[0:01]Good morning, YouTube. 7 o'clock in the
[0:03]morning here. Just waking up. Probably
[0:06]look at it, especially at my
[0:09]age. It's a new day. Looks like it's
[0:12]going to be a beautiful day. And it's a
[0:15]new year for me. This is the day after
[0:18]my
[0:19]birthday. I am now officially 48 years
[0:23]old. And it feels
[0:27]good. It feels amazing.
[0:32]I don't think a year ago I would have
[0:34]been able to say that if I was still
[0:36]living in my house, sedating myself,
[0:41]stagnating. But on my 47th birthday, I
[0:44]did something brave and I changed
[0:47]everything. And now I can
[0:50]say that I've spent a year transforming
[0:53]my
[0:54]life
[0:56]and I'm in really good
[0:59]shape physically,
[1:01]mentally, spiritually, although I'm not
[1:04]spiritual,
[1:05]but some kind of dimension
[1:09]there, sematically,
[1:11]cognitively. I'm in the best place I've
[1:14]been in in a very long time, probably
[1:15]ever in my life, because I truly love
[1:18]myself in a way that I never did in the
[1:21]first first 48 years of my
[1:26]life. So, let me start with some some
[1:29]good news. I've secured my campsite
[1:32]until Friday. So, I'm not going to be
[1:35]scrambling to try to figure out where to
[1:36]be every day, every night.
[1:39]That would have been a difficult
[1:42]situation and I'm glad I won't have to
[1:43]go through
[1:45]it. Uh there's a couple of reasons why.
[1:48]So, um yesterday I sent out a request to
[1:51]my audience asking for help. I received
[1:53]help from one person. Her name is Laura.
[1:55]She sent me $25. I want to thank you
[1:57]personally. Thank you. I'll send out an
[2:00]email to just thanking you um that
[2:04]way. and my aunt who I hadn't talked to
[2:07]in decades, literal decades,
[2:10]uh she sent me some money, um
[2:14]$200.
[2:15]And that's because my mom reached out to
[2:18]her and asked and she and she
[2:21]helped. This happened while I was in
[2:24]Newport. I was visiting John. John had
[2:26]$40 he was going to give me so that um I
[2:30]could put feel in my
[2:31]Jeep. And I just wanted to see him for
[2:34]my birthday. didn't want to spend it by
[2:36]myself. But because of what happened, I
[2:38]gave him his money back because that was
[2:40]everything he had. Cuz that man is a
[2:42]true friend. He was willing to give me
[2:45]everything. He had his own fuel money.
[2:46]In fact, that was the the money for his
[2:48]truck. He was going to just stay home
[2:50]for the rest of the
[2:53]month.
[2:56]And I'm glad that, you know, it didn't
[2:58]turn out that way. So, I am in a good
[3:00]situation as far as all of that. I could
[3:03]still use some assistance if you're
[3:05]willing and you're able. Um cuz I'm
[3:08]going to need fuel for my Jeep cuz
[3:09]that's what powers my RV is when I
[3:11]charge my batteries this morning. I need
[3:13]food. I'd love to be able to get some
[3:15]groceries that I can stock in my fridge
[3:17]now that I know I can keep my RV
[3:19]batteries going and my fridge going.
[3:24]Um yeah, just basic supplies.
[3:27]So
[3:31]um okay so let me see where do I want to
[3:33]go from here. So
[3:36]um I'm calling this my public channel
[3:38]moving
[3:39]forward if you're seeing this on on
[3:42]YouTube on you know just general
[3:43]audiences my public channel and I have a
[3:46]private channel and that would be my
[3:48]subscription service on
[3:49]YouTube. Um, you'll always find links in
[3:52]the descriptions for this stuff so that
[3:55]you can sign up if you want to. There's
[3:58]going to be a video about my day
[3:59]yesterday on my private channel because
[4:01]I need to protect
[4:03]um the sanctity of my journey
[4:06]um certain certain aspects of my life,
[4:10]you know, just from the general public.
[4:12]I shouldn't there's certain things I
[4:13]don't want to share with the entire
[4:15]world. I want to share with those who
[4:17]are aligned with my journey, who
[4:19]resonate with it,
[4:20]who who choose to be part of it in a
[4:24]real way. So, you'll find those things
[4:26]in my private channel. Um, I got to get
[4:29]my stuff set up and get my internet out
[4:31]here so I can upload that. But I talk
[4:33]about my day yesterday,
[4:36]um, and my plans, what I'll be doing in
[4:39]a week from now, and what my plans are
[4:41]for the next year.
[4:44]a lot of
[4:45]plants. Um, last night I went through
[4:48]Oh, another thing I want to talk about.
[4:50]So, I'm using social media a little bit
[4:52]more. Again, I generally hadn't for
[4:54]years, but um because of my situation, I
[4:57]got on Facebook yesterday asking for
[4:59]help there,
[5:00]too. I mean, even though I didn't
[5:02]receive any, um, it's kind of funny.
[5:06]There were a couple of friend requests
[5:07]waiting for me. there are people that
[5:09]I've met on the Oregon coast and um you
[5:12]know I just uh decided maybe it's a good
[5:15]thing to to start using those things so
[5:18]that people can reach me outside of
[5:20]YouTube without using email I guess and
[5:24]we'll see how that goes. Um I'll start
[5:26]including links like that in the
[5:27]description as
[5:28]well. So that was the other thing. Now,
[5:30]the last thing,
[5:33]um, last night I went through and I
[5:36]created a curated list of public videos
[5:40]that you can watch right now about my
[5:42]journey over the past year. I'm going to
[5:43]walk you through what each of these
[5:47]are. And if you want, they're there for
[5:49]you to
[5:50]watch. Um, I'm going to make a playlist
[5:53]also, and I'll put that in the
[5:55]description. So, it starts with the
[5:57]rupture. That's the day I decided that I
[5:59]was leaving my house. Didn't have an RV
[6:03]yet, but I had made the decision to to
[6:06]blow up my life, create a new
[6:09]one. Then there's the
[6:11]goodbye. That was my last day in my
[6:14]house before
[6:16]um before I would be the day before my
[6:20]birthday or when I would be leaving my
[6:21]house for the last time and and moving
[6:23]to a campground. And I talk about things
[6:26]in there
[6:29]about what I was leaving behind
[6:32]and how I was choosing to live moving
[6:35]forwards. Then there's the first day and
[6:37]that just shows you some video from some
[6:39]footage from my first day, you know, a
[6:42]year and one day
[6:44]ago, my first day on the campgrounds.
[6:47]Then there's the talk. And I'm just
[6:49]sitting at a picnic bench like I am
[6:51]right now. Got a picnic bench right
[6:53]here. Those are my notes.
[6:56][Music]
[6:57]Um, and it was an important video to me
[7:00]because that day for some reason just
[7:02]felt very important. It was my I was two
[7:04]weeks into my journey. It was the last
[7:06]day that I was going to be at my first
[7:07]campground. So, I was moving to my
[7:09]second campground on that day. I had a
[7:11]lot going on and I was just starting to
[7:13]really get into
[7:15]um I was learning
[7:18]to I mean I had fears wrapped around
[7:21]moving that thing. I was going to a
[7:22]different state, a different campground.
[7:24]I had a whole lot going on and it just
[7:26]that day felt in felt
[7:30]important. It shapes my
[7:33]journey. And then there's the reckoning
[7:36]and that's in two parts. And that's me
[7:38]going through tramod withdrawal cold
[7:40]turkey on that second
[7:42]campground. I took 300 milligrams of
[7:45]tramod a day for years and I couldn't
[7:49]wait. Is that right? 50 time six. Yeah,
[7:52]300 a day. Sometimes I say 180. I don't
[7:55]know why I do that. I've noticed that in
[7:57]videos. It was 300. There were 50
[7:58]milligram tablets. Took six of those a
[8:00]day. Anyways, I quit taking those cold
[8:03]turkey. That was I was I was done
[8:06]sedating myself. I was done
[8:10]um was done living a life that made me
[8:13]feel small. That was caused, you know,
[8:15]that caused me all the that led me to
[8:18]this journey in the first place.
[8:20]And you know, so there's two videos
[8:22]called the reckoning where I'm just
[8:24]starting to go through that
[8:27]process. I did it. I never looked
[8:31]back. Then there's the severing and that
[8:35]is when I decided to stop speaking to my
[8:38]parents because of emotional abuse over
[8:42]a
[8:43]lifetime. This journey wasn't just
[8:47]about living a different way. It was
[8:50]about internal growth, overcoming a lot
[8:54]of things
[8:58]that a lot of things that
[9:03]made this was part of the shedding
[9:05]process. Stopped talking to my parents
[9:07]for 3
[9:08]months. At the time I made that, I
[9:11]didn't talk to my mom for three
[9:14]months. Um, then there's the deepening
[9:18]In that video, I go to Cumberland Falls,
[9:21]place that I'd fallen in love with. And
[9:23]I feel like there were a lot of seeds
[9:24]placed in that video that um you can see
[9:29]start to take shape over the course of
[9:32]my journey. Like my love for water, even
[9:35]though every campground I was at had a
[9:37]lake or something, cuz you know,
[9:38]campgrounds tend to be around them, this
[9:40]was different. I fell in love with
[9:41]Cumberland Falls, um, Cumberland Lake,
[9:46]and I went hiking on a trail. I was like
[9:50]starting to, you know, get back into all
[9:52]of the things that I loved
[9:54]and starting to feel
[9:59]confident that that date felt
[10:02]important. Next is the trolls. And this
[10:07]is just a video where I talk about all
[10:10]the trollish comments I was getting and
[10:11]I put some I pasted some of them up on
[10:13]the screen and
[10:15]um so I'm highlighting that behavior
[10:17]that we've normalized as a society that
[10:19]we say to just ignore which only allows
[10:21]it to fester and keep
[10:23]growing cuz that's what we do in our
[10:26]society. We ignore don't we? I
[10:29]don't. So there's a video for that.
[10:34]Next is the hike and it's two hours long
[10:36]and that's when I went to the natural
[10:37]bridge in Kentucky. I stayed at a cabin.
[10:41]I can't remember how long I stayed there
[10:43]for. Stayed there for close to a week I
[10:45]think. And I did some hiking there that
[10:48]was very important cuz I had been hiking
[10:50]there for decades. Although I had
[10:52]stopped for quite a long time at that
[10:54]point in my life and this was a way of
[10:55]me reconnecting with the place I love.
[10:58]And that is an very important video to
[11:02]me.
[11:05]Um the next is the rescue and that's
[11:07]when I rescued
[11:09]um an abandoned kitten that I named
[11:11]Luna. She just showed up on my
[11:13]campsite right after I got back from the
[11:16]natural bridge and um she was she would
[11:20]have died. She had fleas. She had um
[11:23]parasites, several different kinds of
[11:24]parasites inside of her and um she was
[11:28]starving. I got her
[11:31]healthy in my little tiny environment
[11:33]with another cat, you know, Bailey.
[11:38]And I asked my audience to help cuz at
[11:41]that point in my journey, things were
[11:43]getting hard. Nobody helped. And this
[11:49]um this was upsetting to
[11:52]me. This just a pattern that keeps
[11:55]getting proven to me over and over
[11:57]again. It feels like people just aren't
[11:59]connecting with me and they're not
[12:01]connecting with
[12:07]um I have so many thoughts but I'm not
[12:10]going to get into it. Anyways, so
[12:12][Music]
[12:13]um the next is the
[12:17]forge. I'm pretty sure in that video I
[12:19]talk about how disappointed I
[12:23]am about the outcome of that. I ended up
[12:26]having to give her to
[12:29]um a shelter before I left because
[12:32]couldn't afford to keep her and it would
[12:35]have been very difficult. But I got her
[12:37]healthy. Very proud of that. Next is the
[12:41]dream. At this point, I'm in Oregon.
[12:44]It's only a couple months ago. I'm
[12:46]talking about my life over the next
[12:48]year, what I had plans.
[12:53]Um, but it didn't work out that way
[12:56]because of what happened at the the
[12:57]state parks. The next one is called the
[13:01]framing. In that video, I talk about
[13:05]um how how people with fragmented
[13:08]cognition would view me to help you
[13:10]better understand me. Um, even though
[13:13]it's not a framing I accept for myself,
[13:15]it's how many other people might be able
[13:17]to go, "Oh, maybe then it starts to make
[13:20]sense to them.
[13:22]Next is the
[13:23]betrayal. That's when I got kicked out
[13:25]of the state parks. And on that day,
[13:31]um, this was the day they kicked me out.
[13:33]I had to be out within 24 hours. My
[13:35]heart rate was spiking for hours. My
[13:37]watch is going off in that video telling
[13:39]me that my heart rate is too high. And I
[13:41]record a video walking everyone through
[13:42]the two months of my time there. For the
[13:45]first time, I talk about this publicly.
[13:47]I had been avoiding talking about my
[13:50]volunteering because I didn't really
[13:52]know where to draw the line yet. So, I
[13:54]had stopped using YouTube for months and
[13:57]they kicked me out anyways. So, I I
[14:00]walked you through what happened to me
[14:02]and they used that as the justification
[14:04]for permanently dismissing
[14:07]me. Um, next is the letter and this is
[14:11]where I document publicly
[14:18]things that I thought were important for
[14:20]the volunteer coordinator of the whole
[14:22]program to know about my time there for
[14:24]those two months. Um cuz I was wronged.
[14:27]I I was abused by their leadership and
[14:31]um I at that time was hoping that she
[14:33]would help protect me. She did
[14:36]not.
[14:37]Um and so I decided to read that letter
[14:41]publicly and put it into the public
[14:42]record so that it is always there.
[14:47]Um, the next
[14:48][Music]
[14:51]video trying to remember what this one
[14:58]is. So, the next there's four more
[15:01]videos past this. Well, three. This will
[15:04]be the fourth one. Um, and they're about
[15:06]my most recent time and you know. So,
[15:09]um, those are what I have so far. I'm
[15:11]going to put them into a playlist.
[15:14]And you're welcome to watch
[15:18]them. Going to leave it there.