at this point is protect my health. Safety is different from excuses.

This year will be the one where I finally heal from trauma. Make this the year where you grow up. Make this the year you finally follow through on things you said you wanted.

3/104 posts done for 2023. As of the time of this post at 719am, 123 views have been achieved toward the year goal of 2477+.

Thank you for reading! I hope that you enjoyed this post! Have you set a goal for 2023? If so tell me what it is in the comments below!

If you want to follow the blog, please subscribe in the email bar below!

New Posts for 2023 will be on Mondays and Thursday mornings, before noon, Pacific Standard Time.

The Highs and The Lows of 2022

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2023 written in sand on a beach

Happy New year!

It is now 2023, as is tradition on social media and the world at large… It’s time to reflect on 2022 and review my life of the previous year. Unlike the cliche, 2022 felt like a year and didn’t go by fast and, more often than not, slower for me than others.

2022 can be summarized by the following themes: Work, Long Covid, Going out into the world again, online dating, and Inner growth.

My favorite posts which underperformed:

Close Encounters of the Good Eats kind.

This post is about when I went to a book signing for Alton Brown, one of my cooking idols. I used to want to be a chef and worked in the restaurant industry, so going to buy his new book, get it signed by him, and have a word was something I wasn’t going to miss!

Pumpkin Spice Cinnamon Rolls

Pumpkin Spice Cinnamon Rolls is a recipe I created, which is to add pumpkin pie filling and double pumpkin pie spices to the classic cinnamon roll. This recipe is dairy free and doesn’t use sugar. instead, it uses an erythritol blend.

The Mariners 2022 ALDS… (Part 3 of 3)

The Mariners 2022 ALDS… (Part 3 of 3). (Not a fan of this title after the fact) This post is about my experience going to the first Seattle Mariners home playoff game in 21 years! It was the first time I had ever gone to any home professional sports game in my life. Boy, was it worth it. It’s the conclusion to a 3 part series, in which previous posts are linked in the post. It was game 3 of 5, win or go home for the Mariners, the entire state was covered in dangerous forest fire smog, and I did my part by writing a prayer to the god of the mariners by visiting its first stadium site in town, and burning the prayer to the god before the game.

The top 3 posts according to readers:

Moving Mountains

This blog post is about a time I felt depressed and down on myself after a recent breakup.

Close, but no Cigar

This post is about my only brief relationship, which happened in June 2022.

Unique Opportunity, Part 2.

This post is about my experience getting an article published in the Seattle Times newspaper about the challenges of finding a therapy that works for me and learning that I was on the Autism Spectrum at age 36.

Days in a Life

Days in a Life is a post set in a challenging time in my life, right after I had finally had sex for the first time and was a virgin no more. My cat Coco wasn’t doing well either, and I was worried she might have had a UTI. I was freaking out and was sure something was wrong with me too. You’ll have to read the post to find out. Unfortunately, I haven’t had sex since.

And finally, Long covid. In about 10 days, it will be a year since I caught covid and I haven’t recovered. While the severity of sickness has improved slowly since I’m not the same person physically, I was a year ago. If you haven’t gotten the covid vaccine or the latest booster yet, please do. You don’t want this disability. I wasn’t able to blog for long periods due to this disease. I can barely exercise without becoming so exhausted that I need to go home and sleep. There’s no cure. There are treatments, but that isn’t a guarantee because it’s basically throwing shit at a wall. Even if there will be treatments, I bet it will be expensive and not covered by insurance in America. Which is the case with conditions that do have medical solutions such as ADD or diabetes.

https://theunknownreillyblog.wordpress.com/2022/09/10/living-with-long-covid/

New year, New domain!

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A green Olympia brand typewriter with a piece of paper that says "domain Search".
Photo by Markus Winkler on Pexels.com

Now announcing a new site address: Unknownreilly.com!

I felt it was time for a change, being the new year. This has been something that I have been considering for six months, but I was hoping that the old site address theunknownreilly.wordpress.com would do… However, my needs have changed.

Song of the post: You ain’t seen Nothing yet by Bachman-Turner Overdrive

It’s time for me to commit to a domain website instead of one hosted a subdomain under WordPress.

I’m doing this because I feel that I hit a wall with the old host. The free plan that I had was limited by design not to be the best website it could be. Therefore, I’m going up one step to the WordPress Personal Plan. Considering that this blog is still a hobby, unlikely to be my primary source of income, and I don’t want to blog full time as a job, the $80 per year is reasonable.

This plan is $48 a year before taxes, but I bought a domain name before buying the program without knowing WordPress requires a plan to change domain names. Que sera, sera.

Making a living blogging or writing, or the minimum wage is incredibly and statistically unrealistic. Making a living writing or in the arts is hard. I’m not against hard goals. If were to shoot for a difficult goal, it would be to become a showrunner or, to be a novelist who has their work adapted into an animated tv show or movie. (animated because I love anime and animated tv shows and movies.) Most creative people have a day job and create on the side like I do.

Maybe it’s time I start to consider working towards the goal above seriously. It’s been something that I have had to drop for years because I was living in survival mode and because I had to go through the slow process of healing my mental health. I digress.

This is an investment in myself. However I go forward, the first step is by improving this blog. The skills and time I’ve spent writing and learning about SEO and blogging will help me in all aspects of life moving forward.

It gets a little easier scene gif from Bojack Horseman.

More changes to come

I plan on making more changes such as a theme change for the front page, which is something that I’ve thought about doing for a couple months but wasn’t sure what I wanted, or what would better fit this type of blog. I’d prefer not to have to pay for this.

One thing that I would like to change is the posting schedule. In 2022 it was, frankly speaking, random. I wrote when I could, procrastination was part, and I had to focus on self-care because of my health. It was a busy year of change too, which required more rest. For now, I feel that the content schedule I would prefer to be Monday and Thursday.

Screenshot of 2022 total app use by me, tracked by Stay Free app. In 2022, I spent 2516 hours on my phone. An average of 6.9 hours a day.
This is my phone use data from the app, Stay Free. I’m not proud of this.

How can I achieve these changes?

The Screenshot above is of the 2022 total app use by me, tracked by Stay Free app. In 2022, I spent 2516 hours on my phone—an average of 6.9 hours daily. While a large chunk of this time is due to me watching videos on YouTube or movies on Amazon prime while working, a significant share is not. It’s time I could have used doing something else.

That being said, I could have written more or been more disciplined. I like to watch anime or animated tv shows after getting home from work, and pretty much watch tv shows or movies on the weekend… But it’s time for a change.

Experience from past failures has taught me that incremental progress and doing things imperfectly are how I grow. I get in my head too much and rationalize why not to do stuff instead of being okay with being “good enough.” I grow by doing.

The only way I can improve is by investing more time into it.

I have three planned posts coming up. First on how the blog performed, second on how my life was in 2022, and third, on the finale of the fantasy football series. I discovered that I like this type of analytic stuff last year.

I want this blog to grow and I want to grow as a writer. This is a step forward. Onto 2023! Onto Year three of blogging!

F SEO, Be imperfect. Be good Enough.

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Dart hitting the center of a dartboard

I’ve been stuck in a perfectionist mindset for a while, and that needs to stop.

This is the old me. I recognize that this is an old voice in my head. I know this isn’t good for me. I recognize these thoughts as other people, such as family or society.

It’s still a pain to sort through these, and get to what I want. What I feel. What is true to me.

Change is hard, and comes slowly.

You must not be afraid of playing wrong notes. Just forget it, play it wrong! But Play! -Alan Watts https://www.azquotes.com/picture-quotes/quote-you-must-not-be-afraid-of-playing-wrong-notes-just-forget-it-play-it-wrong-but-play-alan-watts-82-47-86.jpg

At the time of this post, I have 52 draft posts.

I haven’t published these for many reasons. All are signs that I have changed. That I have grown as a person since I started blogging 2+ years ago.

Reasons why for the drafts: lost interest, procrastination, felt it didn’t sit right, potentially over sharing, the post needed more time to breathe, timing for SEO wasn’t great, or the post simply needed more work, or I had to prioritize self care.

I accept and resent that I have Long Covid. Like all chronic illness, it is unpredictable. I have been doing well on self care and asserting my needs to others with this illness. It’s come first this year since I caught it in January. I really took for granted all that time I had before this disease that I could write with some effort. All that time that I could choose to do activities instead of not having that choice due to symptoms.

I have to remind myself that it’s okay to not be perfect. Perfect is subjective. Life is often lived in the gray area. Yes it is possible to sometimes have it all line up, and things unfold in a perfect manner, in your point of view.

All this is to say that I have to remind myself to be okay with good enough. Putting an imperfect post out like this is better for yourself and the blog than nothing. Every post counts. If only for the sake of writing it. Publishing it is good too.

Good enough is better than nothing at all. Each step is progress. The doing is the point. The doing is living life.

This is the real secret of life -To be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play. Alan Watts.

This is good enough for today. The “perfect” amazing posts are in your head, Reilly. Sure it would be nice if one or a few went viral, or hell, brought slightly more attention with new readers other than people you already know, and the few subscribers who do read your stuff. (Love Y’all)

If you fuck up, or nobody reads this post, which has happened before being as this blog is tiny… Whatever.

I am finally living the life I want, and who I want to be. I’m not perfect. I’m simply doing my best and being open to what life presents me. With these five words, this post is over 500! Good enough!

Victory!

Living with Long Covid

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Picture of the eastern side path of Seward Park
Picture of the eastern side of Seward Park

Song of the post: The Four Seasons – Summer – Allegro non Molto. By Antonio Vivaldi

I took my physical health for granted

I caught the coronavirus in January 2022, during the omicron spike in the US. I saw it at work after I bought pizza for everyone on the first Friday of the week I was promoted to department lead. (Which later changed). My place of work is a tiny building, and the break room doesn’t have excellent airflow, so I likely caught it there when everyone was eating… Masks down. I can’t remember if I went outside to eat. Everyone was vaccinated, and some were boosted; I wasn’t boosted due to the high demand during the winter Omicron surge. While we have safety measures at work, and ownership was generous to offer us a couple of hundred dollar bonus for the initial vaccine, there never was a booster policy. I, along with others who were concerned, asked, but it never became a requirement.

Mid-January, I caught coronavirus and was out for two weeks.

I wasn’t boosted for lack of trying. I could have gotten one if I had shown up to specific locations with extra shots after they closed. The fact is that I didn’t. Testing at that time was complex; you had to go to a drive-thru location and hope they had open appointments. This was before the at-home tests became widespread in the US.

I haven’t been the same person since

Today is one of many days that I have had to call out sick because of Long Covid symptoms. I took a short hike with my mom on Sunday afternoon at our favorite local park: Seward Park. It’s a park on Lake Washington in Seattle, close enough to walk to, an excellent workout that will leave you sweaty, and a good couple of miles with varied terrain. I used to be able to walk there, walk the loop around the outside of the park, and back. Since January, I can walk 10 minutes on flat terrain and be okay.

Up until July, I could go to work and back on most days and crash when I get home. Combine this with the depression, anxiety, inflammation flareups, and PTSD as a result of how about a third of the world refusing to vaccine or distance… Or another third not putting on their mask correctly, and brain fog. And I haven’t followed up on treatment. Which didn’t yet exist because this condition is so new.

On Sunday, I went on a short, roughly 30-minute hike with my mom at Seward Park.

Turtles on a log on Lake Washington, from Seward Park.
If you zoom in, you’ll see several turtles on the log. From 2021

A refresher on Long Covid Symptoms

From CDC.GOV

General symptoms

  • Tiredness or fatigue that interferes with daily life
  • Symptoms that get worse after physical or mental effort (also known as “post-exertional malaise”)
  • Fever

Respiratory and heart symptoms

  • Difficulty breathing or shortness of breath
  • Cough
  • Chest pain
  • Fast-beating or pounding heart (also known as heart palpitations)

Neurological symptoms

  • Difficulty thinking or concentrating (sometimes referred to as “brain fog”)
  • Headache
  • Sleep problems
  • Dizziness when you stand up (lightheadedness)
  • Pins-and-needles feelings
  • Change in smell or taste
  • Depression or anxiety

Digestive symptoms

  • Diarrhea
  • Stomach pain

Other symptoms

  • Joint or muscle pain
  • Rash
  • Changes in menstrual cycles

Post-exertional malaise

In the past 8 months, I have had all of these symptoms except for rash, change in smell/taste, and menstrual cycles (for obvious reasons). The most common are: fatigue after effort, difficulty concentrating, sleep problems, and diarrhea. I have slowly gotten my energy back, and have more good days than bad, yet the condition hangs on.

On Sunday, I decided to go on a walk in Seward Park with my Mom. One of the things that my therapist suggested was to spend time in nature. When I was in therapy the last time, going to the park and walking for exercise did help. I have gotten out of doing both of these things due to my health. It has been a long time since I pushed myself to exercise. I have been doing short ten-minute walks a couple times a week at work. What was I talking about again? Oh yeah.. The walk at the park.

Dory, a metaphor for brain fog.

The Park

From Wikipedia: Seward Park is a municipal park in Seattle, Washington, United States. Located in the city neighborhood of the same name, it covers 300 acres (120 ha; 0.47 sq mi). The park occupies all of Bailey Peninsula, a forested peninsula that juts into Lake Washington. It contains one of the last surviving tracts of old-growth forest within the city of Seattle. The park is named after U.S. Secretary of State William Seward. The 300 acres (120 ha) of Seward Park have roughly 120 acres (49 ha) of surviving old growth forest, providing a glimpse of what some of the lake shore looked like before the city of Seattle was founded. With trees older than 250 years and many less than 200, the Seward Park forest is relatively young (the forests of Seattle before the city was fully mature were usually 1,000–2,000 years old).[1] Source

The Walk

Normally this walk, this is as the cliche goes… Is a walk in the park.

“walk in the park”:

Something that is easy to do or accomplish.

https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/walk+in+the+park

Normally, or life before I caught covid, I could easily walk any route around Seward Park and back. I would be sweaty and be tired from a long cardio workout, but nothing that I couldn’t recover from. If I would go the long route, walking there and back, on the longest route, this would be about a 60-90 minute brisk walk. Which has always been doable, even in recent times where I have been out of shape.

Ever since I caught covid in January, and later Long Covid, I haven’t been physically able to exercise outside of work and every day chores. Since July, I have been able to do 10 minute walks on breaks a couple times a week. So, I thought it would be okay to try some longer exercise.

That was a mistake.

I was mindful to pace myself and to not overdo it because I hadn’t pushed my body this hard in months.

Yet, after 15 minutes of slowly walking through the evergreen forest and windy trails common to the inner forest path we chose, I was dizzy, wheezing, my heart was pounding, and I had to stop to catch my breath. I felt like I was hiking a mountain or sprinting at full speed, not shuffling along like a snail on a gentle park trail. I have walked this trail and others in the park several times a year during the summer, every year of my life without any problem.

Turtle crawling slowly through sand

This time, I felt physically like I did shuffling around the hospital wing after I had a couple heart attacks as a severe side effect of Amphetamine based ADHD medication at age 22. (Thankfully I recovered, there was no damage to my heart, and all tests after said I was healthy). It was a struggle and I felt weak after. I really hope these current symptoms are not current heart problems because of Long Covid. I don’t get treated. I am more afraid of the insane cost of treating chronic health problems in our messed-up healthcare system.

Thankfully, my mother drove us to the park. I would not have been able to walk back.

Monday was Labor Day, so this was a short work week. Even so, I was only able to work two half days. All I could do Tuesday morning was to drag myself to shower and dress before I was too exhausted to continue. Even though I have slept more, and taken it easy, I’m still not recovered as I write this today, the following Saturday. Work has been great with my health issues, with me missing so much time this year and I’m very grateful to them for that. I’ll always have a little fear of being fired, even if there isn’t evidence that I will be, but I am glad to have their support. Thankfully, I have sick leave accrued, so I’ll be okay this time.

I contacted my doctors office, and did an E-visit checkup. There still isn’t a cure or a specific treatment for Long Covid, but they can treat symptoms. Hopefully I’ll get some answers at the next in person appointment later this month. Just like the pandemic as a whole, I have to wait for an unknown time for this to be over. Maybe this is how my life is from now on.

Distant hope for the future.

Yale researchers discover potential Long COVID causes and treatments

All things considered, my life is alright. I’d like it to be better, to be different. The struggle with this chronic condition is so hard. Especially because there isn’t a cure or specific medical treatment yet. A lot of days, I wonder if what I’m feeling is due to this condition or a flare-up of the preexisting depression or anxiety that I manage. Well, one day at a time. I’m so tired of being patient. I’m so tired of chronic health conditions that I have little control over. Thanks for letting me vent a bit.

It took me much longer than usual to write this week. It’s hard to write when your health gets in the way and you need to prioritize that. Do you or anyone you know struggle with Long Covid? Let me know in the comments! If you like this and are a new reader, subscribe below and checkout my latest posts! Thank you for reading!

August Burnout

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Image of a recently burned tree, exposing its vascular tissue. https://www.instagram.com/p/CaDeLdsh9PT/?igshid=MDJmNzVkMjY=
Source, how I have felt lately. Image of a recently burned tree, exposing its vascular tissue. Maybe this is why I’ve been eating so much pasta in recent days.

Dearly beloved
We are gathered here today
To get through this thing called life -Prince

It’s no wonder I’ve been burned out… It seems to be something I’ve experienced around August for the past three years. See these posts:

Burned out
Burnout 2021
Man getting shot by hundreds of arrows at once

The above gif and prince song are a metaphor for my life this month. The arrows are emotional.

I’m covered in arrows, in pain, from multiple sources.

My brother has had a severe back injury that he can’t get treated for due to legal complications. A double trigger due to dad dying almost 20 years ago in a car accident… Which resulted in a lawsuit against our family. This wasn’t my brother’s fault, thankfully. It’s tough to see him suffering. On top of that, he caught covid. He recovered, but it was a tough couple of weeks there.

My mother is recovering from an accident at work which resulted in her going to the ER to get stitches. She’s doing better now but still healing from bruises. That was tough to see her hurt. Especially since she’s getting older, she’s still a go-getter.

Naturally I’ve been worried about both of them.

Current Mood... I just want to sleep and do nothing.

The quest for inner peace, to heal

I have been exhausted this month. Between my family being injured, the heat, being isolated, and grief. I think I’m finally in the last stages of healing from my past major breakups.

Me lately in this heatwave.

I’m not sure if I still have long covid, or all this mental and physical fatigue is from recent events or depression.

It’s a great thing that I’m in therapy again. It will be better going forward because I’m on viibryd, an antidepressant again.

I’ve had trouble writing so I’m going to do something different here and express myself in pictures since my head hurts trying to think.

Various mental health pictures that describe me lately…

Repeatedly obsessing over previous failures, childhood mistakes, and past arguments is a sign that you seek moral perfection, i.e. a clean slate. This unrealistic goal causes panic and guilt when you think you are in the wrong and masking your nature through fear of rejection. @autisticblackgirl
I see a lot of chatter about people learing about themselves from the Internet, and people don't realize the privilege of growing up in a place where your experience is the norm. Some of us experienced being our full selves online before we could translate that in real life. - Twitter
Word of the day is 'latibulate' (17th century): to hide in a corner in an attempt to escape reality.
When you're on sensory overload and someone tried to interact with you: Stop...
Sometimes when things are falling apart they may actually be falling into place. -Pinterest.
Sometimes walls are there so we can lean on them and rest. https://i.pinimg.com/originals/59/91/92/599192e2bfc9ed881ff550a6e2a6e4de.jpg

I hope that soon I will not feel awful and be able to write longer posts. Sometimes your health comes first, and when you have a chronic illness such as Long covid, and unpredictable migraines, the only thing you can do is take care of yourself.

Here is a post that doesn’t have many views, but is one I treasure. It’s about my late cat Flip, who was a dear kitty that was part of my life for 18 years.

Remembering Flip.

Tell me how you feel about this post in the comments. Can you relate to these images? Have you experienced these feelings below? Let me know!

I have a post scheduled for tomorrow that I’m really proud of and excited to share. Please be sure to subscribe below to not miss it!

Thanks, Migraine.

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Make it stop. An image about how migraines feel to experience. Like your head explodes.

So much for previous plans…

So, I’ve been useless for the past 36 hours or so. Looking back, it makes sense why I had a minor headache on Thursday. It makes sense why I had trouble focusing Thursday night and had interrupted sleep. Why I woke up exhausted and sleepy on Friday and couldn’t concentrate? I had a migraine. I’ve been recovering since. I was sleeping all day in a dark, quiet room.

While I don’t feel pain as long as I don’t focus… I have a migraine hangover today. I saw a meme that describes it best: it’s like being drunk without any of the benefits and being hungover simultaneously. This results in at least two days I can’t do much. Thankfully I don’t get migraines as often anymore, but it still sucks.

Maybe it’s because it’s been hot, and on Thursday night/Friday morning the barometric pressure changed. Or just because.

A brain slug on Hermes. Source Futurama.

So, I’ll likely be better in a couple of days.

Trying Something New

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I’m trying a new approach to blogging

I’ve gotten into this groove with blogging and I haven’t had as much fun with it for a while. Recently I went and read posts from the past few months and noticed a pattern. What I’ve been posting has been serious and introspective. Which are good traits to have… It’s good to reflect on yourself and your life. It’s good to check in and ask how you are doing and get feedback from others. The problem is that I haven’t had as much fun with writing.

Which I do as both a person with autism and ADHD. I hyperfocus. I obsess about problems or things that become special interests, and I want to solve them and master them. I enjoyed writing that essay for the Seattle Times. The whole experience was great. That was a different kind of fun. What I want now is to creatively experiment.

Creative experiment

What I mean by a “creative experiment” is to try new things. Write about other topics than myself. I haven’t written fiction in a long time. I haven’t written recipe posts in a long time. I haven’t written much about issues I care about.

So, I’m going to mix in posts that take more time to write. So, I’m figuring out how to open more time to write. Because longer or different writing style posts take longer for me to complete than those about my life. I’ll still be doing those. I’m simply filling different unmet creative needs.

Misc thoughts

The process of writing the mental health essay made me realize how much I need to improve as a writer.

My biggest obstacle is time management, recognizing when I can write, and writing while working a full-time job. It’s hard to write when I’m so burnt out on the weekends and feel brain dead. It’s hard to not want to watch tv or browse online to relax.

It’s hard to write when I’m feeling wiped out due to Long Covid. I still have one or more days where I don’t want to go to work because of physical exhaustion and inflammation… Even though it’s a normal work day, and I haven’t done anything to feel tired. On those days, I typically crash when I get home.

So, I’ll have a new post tomorrow sometime. I’m writing this in my car as I clocked out 15 minutes ago. It’s not an ideal location to write as it’s hot.

So… Yeah.

Unique Opportunity: Epilogue

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It’s been a long time since I feel I did something trophy worthy.

I can’t remember the last time I felt so good.

I’m starting to feel fantastic positive feelings as a result of writing that essay. I achieved a goal I wanted. This victory shows that I am capable of so much more. This shows that all the inner work I’ve done has paid off.

https://theunknownreillyblog.wordpress.com/2022/08/02/a-unique-opportunity-part-2/

Part 1:

https://theunknownreillyblog.wordpress.com/2022/05/12/a-unique-opportunity/

This blog post is part 3 of a series of posts about this experience

I have an article in a newspaper! I told my story and hopefully will help change the world for the better. Holy shit. That’s a big deal!

This is evidence of how great a writer I could be. I had a lot of help from the Seattle Times journalist. This situation shows me that I can grow as a writer. I stood up and spoke out about problems in the mental health system. I’ll be helping someone else struggling. It feels good to help others by speaking up.

What a big deal! …

Someone told me "whenever your life is feeling stagnant or as if nothing is happening, that means you're being given the time & space to heal & release the baggage that you cannot carry to where you're meant to go soon..." I haven't looked at shit the same since.

Follow up details

I need to add details to the last post and the article. I didn’t mean to overlook these details. Ever have that feeling after a conversation where you remember something after the fact? That’s been me since Monday.

I did have successes in therapy. I feel I discounted how much of an impact therapy has had when it does work. I was able to work through so much with my therapist and everyone at Sound.

They had great groups and any support you needed. I can’t say enough how grateful I am to Sound Mental Health in this therapy journey. Life from April 2020 to June 2021 was good. That’s because I was in therapy. That’s because the zoom groups were so great. Those kept me going despite the lockdown social distance phase of the pandemic. I attempted to return for treatment there; however, they only take Medicaid. Disappointing that I couldn’t continue… But I get it. Those on Medicaid who need therapy need great providers the most. Just as I did during my time there.

Groups were helpful and supportive at Valley Cities while I was there. I really enjoyed the activities and the people. The employee turnover and changing therapists was too much for me. I wish I could have found that therapist match there. Oh well. I got some helpful skills out of this disappointment.

Back in 2009, I had a favorable year-long therapy treatment that helped. We worked through PTSD I was experiencing then. A year later, I recovered from PTSD through exposure therapy. It’s what I needed at the time.

Ah… I should have accepted the suggestion by the reporter to say something positive about therapy. I hope I didn’t mislead anyone about my experience. Therapy can help. It is maddening to get that help you need.

My problem has been how hard it was to get started, get comfortable, and progress in therapy. It’s been a long roller coaster ride I didn’t want. I was frustrated because now I know how it feels to be healed. What it feels like to have your work pay off. I have become better. I’ve become a better man. I never thought life could feel so fulfilling. I forgot how success feels to achieve something difficult with persistence and hard work. Therapy became my higher power. The dream is to heal all the trauma, fix the suffering as a side effect of mental illness, and break the line of generational trauma.

Faith is an act of trust in the unknown. Alan Watts
I’m not big on faith or spirituality, so posting thus is significant.

I’m choosing to take this as proof that I have grown as a person. I’m enough of an adult to take care of myself by finding a therapist. I know that I can follow through and win. I know there is more to dream about. I know that I want more from life.

I wouldn’t be here without therapy, psychology, the internet, and not giving up despite the heartbreak. All the therapists and social workers all the way. I didn’t give up at my lowest. I somehow held on. I wouldn’t be here without all the excellent support from my aunts and uncles on my mom’s side of the family. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have my cousins. I wouldn’t be here without blogging. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have my cats. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have my mom or brother. I wouldn’t be here with my friends. I am here because I had so much support along the way. The pandemic has shown how many good people I have in my life.

This is a victory for my values. A concept I learned with my previous therapist. This is a life-changing victory on all levels for me. I am more capable than I ever thought possible. I stood up for better mental health. I stood up for better healthcare. I stood up for civil rights. I stood up for personal accountability. I did it because it felt like the right thing to do.

I’m back in the arena, ready for the next mountain to climb.

I’ve become a published writer in a big publisher!

I’m the first family member to be published in the Northwest section of the Seattle Times! My mother, the poet, hasn’t done this. She’s been writing for 40-plus years. My cousins won state championships in high school basketball but they never did this. Nobody on either side of my family has achieved this.

I have made it, and the 15 minutes of fame are over. It was nice while it lasted. I’m grateful to have wrote that. I’m grateful for the experience.

Source

I’m back to square zero. I gotta figure out the next goal. What do I desire?

Unique Opportunity, Part 2.

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Feel the fear and do it anyway.

I’m back from my break! The heatwave last week sure drained me. The break was just what I needed, and I know what I need going forward. Without further ado, here is A Unique Opportunity, Part 2.

This is the Finale of this post from May:

https://theunknownreillyblog.wordpress.com/2022/05/12/a-unique-opportunity/

Songs of the post: All My Life, My Hero By the Foo Fighters.

A couple months ago in April, I wrote to my local newspaper for an article pitch.

The Seattle Times has a series of articles about mental health called The Mental Health project where they ask the local community about their experiences…

“The Mental Health Project is a Seattle Times initiative focused on covering mental and behavioral health. The project illuminates a growing mental health crisis in the Seattle region, Washington state and beyond. It explores the many types of mental illness people experience, spotlights promising treatments and research, and examines actions by government agencies, nonprofits and health providers to address the problem.

Evidence points to worrying signs of a mental health crisis in the Northwest, across the country and around the world, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, economic fallout and the nation’s racial reckoning. The rise in anxiety is straining schools, legal systems and social services, and disproportionately hitting vulnerable people, including people of color. In the Puget Sound region, Seattle Children’s has seen a concerning increase in visits for psychiatric emergencies, and schools are grappling with the effects of trauma and stress on students’ ability to learn. Adding to the challenge: a shortage of therapists and other options for treatment. 

The Mental Health Project explores these issues and more. The project is funded by Ballmer Group, a national organization focused on economic mobility for children and families. Seattle Times editors and reporters operate independently of our funders and maintain full editorial control over all coverage. 

Our team — editor Diana Samuels, reporters Hannah Furfaro and Esmy Jimenez, and engagement editor Michelle Baruchman — welcomes the community’s help in guiding and informing our coverage. Please email any thoughts, tips or story ideas to mentalhealth@seattletimes.com, share them on Twitter at @stmentalhealth, or leave a voicemail at 206-464-2090.

Seattle Times staff

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/mental-health/about-the-mental-health-project/

Back in April, on 4/20/22 (Omg, both the classic stoner holiday and Autism Awareness month! I find this funny because I am both Autistic and a Stoner. I never noticed until today… Haha), I wrote to their project email account, pitching an article idea. I had read an article in the Seattle times newspaper about feeling anxious about returning to the office. I decided to take a chance and write to them about my experience in the mental health system. An Autism-centered story proposal- The lack of formal diagnosis tools for adults. I honestly didn’t expect my story pitch to be accepted… let alone published.

That week was so stressful, A classic Murphy’s Law week where what could go wrong, did. I was home after getting awful side effects from the Moderna booster shot. I felt called to write this article because of my past experience and it felt like the right thing to do. I would regret it for the rest of my life if I didn’t take the chance to make it happen and possibly make the world a better place.

The Article after this awesome quote by Terrance McKenna, and drawn into a comic by Gavin Aung Than.

“Nature loves courage. You make the commitment and nature will respond to that commitment by removing impossible obstacles. Dream the impossible dream and the world will not grind you under, it will lift you up. This is the trick. This is what all these teachers and philosophers who really counted, who really touched the alchemical gold, this is what they understood. This is the shamanic dance in the waterfall. This is how magic is done. By hurling yourself into the abyss and discovering it's a feather bed.” Terence McKenna
From the awesome Zen Pencils. Source.

I was diagnosed with autism at 34. We need more research for adults.

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/mental-health/i-was-diagnosed-with-autism-at-34-we-need-more-research-for-adults-mental-health-perspectives/

I’m 36, and it wasn’t until two years ago that I was diagnosed with autism. I was lucky to even find out.

The years before involved multiple therapists that didn’t work, medication that gave me bad side effects, and misdiagnoses. Navigating insurance was a constant struggle.

The first psychiatrist I saw prescribed amphetamine medication for ADHD. That medication resulted in three heart attacks at age 22. Another psychiatrist prescribed two dozen different medications. Only one worked for ADHD, but my insurance didn’t cover it so I couldn’t afford it. I can only take it now because there is a generic form available.

It was hard for me to connect with therapists because I didn’t know how therapy worked, what kinds of treatment are available and that it’s based on developing comfortable, trusting relationships. 

I later sought help from the mental health organization Valley Cities. I went through several therapists there with no success. One left for another job, one finished her internship for college, and a couple just weren’t a good fit for my needs.

It was also around this time that I started to believe I may be on the autism spectrum. No other diagnosis was fitting completely; depression, anxiety and ADHD only partially explained the behaviors and symptoms I had in social situations. Information I found online showed me that I did have some traits and could be on the spectrum.

I asked my Valley Cities therapist at the time what I had to do to be tested. She said the only testing available was designed for children and teens, and I would have to go to Children’s hospital in Seattle or search online for a test. This is like asking a person with a broken leg to go buy new bandages and medical supplies on their own, without help.

I gave up in frustration and despair. Medication somewhat worked, but the side effects were awful. And although therapy groups were helpful, I needed an individual therapist I could trust. I had been spinning my wheels and not feeling or seeing improvement in my life. My faith in the system was shattered.

Meanwhile, I needed to work full time to pay bills, so I took a job as a cook, which meant I had to give up my Washington state Medicaid coverage. Suddenly, everything that had been covered through Apple Health, including therapy, medication, doctor visits and sleep studies, was in peril. The cheapest, lowest-coverage insurance was all I could afford on minimum-wage work. 

The early days of the pandemic, and the months leading up to it, were excruciating with few moments of joy.

My 18-year-old cat died, I lost my job, and the pandemic ended the board game night I attended at a friend’s house. I was smoking too much marijuana, and drinking too often. I was close to attempting suicide. I was toxic in a breakup with a friend who didn’t deserve it, which was the last straw. 

I asked my mother to bring me to the hospital. The therapist at Swedish referred me to Sound Mental Health. I’m grateful that I chose to try therapy one more time, despite years of mixed results, because finally, luck went my way. I was assigned a therapist after a consultation who could treat me. As we continued working together, I began trusting her and we clicked. 

On my third appointment, I asked about getting screened for autism. My therapist at Sound found a test for children and teens and asked me a series of questions, although some weren’t relevant for my age. I found out I am autistic the week of my 34th birthday in April, which also happens to be Autism Awareness Month.

Finding out was a relief because I now have something to work off of, and I know why I behave a certain way or struggle in social situations.

With a guide and stable professional support, I spent the pandemic working on myself full time. Therapy over Zoom worked for me. I met my Sound therapist in person at a park last summer for our final visit.

These days, I’m doing better. I’m in the process of self discovery and self awareness with autism. I am seeing a new therapist through Kaiser to work on the skills I began developing and practicing in 2021, and I smoke less weed and drink less alcohol than I did two years ago.

I do sometimes wonder if I’m having brief setbacks because I felt more comfortable during the lockdown than I do in the regular world.

But I’m also thinking about how long this process took.

It’s hard enough to find a therapist who accepts your insurance, accepts new clients, and has availability during the day that fits around work schedules. How am I supposed to grow as a person on the spectrum when autism in adults doesn’t have a formal guide of how it presents, and how to fit in?

There needs to be more research on autism in adults. It’s odd that I had to find out myself by looking online. Autism presents itself differently at every age group. By not having this knowledge for adults, we are causing unnecessary harm by misdiagnosing medical conditions. 

Reilly Anderson lives in Seattle and works in the cannabis industry.

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Copyright Reilly Anderson 2022.

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