Here's what happened in my life over the past week:

  • I happened to notice this week that a couple of people who at one point did emerging blogger guest posts on my site have gotten really big on Instagram. One has 60K followers and the other has 88K. Given that so few people get that kind of reach online, it's kind of cool, but also kind of weird, to see people that I knew before they got big. It seems like being that big would mean a different kind of interaction, which I'm not sure I would want. Or maybe IG follower numbers are as meaningless as WP follower numbers. I'm at almost 10K, but it actually means sweet diddly squat (ps, if you get impressed by high WP follower numbers, it's a lot less impressive than it looks—the spammy percentage increases substantially the more followers you get).
  • I had noticed a while back that some articles on some random narcissistic abuse website were indexed on Google Scholar, which is odd, because Google Scholar is for academic works, like journal articles. I did some digging, learned some new tricks, and Google Scholar has indexed my new book! I'm fairly certain that no one is going to find it that way, and that's totally okay; the satisfaction comes from success in getting it on there.
  • I had a rather unpleasant telephone doctor appointment this week. He wasn't interested in hearing about the 2 dermatological issues I have going on (one is what I'm fairly sure is a basal cell carcinoma, and the other I think might be an indicator of an autoimmune condition); he wanted to just do a dermatology referral without seeing me, or even asking any questions at all about the potential autoimmune issue. In fact, he didn't seem to want to deal with me, full stop, and he seemed quite turned off by the fact that my mental health hasn't been good and my speech is quite bad. He told me "what you're doing isn't working." Well thanks, asshole. What you're doing sure the fuck isn't working either. The appointment ended with him reluctantly saying he'd call in some meds for me. No requisition for lab work, even though that needed doing. No in-person. No follow-up plan. No nothing. I have strong doubts about whether he's even going to actually do the dermatology referral, because he seemed to be too caught up in the psych stuff that he wanted to make an issue out of to pay much attention to the derm stuff (there's a name for that; it's "diagnostic overshadowing").

    This was actually the first time I'd talked to him since the disability application fiasco at the end of last year, and I think he's freaked out by the hospital records I provided him with that talk about my past suicide attempts. I decided to submit a complaint to the College of Physicians. It won't accomplish much, and it's certainly not going to win me any friends, but I might as well point out that this bullshit is not okay. And if creates even a minor pain in the ass for him, all the better.

  • Stress makes me slower. Neither mind nor body are particularly functional right now.
  • Seen on LinkedIn: "Negative people are like clouds, when they disappear it's a beautiful day!" My reaction: Oh fuck off.
  • There's a new lady northern flicker woodpecker hanging around my balcony. It seems like an odd time of year for woodpecker dating season.
  • I don't usually clench/grind my teeth while sleeping, but I have been lately, which means waking up with headaches. Blech.

This is Butternut getting very excited about a blanket that smells like the girls. He's such a silly little horndog.

How has your week been?

Mental Health @ Home Books by Ashley L. Peterson - book covers
Mental Health @ Home Books by Ashley L. Peterson –
You can find them on my Amazon author page.