Just testing out my new laptop...

A lot of things have happened since last time. I've gone to the Center for Scientific Inquiry conference, I've had a few ups and downs, and the day before Thanksgiving I had a very traumatic experience, which I am still affected by quite a bit. My priorities in life have changed somewhat, but I still intend to stay present on the Internet.
` I don't have any photos on this computer yet, or anything, I've only just turned it on.

Get this -- I tried the default internet browser, called Edge, which says it is faster than Chrome. I couldn't get my blog post/draft list to appear AT ALL with either of my Blogger accounts. Meaning, I can't access my drafts and finish them! Then I downloaded Chrome, logged into Blogger, and the list just appeared instantly! Hooray for Chrome! I can use this laptop for blogging now!

I would type more, but the metalwork and whatnot that is going on downstairs doesn't seem to be letting up. I don't even expect to be able to take a walk until after the sun goes down. I think I'll go out and pull weeds in order to get some daylight. And yes, some of the sedums and iceplants are still blooming! Photos next time!

Hypnosis reduced my pain even more, and good news about my podcast!

Yes, thanks to a hypnotherapy session over Zoom video chat, the chronic pain I've been living with... is gone. Just gone. There's still some acute pain that comes and goes, but most of it is gone. I just had to visualize myself flying through a bull's eye, and though that sounds cheesy, the pain disappeared when I hit the target. Just gone.

Suggestion. It's a remarkable phenomenon. I forgot how well it works. Doubtless my next article will be all about that, as will my next video. I recently talked to some people about altered states of consciousness and hypnosis, so that will definitely be next up.

For right now, I'll say that I don't even know why I waited so long to get someone else to help me with this. It worked. Not to mention, I had him throw in some suggestion for confidence, and it worked the same way with the bull's eye.

` The chronic pain over most of my body, especially my back, is now gone. My arms and wrists and hands are somewhat sore from using trekking poles. The right side of my body still aches from doing squats.

` As for my neck, it is becoming more neck-like, with better air passage in my throat, and indeed as we see over the course of my videos, my voice becomes deeper. A lot deeper. For a while my voice was cracking uncontrollably, but not so much now.

I still have to tilt my head to the right so that my eyes are able to track properly, but even that is not as important now. In fact, it isn't the only cause of my eye strain: I went to an optometrist and found that my left eye is slightly off.

` I have yet to actually purchase the glasses; they are the lightest frames because my neck could not tolerate the pain and weight of glasses on my face. Now it doesn't hurt the way it did before the hypnotherapy session, only a small bit. After I get the glasses, my eyes should feel a lot better as well. Hooray for even more pain relief!

I will delve into the actual technicalities of how hypnosis works, and my many hypno-adventures, in the future!

As for my podcast, I named this blog Skeptophany after it. The irony is, I spent years recording interviews for it, during a time in my life in which I was barely hanging on for survival, in a lot of pain, and not much able to get the production work done. Then, in April 2016, most of what I recorded became inaccessible when my laptop broke in April 2016.

` I had two external hard drives, but the one that I was using for my newest stuff (because it hadn't filled up) had a partition that prevented non-Linux computers from accessing my podcast and video files.

` After several attempts to remedy the problem, including attempting to repair the laptop twice (but the replacement part was "DOA" both times), I finally decided to spend the $200 to transfer the data. Yes, this took me 18 months of failing to solve this problem!

` Something like a week passed in trying to get this partitioned data from the wrong drive, which freaked me out because you can't. But then I realized my mistake, I transferred everything that was on my broken laptop as well, and bought a new external hard drive! And it was all at a discount! So, what better result could I have hoped for?

Yes, I can continue making my podcast! I am just so... backlogged at the moment.

As for my own productivity, I have not been doing the things I perceive that I really need to do, but at least I've been getting some things out of the way, such as finishing a book I've been borrowing for several months. (It's been difficult to read because pain.)

` I was also slowed down for a while by a couple of illnesses, but some amoxicillin helped with that. Many things have drained my energy, including spending a lot of time improving myself. I cannot believe the emotions I am capable of feeling after healing from an impostor's betrayal.

The only thing vexing me this whole time is that the person who introduced me to hypnosis, physical therapy, and much else, has blocked me on Facebook and in real life. Why, I can't say, but it was somehow a result of my last communication with him, which was text-based. I showed it to a few people, but they are just as puzzled as I am as to why anyone would respond this way.

` It's good to know it isn't just me. I expect this, too, to somehow resolve itself.

These are just some of the dramas that have been playing out in my life since my last post. Right now, I am in serious need of some sleep.

Transcript of 'Another Kind of Mental Development, Discovering my Extreme Physical Condition, and Making Videos!'

It is amazing to think that for most of my life, such a science-minded person as myself had no idea that I was living with serious chronic pain, etc. One of the points I want to drive home on this channel is that there is a difference between intelligence and awareness of what one is experiencing every moment. It is from here that we can cultivate other aspects of our minds.
` I also spend some time describing what's been going on in the video-making front. You can watch, or read the transcript below:


(By the way, I apologize for the background noise from the refrigerator and such. I can't even understand what I'm saying in the video when played on the giant speakers in that same room, because then the background noise has doubled! I will be sure to use a better microphone in the future. If you're having any difficulty, this should help:)

Opening: A few seconds of partial eclipse through solar goggles. "There we go!"

Shot of a table in front of a brown leather-ish couch, at night, with myself wearing navy blue shirt, and open laptop on the table. I'm doing well to keep my balance, leaning with my right arm against a small suitcase next to me.
` The grip from one of my trekking poles is visible over the back of the couch. Alas, I don't speak very loudly against the background noise for these few seconds:

"Tis allegedly I, Spoony! I have good news and bad news. The good news is, I'm making more videos. The bad news is, when editing this video, I discovered that YouTube video editor is going away on September 20th, so I have until then to edit all my video clips. I don't think it's gonna happen."

Close-up of owl, moving its head side-to-side, crows can be heard in the background.

New Video on Developing Awareness and Bizarre Self-Discovery!

Developing one's conscious awareness is a different element from intellect, but both are essential for self-awareness. Case in point: I my scientific and critical understanding of the world have developed long before I was aware that I was limping around in constant pain.
` It's a long story, which I discussed at length in my last post.
` Not surprisingly, that's part of why making videos seems so difficult, which I also describe. But I have been hard at work, and show a few bits of various video clips I intend for future videos.

I haven't quite completed the transcript, but that's coming next. It has a long enough title, though, which you can click to watch:
Another Kind of Mental Development, Discovering my Extreme Physical Condition, and Making Videos!
And here's a high-resolution image of the title card I made for it:

...And this Cretaceous dinosaur and plant life have what to do with this video?

There are several interesting things in this video, including a view from a helicopter, a cute owl, the eclipse, etc, however, the dromaeosaur is a lie! I simply like drawing them, especially in margins.

This title card had a lot of blank space, so... why not? I've never done a color gel pen dromaeosaur! The scanner didn't get the colors right, though. I couldn't get enough light to take a clear photo, either.

I'll have to take a photo when the sun is out, as it is raining today, to my great astonishment. If you can call it that. It hasn't 'rained' since June 17, so I'm not complaining. Neither are the plants.

Fighting For Self-Awareness And Autonomy - A Good Chunk of My Story

September 2010. I made it, but Violet did not.

What motivates me to want to speak about inner space and the mind's deepest realms? What has made me want to explore those places? Why are they important to me? Why do I try so hard? Because, so many people have tried to stop me.

` Though I was indeed just making videos to race the deadline, something came up, and I needed to write a bunch of stuff, which I have been since that last post. Part of it concerns some things I want to discuss on my YouTube channel anyway, so I thought this would be an ideal place to share it.

I have already talked about the 2003 "Gaslighting Extravaganza" on my YouTube channel. This was an incident where I was drugged, tortured, sexually assaulted, locked up, and then my mom, boyfriend and some other people threatened me if I called the police. I developed numbness in various parts of my body (called "conversion disorder" or "functional neurological symptom disorder") after months of this abuse from authority figures and supposed loved ones. I did call the police this year finally.

When I went to my first skeptic's conference (The Amazing Meeting) in 2012, I did not know that I was seriously physically handicapped and in chronic pain. I had been injured many times in my life, especially a disfiguring foot injury when I was 14, which I was actually punished for having and my mom and dad both made it worse, and then punished me for it being worse.

` They didn't want me to get better, they just wanted me to stop complaining about it. They refused to take me to a doctor for almost any reason, ever, and told me to never tell a doctor about these things because it was "inappropriate" or "in the past".

` At age 7 or 8 I was so stressed out that I started to constantly scrunch up my abdominal muscles until it became constant. Later adding the foot injury caused me to put all my weight on my abdomen instead of my back, so that I was squishing all my guts up into my chest cavity, and it hurt constantly.
` It was hard to eat anything, and I was often vomiting and burping and rubbing my abdomen, which I was also punished and made fun of for. I routinely got in trouble for having trouble eating and for things I did because of low blood sugar (not to mention, sleep deprivation). My stomach was partly herniated at the top, causing reflux. I also had a lot of reflux from my upper intestines into my stomach.
` I still do a little, actually, and I must use conscious effort to keep my abdomen abdomen-shaped and my neck neck-shaped. I hold my head tilted to the right because that's the only way to compensate for my neck and eye muscles becoming asymmetrical from tilting my head to the left for most of my life. But I'm getting ahead of myself:

Almost done with next video, but I'm going to have to re-upload the rest of my clips...

As you can see, I've been hard at work (yes, even in the early morning) uploading more video clips to YouTube, with 447 at the moment.
` I've almost got my most recent video edited, from clips I've uploaded to YouTube.
` Only problem is, I won't be able to combine these clips anymore after September 20th, because YouTube video editor is simply being removed from YouTube on that date.

Yes, really.

If I'd have known that, I would have taken a different strategy to making videos. But I didn't learn of it at all until I actually clicked on YouTube video editor for the first time since January.
` I should have plenty of time to edit this video, assuming I've figured out how to overcome the problems I've been having with the editor by copying my clips over again and trying again. (You can see that by looking at the titles.)

I also must confess that during this incredibly hot summer (without air conditioning, mind you), I've had a number of physical and emotional obstacles to overcome. It's especially tiring to hold myself upright in front of the computer. I'm doing better and better at that every day.
` The better I can hold myself upright, using a trekking pole or otherwise, the more emotionally strong and independent I can feel. It's having a profound effect on my personality.
` It is helping me to process the emotions that my body has been carrying around in it since I was injured traumatically and how supposed loved ones terrorized, dehumanized and demonized me for the swelling, inability to walk for several weeks, and developing permanent physical disabilities and living in constant pain for most of my life.

Apparently, I'm just a terrible, terrible person for being able to feel physical and emotional pain.

` I have more to say about that in my next video, which I am soon to get back to working on again today.
` I didn't do much work on it two days ago because I went to the Theo chocolate factory and got to go on their tour, and actually into the floor of their factory and the kitchen area! There were cacao nibs from the Congo which tasted like cheese, nibs from Peru that I thought tasted more like beer, a chocolate dodecahedron, and lots of confectiony goodness. I didn't see any oompa-loompas, but I did get a short video of an actual cacao tree's blossoms sprouting off the trunk. Very rare in a young tree growing in a windowless room!
` Afterwards, I got some amusing video under a certain bridge, although let's just say it's much more amusing to me than it would be to most people.

As for the second part of my amazing psychedelic article, which I had already done most of the work on before publishing Part 1... I haven't even worked on it at all since then. Sure, it's mostly-finished. How did I manage to not get back to it? I suppose that's a long story and I won't bore you with the details. But I intend to pick it back up soon.

Right after I've written a very important email, or at least started on it. It's of profound importance, but I won't be able to reveal its importance until later.

At this moment, I must get dressed, get in the car, go get some pizza and buy some other important items, such as a shower curtain to replace the one I accidentally destroyed yesterday. It's a long story. I will have more for you all very soon!

I have 307 "videos", mostly short clips so far....

Most of them are only a few seconds long, but I thought I would take a screen capture to show you how many video clips I have been uploading lately, for your later viewing.

Notice that the latest ones feature the plants I've been tending, as well as Matt clearing some more space along the side of the house to make room for more of them!
` As I planted even more succulents yesterday, I recorded glimpses of the Blue Angel jets screeching and roaring overhead.

Yes, I'm back at it again. I was doing well not to spend much time with the crassulaceids. There's not much weeding to do because there has been no rain for over a month, and barely any for a month before that.
` I water them a bit, but perhaps not enough, as two of the species have died off!

Yesterday, I have replaced one of the species, and have gotten even more types of crassulaceid. Oh, the plants!
` Other than that, I've been letting my computer's CPUs be dedicated to uploading videos, but I'll take a little break from that to get back to my writing and all.

I haven't been spending much time writing, so I've been spending time reading a book that I'm borrowing. About psychedelics, of course.
` Later on, after I get back from viewing the beach at sunset, I plan to get back to finishing what I've started in writing. Just before bed, I plan to clear some more space from my hard drive, and upload even more video clips while I'm asleep.

Actual "Things People Say" About Psychedelics #2

Wow, this is unexpected. I no longer feel weighed down by a sense of guilt, that I don't deserve to be able to do things such as write blog posts. (Re: My last li'l post.) That conveniently makes this easier. As does having gotten this laptop running much faster.
` In fact, I'm uploading more video clips onto YouTube right now as I'm typing this, and it's running perfectly fine. So yes, everything is moving ahead now! In fact, I lied last time, I have been writing my next video, but not much in the way of blog posts.

In celebration, here's the next post in the queue, which is of course on psychedelics, a subject I've begun to write about in great detail. (See High-Powered Tools of Inner Exploration and Neuroscience.)
` For the first "Things People Say", go here. This one's shorter and sort of follows the other, except instead of abject terror of psychedelics, there is more of a fearful willingness to accept that perhaps they would be beneficial. But it's still a bit odd. I promise to have more interesting/amusing ones for next time.

Feeling so free...

I am writing this from my phone, but will be back to writing about mental navigation, psychedelics and strange stories soon, and making videos. My thumbs don't even have the energy to write about the adventures I have been on when I am not flattened by the heat. Mostly they have involved food, intense therapy, and even encounters with owl families.
I am having slight technical difficulties with the laptop that I have been borrowing for over a year. I can easily fix it but have been way too hot. If I had air conditioning, things might be different.
To confess, I have written zero since last time. At all. Holding myself upright is challenging, moreso when it's 86 and the sun has been beating down relentlessly for months.
Today I spent some amount of time clothes shopping because some of my new clothes have already failed. As much as I am often tempted to walk around without any clothing in this weather, I am compelled to buy more.
I have many, even more bizarre sedum and ice plant photos, but not on my phone. I just tried to view them on the laptop but had slight problems.
I have not, however, been gardening much, other than keeping the plants from withering away and pulling off dead sedum flowers. I have been doing small amounts of piano and even teaching Spanish to Matt.
I have retreated from the internet and world in general, partly to find myself. As I heal physiologically, i also work through the emotional trauma related to the physical trauma. Currently it has involved letting go of the guilt I have been carrying around that I don't deserve to live or be free of pain or to be healthy or even be able to see.
It had to do with my mother emotionally rejecting me. It hurt to learn last year that she was so traumatized by what happened back in 1995, which left me physically disabled and in chronic pain, that she had forgotten it had happened at all and had no idea how my body had gotten messed up.
She then blamed me for thinking this was a big deal, and has recently warned me that this means I could be losing my mind.
So, who cares what she thinks?
This is why I continue to cut emotional ties from her. A few days ago, I was able to process a lot of those emotions of unworthiness. I feel that I care about myself. My entire body no longer tingles and prickles as it used to. It is my own, it does not exist for anyone else's gratification. I no longer even seem to remind myself of my mom, nor do I feel rejection towards myself.

I am feeling the best I have felt in my life, especially now with almost all of the pain gone. I walk with one walking stick around the house, two outdoors. It feels good to be able to hold myself up. Feeling that I am going to fall puts entirely different thoughts in my head than when I can use my own muscles to keep my balance.

Who am I? What am I? Human? Sometimes I feel superhuman. At least during bursts of energy.

I had better get to bed so that I can wake up and get back to it...

posted from Bloggeroid

The Sedum (and Ice Plant) Madness Grows More Colorful!

When I first posted photos of the succulents, the buds were just starting to open. Now that most of them are in full bloom, I find they are much more photogenic. Just for fun, I thought I'd make another post showing the same plants as before, and in the same order so you can compare these photos with the ones from last time.

Now that I've posted my Big Article, High-Powered Tools of Inner Exploration and Neuroscience, and more, I feel the need to demonstrate how the Sedum Madness has been progressing. Previously, there were only nine species of Sedum, four of ice plants, and one Sempervivum (hen-and-chicks).
` Now I have 21 types of Sedum, nine types of ice plants, two Sempervivum and one Escheveria. And I'm finally good at 26 stepping stones. There is still also fuzzy lamb's ear, but I have brutally killed all other non-crass(ulacid) plants for not meeting my standards of attractiveness.
` I've have not been spending much time gardening this month, but it's already too late -- they're taking over the entire front retaining wall! For example, the first ice plant to bloom was this red one. Let's see how it looked when I got back from our little road trip to Montana:

Some of the flowers were already dead, with new ones on the way.

The original photo of this was looking up the side of the slope, but I had to take this photo from above because a canopy of sedum flowers were completely obscuring them from the sidewalk.
` So, as a bonus "extra photo", I took another from the same angle as the original photo, except it is of a sedum off to the right of the ice plant. The same species is prominent in both the original first and second photos, so it seems fitting to include it, especially during the time it was flowering:

Actual Things People Say About Psychedelics #1

On February 26 I mentioned that "I've started three good-sized blog posts". After a prolonged dive out of and back into good health (and a road trip to Montana), I published one of them as High-Powered Tools of Inner Exploration and Neuroscience. It's a science-based article about a particularly stunning and unusual class of mind-altering substances and how they benefit people psychologically and neurologically.

` Though this certainly wasn't taught in the psychology classes I went to, and hasn't been since The War On Drugs came into effect, psychedelics are known therapeutic agents and more. I extensively described much of their effects on sense perception and expansion/alteration of conscious awareness, and you can read it right here.

The other two posts (from Feb 21) are "Things People Say" About Psychedelics, which I didn't dare publish until I had at least one well-referenced article on this blog. It's the first, perhaps in a long-running series because I have even more of these, from many different people.
` Discussing this in skeptic/atheist circles, I find a wide range of reactions to this chemical class of substances, and this mostly has to do with the degree of people's overall familiarity with them.
` For example, some tell me how they have used psychedelics for better self-understanding and self-control. Some others say they would assume that psychedelics hinder these things. It's important to me that we're no longer so divided in our knowledge on this. (It's not the only topic, but it is a good starting point.)

I'm going to focus on some objections and questions, which I have answered, and then cut and pasted them here. I'll start with a common sort of challenge:

Onto Part 2 soon, but first, the power of suggestion strikes again, and other stuff...

With the power of suggestion, the previously-persistent pain for years in my right index finger, above the first joint, has disappeared completely. This happened in one instant, when I was concentrating on doing just that. And it worked. My finger felt normal except perhaps a bit of nerve damage, but no pain from it.
` For two days it was completely pain-free. Then, I hit the very tip of that finger really hard, and there is a little pain from that now. It's been a good test of how well the suggestion worked, because the rest of the pain has not returned.
` Currently, it feels as though my index finger simply stops after the first knuckle and has been replaced by a prosthetic. The pain from the bruise seems to have migrated to my other fingers, if that makes sense. I have no idea what this means, but I take it as a good sign.

Oh yes, and I went to Montana last month for a few days. I got some video for YouTube, but the only non-blurry photos I got were on my phone. After I returned, I took more photos of the mind-consuming sedums, including these just starting to explode into yellow flowers:

I will also be putting together more videos, about self-suggestion, psychedelics, navigating your mind, as well as other projects. I've been doing slightly more and more all the time, and those are definitely on my short-term to-do list.
` Part 2 of "High Powered Tools of Inner Exploration and Neuroscience" will be up soon, but first, I have several draft posts that I haven't published yet. Some are ones about psychedelics which I have been waiting to publish until after getting something else done first. Some are also from last year, including CSI Con 2016.
` I also have more multi-color sedum photos, since I have more kinds than before, and they're almost all flowering. Not to mention all the vividly-blossoming ice plants! As for why I haven't gotten on this earlier, I have been having more trouble than usual staying awake and holding my body in a vertical position.

Part of the deal has been coming back from Montana, exhausted, to summer heat and no air conditioning. Even Matt has had difficulty staying awake and non-lethargic, and has become more exhausted than usual after working out at the gym.
` The other is, seemingly paradoxical, because of physical improvement: My center of balance is continuing to shift farther to center, thanks to the trekking poles. My right side is still too weak to support me as I prop myself up on the couch. I put a small suitcase next to me so I can lean on my right hand.
` The only way I can prevent myself from falling forward is to put my right knee against the table and/or suitcase. Then, to type, I rest my right elbow on my knee and put my left elbow on the table. And, I don't wear pants (as in trousers) because of how they can squeeze my torso. Yeah, baby.
` At last, I am starting to feel like I can do this again for more than two minutes at a time, especially during the evenings. Which is what I'm doing now, after having slept a lot of today, which has actually been a goal since I can only seem to sleep for five hours at one time.

With enough sleep, I actually am feeling more like a human being. It's amazing. I'd better get to bed already, though, since I have much blogging and video editing yet to do, including video of me at the piano without pants! It's sexy.

High-Powered Tools of Inner Exploration and Neuroscience, Part 1 of 2: The Basics

Matt and I were seated front and side at an overflowing event at the University of Washington; a researcher talking about a truly extraordinary piece of technology: Imagine if you had a device that could allow you to turn down your mental chatter and just allow yourself to experience the world more clearly in some ways.
` Your everyday assumptions could become visible. You would notice details about yourself and the world around you that you never noticed before. You'd find that you can see beyond your ordinary habitual, repetitive thoughts and emotions. It is possible for perception to expand so far beyond ordinary consciousness that dissolving and rearranging one's conceptual boundaries is universally accepted as among the most meaningful events in one's life.

This was a very large room, yet not enough chairs for everyone!

` Your own mind becomes seemingly transparent, and closing your eyes reveals an inner world of thoughts and impressive-looking computer graphics in real-time. These graphics can be scenes or simulations that you create for your own use. They also could be something else entirely, such as four-dimensional fractal geometry.
` Which you can see, because you're not viewing it with your eyes, you're experiencing it in your mind. It is like 'turning on' a whole new set of senses, as though you were using cybernetic implants to explore a virtual world. Concentrating on this inner reality, and turning up the intensity of the device allows one to sit back and have the most otherworldly experiences that seem to defy time and space.

As something of this magnitude should be, this device's importance from neurology to psychotherapy is compared to the telescope in astronomy, or the microscope in medicine and biology. Mathematicians, engineers, scientists, artists, musicians, and philosophers begin crediting a number of their achievements through abilities and perception they gained from the use of this 'mind-scope'. Culture changes dramatically and visibly from this tool's influence.

What some of you may not realize is, this "advanced technology" exists today.

If you haven't guessed, these possible states of mind are explored every day, via the use of psychedelic substances. They have been throughout recorded history, and long before.

The researcher speaking that evening was Albert Garcia-Romeu, from Johns-Hopkins University School of Medicine. His subject is the serotonin 2A receptor agonist known as psilocybin (SILL-o-SY-bin), a psychedelic alkaloid found in hundreds of species of mushrooms worldwide.
` In years past, I'd thought that these fungi made people "go crazy", but in general, psychedelic use seems to improve mental health (Johansen and Krebs, 2015) and reduce the risk of suicide (Peter Hendricks 2014).
` As Johansen and Krebs state: "We failed to find evidence that psychedelic use is an independent risk factor for mental health problems. Psychedelics are not known to harm the brain or other body organs or to cause addiction or compulsive use; serious adverse events involving psychedelics are extremely rare. Overall, it is difficult to see how prohibition of psychedelics can be justified as a public health measure."
` I will explain in this article and Part 2 how they can be used to help break addictive habits, from alcoholism to obsessive compulsive disorder. This is part of how they can be used to catalyze remarkably rapid and profound healing, which is the entire subject of Part 2.

So close, yet so far...

If I had one more day, I'd publish this 'Big Post' that I'm keeping "secret" except to the people who I've been telling to go to my blog for the past three months to read it. It's fundamental in understanding how I could recover from being tortured and the entire extravaganza of gaslighting, and how you too can have unbelievably amazing mental powers and perceptions!

I thought I was going to have one more day, but instead I am leaving tomorrow morning. I suppose I would have gotten it done if I hadn't gone to the Skeptic's Meetup, which was about how your gut flora affect your brain.

` It was interesting, and worth it especially because I spoke up about putting on my own presentation, perhaps in August or September. It will be based on my Big Article Parts 1 and 2, and so will a lot of my videos, and comics. It's that Big. I just have to get it finished first, then I can base all the things on it.

I won't be bringing a laptop with me, just because I doubt I could find a way to prop myself up in front of it in such a way that I could type. It's extremely difficult as it is where I am, and I doubt I will have the energy. So, it will be a few days before I can get back to finishing this post.

` It's literally almost done, I just spent the past week figuring out how to make Part 1 work as a piece on its own. I just need to finish a few paragraphs and then proofread it, but I won't get a chance to even resume work until NEXT WEEK!! ARRGH!!!!!

So, I would finish it tomorrow, and I thought I would have until tomorrow, but I don't, so I can't. As interesting as it is to see how long I can keep this up, it's getting to be a bit much. It seems I'd have done it if I didn't run out of energy just trying to keep myself propped up in front of the laptop. It seems to me that if I just had something which held my body in a position where it didn't hurt, I would be considerably more energetic.

` And my podcast, Skeptophany, for which this blog is named, is still out of my ability to access the files. It has been over a year. So as soon as I'm finished with the Big Article, I'm fixing my laptop or something so that I can access my drives that the files are on. Assuming some catastrophe doesn't befall me.

As for the carbon fiber trekking poles, the pain and pressure on the right side of my body was gone after a couple of DAYS! I'm a lot more energetic and move so much more quickly when I'm on a walk. It's helped me to gain control of my body in front of the computer, which has helped me type a lot. It hasn't been enough, but it's been so helpful.

` This evening after getting back from the Meetup, I found that my center of balance is now so close toward the center that I can use both poles! I don't fall over to the left, after about a week of using just the right one. While I'm away, I'll have to experiment with them!

So, if I get back in one piece, this blog and videos are going to continue. If not, I hope you don't forget about me altogether. I have hours more videos, hours of podcast material, and so much more to make. I have so much to say to the world, how long will I have?

` Well, my body can't support me in front of the laptop anymore, I must go to bed. I want to do nothing but write all about this subject, it's one of my life's greatest passions, but I'm going to have to put it on hold. Again. It's really burning in my mind. Driving me up the wall.

My life will change after it is published, much as it did after the Gaslighting Extravaganza video was published. I hope the police decide to investigate.

Sedum Madness, Psycho-Physical Therapy, and Chemical Mind Control...

I've been attempting to finish a key blog article for months, and my own brain/body are working against me once more. It's no biggie, I'm getting back on track for the nth time. So, what else have I been doing all this time besides not feeling well?
` There are now seventeen stepping stones out on the front retaining wall flower bed. Before my last post, there were zero. Here's one of them, just to the right of the first ice plant to start blooming this year. It's metallic red, and some of the others will bloom metallic purple, orange, and/or yellow.

All the other plants here are different types of sedum.

So, this isn't my 'Big Article', but it is An Article Greatly Swollen With Photos That I Just Took Yesterday!

What's going on with my health, and what's with all the succulents? I will answer those questions here in an amusing fashion, and with several more colorful photos:

...So, here's what I've been doing, and here's what I'm about to do!

Aaand, my health took a sudden brief downturn. But I'm fine now.

I am planning to do more videos very soon, after I'm done extensively blogging for some time. When I say extensively, I mean, massively, with plenty of scientific citations. That's why I've been calling it 'my big post'.
` It's so big I'm dividing it into Parts 1 and 2, and these will be important to this blog, my videos, and my podcast for which this blog is named, and which I still cannot access to put on the internet for you to hear. That's one of the next things on my to-do list.

Another thing, I want to admit that since I did this video at the piano, I began to have such difficulty in keeping my balance that I had to stop practicing almost altogether until a month or so ago. I discovered that if I switch the pedal extension to the left side and then press my right foot up against a cushion that's wedged under the piano -- and remove my pants -- I can actually keep my balance.
` So, I made a video of myself showing my new way of piano-ing -- without pants! I was wearing a dress. I'm also glad to report that I am getting better at keeping my balance in other instances of sitting down, especially now that my pants have all mysteriously gotten bigger again. Strange how that happens. Must be the "Underwater UFO" Aliens.

This resumed piano practice hasn't been taking up huge amounts of time, so much as it takes some amount of energy away from blogging and everything else. But it's worth it. What's probably taken up more time are the little errands and other adventures I've gone on, such as today, upon which Matt and I returned with a shrubbery *orchestra hit*!
` For another recent adventure, we attended a Seattle Skeptic's Meetup. This time; The Humane League And The Horrible of Industrial Farming. Most animals in the U.S. are killed for human consumption, the vast majority suffer terribly as cogs in a factory farming machine.
` Now that's another subject for a blog post, but again, I must press on with my original course: More and better (and generally not-so-big) blog posts and videos! Speaking of, I've gotten a few more lovely videos to go on YouTube, including lots of rainbows, and one of the blooming cherry blossoms overlooking Lake Washington.

As for what I said last time, the whole getting eight uninterrupted hours of sleep for the first time in years was a prelude to a sudden inability to stay awake or alert for two days. I forgot the idea of finishing the post on Bicycle Day, or even 4-20.
` Thankfully, this fatigue didn't have to do with whatever was living in my sinuses for two months: It was more a blip in my internal chemistry, which resulted in extreme exhaustion, muscle soreness, and inability to brain. I was, at least, able to get my mind working well enough to destroy thousands of tiny weeds when the sun was out. Productive, and meditative rather than mentally taxing.
` Yesterday, Matt and I even failed to go to the March For Science, even though we had been enthusiastic about it until the day before. Both of us were exhausted and not much up for being out in the rain for hours. Instead, I stayed inside and did some more writing, and later when the sun came out, we had a nice walk among the ducks, crows, hummingbirds and spring blossoms.

A little bit more of my time is taken up by software-related 'fun'. Just last night, I had two tabs open that had several links on them, and that information would be stored in my Firefox browser history. I closed Firefox to restart the computer to install some updates, thinking it probably wouldn't screw anything up.
` Strangely, it did: I couldn't open Firefox because one of its files was somehow missing from this computer. This had happened before, and I'd solved it by reinstalling Firefox. Which I did several times, didn't work, so I installed Chrome.
` It works really well.
` Firefox isn't installing with Chrome either, so I'll just use Chrome, and take the minor setback of losing two tabs. What would be worse would be if I lost access to my WordPad document which has plenty more sources and notes, for the next several blog posts.
` Which happened -- temporarily:
` Due to my enormous amounts of writing/research, the file had gotten so big that this computer's WordPad couldn't quite handle it; neither could Google Docs. I emailed it to Matt and his computer opened it in 10 seconds, then he copied and pasted the text into an email and sent it back to me.
` I divided that up into three sections, so at last I can go back to writing, as I was doing yesterday. Assuming that nothing else annoying happens, Part 1 should be up really, really soon, since it is practically finished, and Part 2 only needs a small amount of work so should be up shortly thereafter.

Along with these blog posts will be my next (very short!) video, most of which I took when it snowed in February. So, I'll be moving from winter, then to spring blossoms, and then to fall colors, because I took many videos back then as well. Let's just put it this way; time will not be linear on my YouTube channel!
` I can't wait to get back to it, I love feeling healthy and I'm tired of feeling sick! I probably won't have time to do any writing tomorrow, due to another adventure I've got planned, but I don't have any other foreseeable delays. The ball keeps threatening to start rolling, and I think this time it just may.

The Universe Expands Before Our Minds!

Alas, this is not the 'Big Article' I've been promising, but in the interest of creating regular content, I've got something else interesting for you. My excuse in delay is that writing a lot involves much reading, and it's difficult for me to hold my body still enough to read for very long without shifting. That, and I've been occupying myself with having many more adventures lately.
` One of my adventures occurred a few days ago, when Matt and I went to Town Hall to see Lawrence Krauss humorously expounding on Standard Theory, the most accurate theory ever. It's the greatest adventure of how scientists discovered the structural properties of the universe, on great and small scales.
` As with Stamets and Schwartzberg, I shall have to write something up properly about this, but... here's a video of him on another day, with a different pair of red shoes. He describes how our familiar 3-dimensional universe was discovered (largely by accident) to be a 'shadow' of a larger, 4-dimensional universe. Yes, really.



Although I've not been on Facebook in ever, partly because I've been working on the same article I've been working on for months, I did tag him there. Ah, technology. But then someone who recognized Matt actually gave me a frickin' book, and Lawrence signed it and eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

I will write about all that, but first I must finish the article I've literally been promising people, even in person, since just before I had that two-month sinus infection-thing. I really think I'm over it now. Just in time to relish the aromatically-flowered shrubs and trees in bloom!
` As to its subject matter, well, let's just say, my new deadline target date is 'Bicycle Day'! Seems manageable, as long as I can stop being so addicted to weeding (the garden) and spending large amounts of time outdoors and watching animals, clouds, and Seattle's large population of rainbows.

Speaking of, on this lovely sunny day, Matt and I saw a male-female pair of Northern Shovelers swimming in a circle, presumably creating a vortex of debris, which they were feeding on. We stood and watched them for some time, although I did not get a video for the YouTube channel. It probably has to do with being in the moment or some junk. Of course, there are other videos of this on YouTube...
` A few days before, we saw a crow chasing a squirrel back and forth, first to one bush, then another. At last, the squirrel sprinted from a bush near the water and sprinted across the path, into the woods, with the crow hot on its tail. At last, the squirrel somehow got out of reach and the crow just stood on the ground, watching it. That squirrel must have really pissed off that crow.

I've said that I would resist updating you on various news items, but I think it has been long enough. For one thing, my health is doing better than practically ever in ever. My back is getting stronger and less fatigued, meaning less work for the rest of my body.
` This has been the first day in perhaps years that I've woken up after eight hours. Last night, I managed to stay awake long enough to take a shower and then grind the callus from between my toes so they don't grow together. It's fun!
` I even brushed my teeth but didn't floss, figuring that I wouldn't be able to sleep very long. I actually slept from about 9pm to 5am. And after getting up and stretching and making myself a sandwich, I went back to bed and slept another couple of hours.

And as for me contacting the police about Dr. Benninger of Gaslighting Extravaganza notoriety. The guy is still in business, and perhaps also still into molesting people and having them sent to the mental hospital when they try to tell on him. Who knows?
` My main focus in life continues to be recovering from a lifetime of physical/emotional brutality, and I'm doing well. My teeth are still in amazing condition, although I discovered there are stains on the backs of my incisors due to my massive largely-medical consumption of cannabis.
` The shard of glass-like thing remains stuck in my foot, but I am now rid of three annoyingly large skin growths that liked to break open and bleed sometimes.There doesn't seem to be anything really 'off' other than physio-mechanical problems, which, after about 4 1/2 years of physical therapy, are nearly over.
` The main weak spot is the right side of my back, and the right side of my right leg. My torso is more torso-shaped and un-dented than it has been for almost my whole life. It feels amazing. My face almost seems normal now, my upper lip barely curls down at all, and I expect it to stop doing so in a matter of months.

And by then it will be onto the next thing.

Bees Need Medicinal Mushrooms? This Is No Joke!

This isn't the 'big article' I've been promising, although, let's just say, that one would be right up Paul Stamets' alley. Matt and I saw him and Louis Schwartzberg at the Moore Theater for Mushrooms and the Mycology of Consciousness. I even got to meet Paul!

After my 'big article', I'll properly write something about this, but for now, here's Paul (and his Amadou hat) on how he discovered that bees naturally depend on medicinal mushrooms such as reishi and red-belted polypore as part of their immune defenses.
` With these mushrooms becoming more rare, and environmental stress increasing, honeybees and native bees are becoming more sick. Thanks to him, it has been discovered that feeding these mushrooms to the bees greatly prolongs their lives and could prevent colony collapse! Clinical trials are currently underway.



There's a lot to this presentation, and even more in the one that we went to. I will save that for later on, after my next 'big article', which is nearly finished. I'd have had it up already if it weren't for a few things coming up, but at least this darned cold seems to be 'virtually gone' after nearly two months.
` A couple weeks ago, I found some bluish-gray turkey tail and had some, along with other colors I've found, in a tea. I have not had any red-belted polypore yet, despite the fact that I have an entire bag of chunks. It's very rare that I ever am that sick, so I don't use them a lot, but I feel inspired to do so now.

And, not to leave Louie out in the cold, he's done some amazing videography, with much emphasis on slow-motion and time-lapse. In 2011, he did a film known in the U.S. as Wings of Life, about the pollinating insects, birds and bats that keep the plants going. Here's another little project he's known for:



As for other news, I will continue to resist updating you until after 'the big article'. Which is quite big. A little bigger than intended, even.

Good News, Everybody!

On Friday, I have an appointment to talk to the Medina police about the Benninger Incident of my Gaslighting Extravaganza video fame. This is the first time I've ever done this, though it happened in 2003.

And, I'll be doing it without a shard of glass in my foot if all goes right on Thursday! And, I will get a chance to talk about more serious foot problems that I've been dealing with for some time! But I will spare you the details until we get to my fun video clips about that.

But more than clips about terrible things happening to me, the point of my YouTube channel and blog posts will start to become more apparent reeeeallly soon.

Speaking of which, today I didn't write any more of my "big" article, which I'm sure by now you don't remember what it's supposed to be about. Which is perfect.

I didn't write it because I was busy writing an email to the police, thought I'd provide some more info.
That, and I had a couple errands and went to a Skeptic's Meetup. Today's presentation was about the benefits of preventing unplanned pregnancies. Fascinating.
And then, since I am not able to get old medical records in time for my appointment, I have been scrolling through old photos and found some really disturbing ones of my "bad" foot. It works well enough.

As for the darn cold/sinus infection, I think it may be finally going away. Probably going back to bed would help me recover, so I'll do that now.

And until I have published my big article, I will now try to save any and all good/bad news. I'm sure there will be plenty of stuff to say, I just felt that I needed to end on a high note before finally getting on with it.

I still have this dratted cold or whatever it is...

What has it been, five weeks? Sigh. And pain in my ears, too. I've taken to clearing them out and they are feeling much better. I've also had to employ expectorants, and my lungs are feeling better as well. (Guaifenecin plus cannabis vape pens are really amazing together!)
` I think I'm finally starting to get better.

And as far as bringing Dr. Benninger of Gaslighting Extravaganza fame to justice, well, I looked him up and apparently he's still practicing oral surgery in Medina. How is this possible? I emailed Medina's chief of police about the incident, but no reply so far. I shall have to call them up again, once I am awake during the day.

I have many things I need to take care of, but I keep falling asleep. I feel so drained and sore all over. The good thing is, part of being sore indicates the building of new muscle. After more than four years of physical therapy, it may only be a few more months before I'm more or less physically 'normal' after decades of agony.

My sinuses and ears and throat are feeling a lot better. I will resume work on that really fascinating-yet-mysterious article I've been working on since I've been sick, once I take a nap.

I apologize for my prolonged disease state and will have to more nicely ask the micro-organisms to stop infecting my body next time.

My life has taken on a new meaning.

Yes, I'm going to finish that article I've been working on. But first, I want everyone to know that my entire life has shifted into a new gear. I'm going to still be doing what I'm doing, but there is one more layer to it all. That's my excuse for not writing yesterday. It was exhausting to figure that out.

My body is also much more physio/kinetically balanced, and my torso is continuing to become more torso-shaped. However, I haven't yet been able to get an appointment with a podiatrist about pulling out that shard of glass that has been stuck in it since around New Year's. It still hurts.

I also haven't yet gone about trying to get something done about my computer situation. I've been a bit preoccupied.

I did get back to Tim Farley the other day, and will be getting back to more people henceforth. Including the scientist featured in my next article.

Just to keep you updated...

A curious thing happened the other day; I was writing my next blog post and something small landed on the couch next to me: a 1 cm convex rubber disk. I looked around for a possible source, and saw that it had sprung from the on-off button of the flashlight hanging on the wall.
` What are the chances of that happening? I couldn't help but think of last Halloween, when Matt was sitting on the couch at the same time someone decided to hurl a rock through the picture window. Except without the $800 worth of broken glass. (I had slept through it, having been exhausted from CSI Con, and then going on a long walk in the rain afterwards.)

Since my last post, Matt and I have been seeing otters at Alki beach, in addition to the blue herons we usually scare away on our evening walks. This last time, I heard a squeaking noise and saw one otter swimming along the shore, calling to the other. I called back, it looked up at me, and continued on its way. After that, I pulled out the camera and got some video of it squeaking, which I'll have to put on YouTube.

As for my health, it was down for a few days, but I'm now mostly-better, including the cold. My body is getting stronger, and I'm better able to hold myself upright so that I can type at the computer. I even have found a solution to keep myself from falling over at the piano, and am planning on briefly demonstrating that in a video.
` Because I've been so under the weather, my ability to sleep is not the greatest, thus affecting my memory. Sometimes, I come back to whatever I'm doing and am surprised to find I've done as much as I have.
` Once, I kicked myself for not spending the evening writing, when I remembered the reason was that we'd had some people over for a potluck!


As for my next post/article, it's coming along despite my body's attempts to drag my brain down into the abyss of incoherence.

Update on Gaslighting Extravaganza, the Podcast, and in General...

Last time, I'd written that my next post would be more interesting, although I'm not sure I can beat the part about the near-spontaneous pantsformation. Yes, I am feeling more energetic, though my energy levels have been wavering as well. For the past several days I've been fairly sedentary besides my daily physical therapy/exercise.
` Instead of holding my body in a more or less vertical position so that I can type or edit videos, I've taken to studying via book and electronic means, while in more of a diagonal position. While this has been useful for my next video, I've been dragging my feet on writing my blog posts (moreso than email).

Giant "thumbnail" image for Part 1.

My videos are only coming along slowly because in order to make my next video, in which I comment on (and continue from) this video, I've had to watch the entire 1 hour 20-some minute Extravaganza. Once I did so, I fixed a couple tiny editing glitches and added the fancy "custom thumbnail" images that I colored real pretty, which fluorescently blaze before each part.
` I was able to save the changes to Part 2 without causing any upheaval. However, in order to change Part 1, I had to make a copy. I took down the first copy, which had been published on January 13, at 8:57a.m., mere hours before Part 2.
` It had two thumbs-up and 142 views, probably most of them came from me watching it in sections. It was survived by no comments, but the new copy has a chance to acquire some.

That is a long-winded explanation of why Part 1 now appears chronologically after Part 2. According to YouTube, the new copy finished copying on February 24, 2017 4:07 PM, but it wasn't published until the wee hours of this morning. So, it was just baaarely bumped into March!

This was partly since I spent a while trying to find ways to "move" the video back to January. Then I figured, what's wrong with posting a "new video" that already has a Part 2?

Here's the new link to Part 1: Torture and Imprisonment, with Intro and Cat. At last, I feel like I can move onto making the next video! And there's a lot that has already been made, so my video production output ought to speed up a little, I should think!

Now, for a brief discussion of how I horribly defaced Part 2:

Annotations and Title Screens vs. Cards and End Screens

Feeling better and expending more energy!

This darn cold is finally starting to go away, I've started three good-sized blog posts, have made a little progress on my YouTube channel, and have been catching up with writing emails. (That reminds me, I keep telling Tim Farley [plug] that I'm going to get back to him, and regarding something I contacted him about and find interesting, but I haven't yet! Really?)

And the interesting thing is not my pants, which magically transformed into bellbottoms while I was at the park earlier. I got them from a thrift store, and they seemed a bit short. When I was putting on my walking shoes, I noticed that they seemed to be rolled up inward and... 'snap!' some threads broke and I had a sizeable flare protecting my ankles! They're so much like the ones I had in the 90's, too!

It's almost four in the morning, I just cooked and ate some buckwheat pasta with a mass of cheesy, cream-filled tomatoness and a piece of whole wheat garlic bread. That's after a peanut butter-covered bagel with banana slices on top.
This is the type of thing I am doing -- being awake at odd hours and eating, sometimes masses of food. I always start out with the box of salad greens I keep on the fridge door. And then move onto something more substantial.
Sometimes it's sandwiches with ingredients such as celery and cranberry sauce. Sometimes it's something like ice cream or nachos. Mm, guacamole.

Since I've been ill, I've also been somewhat sedentary and eat a lot of junk but don't seem to have any real problems related to this, and hardly any body fat. My blood sugar is apparently more stable than it has been before, my cholesterol levels have been fine despite the masses of ice cream over the past year and a half. (I like to add cocoa powder and peanut powder, too...)
I feel that the physical therapy/cardio I do every day exhausts me, and the rest of the day I spend most of the time laying down or leaning up against something. (Well, it's hard to do anything else.) If it weren't for my feeling so worn-out, I'd think of myself as slothful and gluttonous. It feels really good right now, so I'm going with it.

I look forward to having more energy to invest in blogging and videoing. When I wake up again, later. My next post should be very interesting...

So THAT'S why I've been out of energy...

The good news is, it wasn't until right after being up front at the Robby Krieger Band concert that I started to feel some serious sinus stinging.
I took some photos of the concert and put them on Facebook. I tried to put a couple here, but they won't upload.

Not only was this the first concert I've ever been to, but I put my hands onstage, two feet away from Robby's feet while he was soloing! Whoa!

Right now, however, I have quite the sinus thing going. All my muscles, sinuses, and lymphatic tissues are reeeallly hurting, some other things hurt worse than usual, and I have been not much more useful than a lump.

I said in my last post that I had next to no excuse for not getting more done. Well, maybe I had a little more of an excuse than that. My mind just can't seem to stay alert at all, but I am starting to feel a little better today.

At some point soon, I will get back to my blogging and videoing ways... Stay tuned!

posted from Bloggeroid

Sparkly new title screens!

I have next to no excuse for not getting everything done as fast as I thought, other than my muscles being so sore, me still needing a lot of sleep, and taking it easy because [Edit: Actually, I was coming down with something]. The day I'd written my last little update, I'd done some physical therapy at the gym and am still sore even today. Oh, and I killed a bunch of time with some gel pens and card stock...
` I have some more updatage for you, but first, it seems important that I post photos of the title cards to be added to my YouTube videos. Because personal stories of horror need colorful title cards, gleaming in the sun:

My first attempt to digitize them was to tape them to a darker card in order to make them visible to the scanner. This had the unfortunate consequence of both bending the card and bleaching out the image's lighter colors:

I have more energy now, whatever shall I do about it?

The other day I went to an overflowing Puget Sound Mycological Society lecture by Albert Garcia-Romaeu about the work of him and his colleagues at Johns Hopkins. They have been studying the various benefits of psilocybin, the LSD-like ingredient in magic mushrooms. They have observed and confirmed various psychological, neurological and medical benefits, as well as the benefit of a life-changing experience. (Here's a link to his work.)

This has been an important topic on my last blog, but I am planning to cover it better on this blog and on my YouTube channel. I will write more about this in an upcoming post, and no doubt in videos.

First I must say, I feel physiologically amazing from all these years of physical therapy are paying off. My right glute and the right side of my leg, which is still not quite developed enough, is the most sore from doing squats and whatnot at the gym the other day. Most of my left side is not sore. Such is the asymmetry of my body.

I seem to be needing 10-12 hours of sleep a day, as I sometimes do. Despite this, I am about to move ahead with my next video, as soon as I review both parts of my Gaslighting Extravaganza.

Tomorrow, I am planning to meet a friend in SoDo as he takes off on the Red Dress Run, wearing a paisley muumuu. I may try to watch Part 1 before and Part 2 afterward. What an interesting plan for an intermission!

As far as my laptop goes, it's still in the shop, but I should get it back this month! When I do, I should have a chance to scrape some of my podcast together and put it on the YouTube channel!

Rest assured, I have recorded much other video for YouTube, mostly in October and November, and even some this month when it snowed, which I have planned for a little musical interlude. I am not about to run out of video anytime soon!

Something else: There are several posts that I had started on this blog last year and never finished, due to several factors. Now that my back seems capable of holding me upright and keeping my torso in its proper shape, and I am planning on publishing videos that were supposed to "go with" some of these posts, it is much easier for me to focus on and accomplish this task.

There are, of course, many other things I haven't been working on, and am getting back to, so we will see how fast I am able to accomplish all of this!

I'm still here, trying to stay awake!

Sometimes it's all I can do to get out of bed, stretch, go back to bed, get up, go for a walk, eat dinner, go back to bed, get up, take a shower, and go back to bed. Who has energy for other things? Not me! My body is about the only thing I attend to consistently, and most of the things I normally do, I haven't been for one reason or another.

Before I can move ahead with my videos, I must first check the Gaslighting Extravaganza for mistakes. In order to do that, I must find the pieces of yellow paper that I need to check it. And then to make my next video, I have had some clips uploaded since October, but I must find my yellow mini legal sheets that have the script for the rest of it before I can finish it.

Somehow, these legal sheets keep falling on the floor and getting picked up and put in random places each time I try to put them in some kind of coherent order. So, I have made several attempts to do this already, but it seems fruitless. This is what happens when I'm in too much pain to type. But even that seems to be changing slowly. Maybe next video after that, I can use a computer screen to read from!

Spoony's Gaslighting Extravaganza! True tales of torture and denial!

Partly to make up for not publishing anything for some time, here's a very unusually long (two-part) video with a gripping story, which I think I've succeeded at making somewhat uplifting and entertaining:
In 2003, I was horribly tortured, drugged, etc., with devastating effects on my sense of identity. My mom and boyfriend disowned me unless I pretended it didn't happen. After even more gaslighting, I wound up in a mental institution, where I was physically attacked and humiliated further, treated as though my reaction to being traumatized was a form of psychosis.

On this channel, I want to share with people the amazing things I've learned about the mind. This is no exception!

I made sure to include an informative catching-up and introduction segment, in which I hope to explain the relevance of these past experiences to the content of this channel. If you just want to get to the beginning of the story, go to 23:52.

If you are hoping for a transcript, well, not yet, but... it's forthcoming!

The neighbor's cat, by the way, is named Chester.

If I'd been tortured and imprisoned in a POW camp, that would have been one thing. Instead, it happened under more insidious circumstances where the pain and suffering could be blamed on me.

In this second part of the story, the sheer level of denial will astound you.

It even includes the story where Bill turns around in his seat in order to avoid acknowledging that the car is careening across lanes!



By the end of this, I hope that many of you are doing your own version of the "negativity dance". Boogie down!

With all the Facebook comments I've been getting about how people are anticipating these new videos, I'm surprised no one has 'liked' or commented on either of the links in the past 12 hours. I was hoping to add that to this blog post, but, nothing so far.

[Edit: That changed while I was writing this post. And here is a comment I liked from Boe DuRansier:

Difficult to watch but incredibly important. You could, and should, become the voice for all those who have endured and suffered in silence simply because the one(s) who hurt them had better credentials. 

And, I promise, I really will make transcripts for these videos, now that they are done. They are certainly transcript-worthy!]

Now that I have all this out of the way, I'll get back to making shorter videos with more whiteboard and more "aliens"! There are already two I've been working on....