Anxiety On Wheels

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  • It’s all went off the rails again

    Got a call at 1am, Mike was breaking and throwing shit, cussing and screaming at mom. Police were called, Mike left state and abandoned her. Little sister was left at home with her while mom kept telling her to leave and she’ll have her removed.

    It’s been a challenging 24 hours,

    After some 20-30 people were at the house, police, EMT, crisis unit, a family friend mom called that she had not spoken to in two years showed up and convinced her to go to the ER. Thank you for that, sir.

    Unfortunately, Mike came back and is in the hospital with her now. And I say unfortunately because I can’t file for emergency guardianship with her husband present.

    I swear to fucking god if he releases her tomorrow..

    Regardless come Monday I have to go no contact again. We either figure out how she gets into an assisted living facility or I’m not going to be in the picture for my own safety and sanity. Mom has absolutely zero reason to be at home, not when she’s flipping out about being “poisoned” when we are trying to get her to take her antibiotics (you know, the drugs that if you don’t take you can die after a major surgery) and her calling the police on us.

    I’ve had to block her again as she’s been very hurtful, not that I’m taking it to heart, but she thinks I’m crazy and out to get her. Just like Grandma back when she was alive and had shingles that one time.

    We’ll see if she gets abandoned again, not that I blame her husband as I can’t imagine what he’s going through, but she should had never been released in the first place as it was known she wasn’t taking her meds. Well, and honestly, his behavior was unacceptable also, but fuck, I had to call the police to have her removed when all this started at my place two weeks ago. It’s just an impossible situation.

    If I’m ever like this when I’m older, just shoot me.

  • My mother is fucking nuts

    The past week has been an absolute rollercoaster. My mom just got out of the hospital, and it’s like she brought a piece of chaos home with her. She’s been awake for days on end, talking non-stop, posting bizarre stuff on social media, and calling everyone at all hours. It’s been a nightmare to manage.

    I’ve been trying to help, but it’s like trying to reason with a tornado. Yesterday, I spent hours trying to convince her to take her antibiotics. She’s on a strict regimen, but she’s acting like I’m trying to slip her poison. At this rate, I’m worried she’ll end up back in the hospital with an infection. She’s just not taking her meds and lied to get out of the hospital as she spit them out. I’m pissed her husband enabled her, she needed to stay in the hospital if such was the case and he knew she didn’t take them.

    Last night, everything came to a head. After a long day at work and playing caretaker, I got pulled into a “family discussion” just as I was slipping off to sleep, at 10pm, and Kasey was winding down. Mom complained we weren’t doing enough, my sister got cussed at when she cleaned up mom’s shit earlier that day from her and the armchair and spent the whole day with her. I could’ve handled it from mom, but then her husband lost it, yelling and cussing us out, which I won’t tolerate.

    It’s also not practical for me to work a full-time job and be expected to be available 24/7 to the whims of my mother’s psychosis. We just arrived Sunday but by Monday I was already absolutely exhausted, emotionally and otherwise. I was up later than I liked due to helping her with meds, then had early morning Monday meetings, with several others following.

    The “family discussion” was unhinged and didn’t make much sense, with mom being insane and the yelling. The gist of it is that mom feels like no one is helping her. She’s not sleeping and hasn’t for a week, is in a constant crisis, insane, anxious, and doesn’t make much sense.

    There is no definition or ability of helping that involves someone reaching inside of her and taking away the discomfort, which is the inherit expectation. Taking care of physical health needs is important, and necessary. Enabling the high energy insanity and being present for the exhausting mental babble is not.

    What was helpful, and one of the quietest states I’ve seen her in since this started (and what I mean but not enabling her) was laying on the couch reading, and repeating gently, but firmly is that I’m tired and just reading. Behavioral patterning in a way (monkey see, monkey do). What isn’t helpful is those around her squawking back and reflecting the undesired behavior, which is hard not to do.

    But anyway, Kasey got cussed and yelled at and she’s not involved with my mother or the situation in the slightest, yet, has been helpful, which was the last straw. Screaming and cussing, we can help or get the fuck out, lol. My partner and I were out of there in a flash. We’re not about to sit there and take that kind of treatment, family crisis or not.

    I’m exhausted, angry, and completely drained. I understand Mom’s not well, and everyone’s stressed, but enabling the flip out and abusive, insane behavior is a boundary that I have no tolerance for. So, I’ve made the decision to block both Mom and her husband for two weeks. I told them to get professional help – like in-home care or return to the hospital – because the family just can’t do it.

    Part of me feels guilty and I’ve been thinking about what if that was me, but I can’t help anyone if I’m falling apart myself.

    I’m still unsure if I’m being too harsh. Two weeks of no contact feels extreme, but so does their behavior. I’ve always had low tolerance for toxic situations, but when it’s your own mother, it gets complicated.

    The trickiest part is that I can relate to some of her anxiety on a smaller scale. Mine looks different and while I certainly feel frantic sometimes, mine comes out more of crying and feeling scared, not blowing up and snapping at other people – or general psychosis as mother has not been sane since all of this started.

    Something happened to her mentally and something is gravely wrong. It’s the hardest part about it and my biggest fear is that she will never come back.

    For now, I’m focusing on maintaining my sanity. Getting some sleep, trying to work, and processing this whirlwind of emotions. It’s a wild situation.

  • A calm day

    First off, mom is mentally here today and thanked me for saving her life, it’s the first time since last Tuesday that she’s made sense. She has surgery Wed and I’m so thankful she’s more there. I’ve been so worried I’d never get my mom back if that makes sense.

    Lianna is currently asleep in our bed. She is visiting from Colorado and it’s so nice to see her! It’s the first time she’s slept next to a couple, and Kasey’s first time. Everything is very calm and peaceful. It was nice getting some 1:1 time in with her last night after Kasey turned in for the night.

    A few funny things. She visited us on our 2 year anniversary, and now 3 as yesterday was Kasey and I’s 3 year. I also finally turned in what I’m calling the “lesbian money”, a bag of change I inherited after my divorce, it was my ex-wife’s and her wife’s change savings. We bought pizza with it, was almost $60 lmao.

    I’m just laughing at that because it’s absurd. Lesbian money to pay for my poly dinner on my 3 yr anniversary on the 2 yr anniversary with our other partner. Suck it, Amanda.

    Just got off the phone with my mom! First time I’ve really talked to her since all of this happened! She’s tired but is making sense. Thanked me for saving her life a few times and told me she’s worked through three of her major phobias, getting arrested, being admitted to the hospital, and talking to a therapist, LOL.

    She’s also quit smoking. Now it’s my turn.

    Kasey is making breakfast while Lianna is still asleep, but be nice being in that queer state in CST timezone 😛

    Evening update, mom is 100% back to her old self mental state wise, thank GOD. They are going to try Chemo instead of bladder removal to try and shrink it. Fingers crossed!

    Also, all the change went through the coinstar machine other than one 1961 Quarter that is made of silver. I’m going to keep it as a keepsake of surviving my “marriage”.

    Mom has totally quit smoking, now it’s my turn to quit my habit as I always promised. God help me

  • Optimistically, mom is likely not going to make it.

    What a hell of a thing, she just retired less than 60 days ago. That’s the thought that’s been in my head this morning anyway.

    No, it’s bad.

    My daughter also hasn’t been in my life for years now and if she ever does come back into it, grandma isn’t going to be here. I’ve considered getting in touch some way but it’s not like it’d matter with the mental state my mother is in… and I’m pretty sure Lola’s mom would somehow make it awful and make Lola feel bad about it as it’s just who she is as a person.

    Hy head is still ringing, going on week two of it. Maybe I got cancer too. I got routine bloodwork scheduled for next week to get a checkup. Blood pressure looks fine as does everything my Apple Watch can tell me. Started before all of this stress. Staying hydrated, right ear looks okay from what the doc can see. Got my ears cleaned out while I was there, was compacted.

    I don’t know, maybe some sort of internal ear infection. Well, I had been stressed for a bit more all of this, the election garbage.

    Sleep, or lack of it does seem to have an impact. Louder when I don’t get good hours in.

    I’m on day 2 of trying to change my tobacco habits. I mixed up a 75% tobacco 25% placebo mix of my normal smokeless with smoky mountain which should net a 25% reduction in nicotine. However, I also need to keep in mind that when jacking around with moisture and PH that I could be inadvertently jacking up the free nicotine content and making more of it bioavailable overall.

    But the thing that matters is a 25% reduction on the carcinogen levels. I also just had a chat with ChatGPT and it does seem the ringing in my head is indeed stress/lack of sleep induced. I’m also writing this on 5hr 22min of sleep.

    So. I should try meditating and going back to sleep.

  • Day 2

    I wasn’t sure if I was going to visit the hospital, I’m still so drained and tired from yesterday, but I’m happy I went. She’s much more coherent, enough to vacillate between being tired and wanting to go home and refuse treatment. The hospital says that if she gets up to do anything but use the bathroom, she looses her bed at IU Indy.

    I’ve had a ton of self reflection this past 24 hours. just trying to get her not to refuse treatment as I know it’s an anxiety trigger for her.

    I made a doctor appointment for tomorrow to see my doctor and figure out this ringing in my head for the past week & I need to get my bloodwork done.

  • My mother is seriously unwell.

    I invited mom over today, Kasey went to pick her up. Mom has been sick with Kidney issues, has been through some rounds of antibiotics.

    She had been on no sleep and started crying her eyes out when she got here, I held her for a while. But then she started to get on this weird kick of.. well I can’t explain it. She wasn’t making much sense and was repeating herself and quite confused.

    I laid her down in my bed and she slept for a few hours, she seemed better by the time she woke. I made her creamy chicken noodle soup and ensured she had water. But things went off the side of a mountain. She kept getting stuck again and not making sense.

    This went on until I got concerned enough to call an ambulance. They showed up, as did the police. Something was very wrong. I called Mike over and let my sisters know that something was wrong.

    At first I thought it was anxiety related, feeling a little unreal, which I get. But no. By the time Mike got here, Kasey and I were in tears, or close to. Kasey had to leave the room as she was starting to feel crazy herself. She kept repeating that she’s never felt so unreal, then wildly vacillating between that was a lie, she’s never felt better in her life, and kept asking us to ask her questions. It went on for another three hours, she’d get agitated from time to time.

    I called the police again as there was no way for us to get her in the car, she didn’t know where she was or how she got here. The police eventually had to handcuff her and take her to the hospital, not that she got violent, but we had no other choice. It was that bad and getting worse. It had been going on in various ways from 10am to 7pm, not counting when she was asleep.

    She seemed normal for a brief time right after she woke up.

    We considered that it could be a UTI as when you get older, it can cause cognitive issues, hospital originally agreed and started fishing for sepsis of the brain, which made sense and didn’t seem overly scary as bacterial stuff can be treated.

    But then I got word that they found a mass in her kidney leading to her uterus and that it’s cancer. Of course, or at least I’m told by friends, they can’t be sure without a biopsy, but from what I know, it wouldn’t be the first time she’s had a cancer scare in her life.

    Now, this may sound selfish, well or maybe not.. as our fears and worries are sometimes. Well, no, it’s empathy. I feel for her. I’m putting myself in her shoes and I’m scared. I’m scared I’m going to loose my mom. I’m scared about the same happening to me. And I’m scared for her because I know that all of this for her, as much as she can understand what is going on right now is her worst fears. Hospitals, doctors, and she’s going to need a lot of it from here on out I think.

    I’m exhausted. I’m going to numb out and watch YouTube now until I sleep.

  • Creating VR180 content for exposure therapy/Agoraphobia

    I’m working on getting back to creating VR180 content and have a more solid plan for an exposure therapy app. Storyboard:

    The most challenging aspect, and why I’ve never quite done more than some test shots:

    “Affordable” cameras kinda suck. That was taken on an Insta360 X3. I just got done with the Insta360 X4 at “8k” and can’t stand the sensor noise. You can clean up in post, Neat Video or Topaz AI, but even on a 7950X3D/4090 rig, 4 minutes of video takes 4+ hours to process as the video frame is so high res!

    So screw it, I found a refurb/used Canon R5 C that is full frame 8k60p, but I’m NOT going with the Canon RF5.2mm F2.8 L Dual Fisheye, at least not yet as what’s the point of stereoscopy as human stereo vision breaks down quickly.

    1. Close Distances (up to 20 feet/6 meters): Stereoscopic vision is very effective. Depth perception is highly accurate.
    2. Intermediate Distances (20-100 feet/6-30 meters): Stereoscopic vision still functions well, but depth perception becomes less precise as distance increases.
    3. Far Distances (beyond 100-200 feet/30-60 meters): Stereoscopic vision begins to break down, and the brain relies more on other depth cues, such as size, perspective, and motion, to perceive depth.

    vs.

    1. City Driving (25-35 mph / 40-55 km/h): Drivers usually look about 1-2 blocks ahead, which translates to roughly 200-400 feet (60-120 meters).
    2. Highway Driving (55-70 mph / 90-110 km/h): Drivers often look 12-15 seconds ahead, which at these speeds is approximately 1000-1500 feet (300-450 meters).
    3. Rural or Open Road Driving: In more open areas with higher speeds and fewer visual obstructions, drivers might look even further ahead, up to 20 seconds, which can be around 1500-2000 feet (450-600 meters) or more.

    I can thank openpilot for understanding of that and years of people wanting dual cameras for “depth” when it’s moot, thanks… George Hotz, you prick, haha

    I just think V180 is kinda a novelty, like, view VR180 adult content and notice you go crosseyed when the performer gets too close to the camera and generally, the chromatic aberration, etc.

    You end up using less than half the full frame sensor per eye, which ends up being less than 4k per eye.

    I want to do mono vr180 as we don’t need stereo outside the car as nothing will be stereoscopic outside of the car anyway due to how human eyes work. Like sure, the car inside will be 3D, but starring inside of a car isn’t usually good for motion sickness, even in real life and could be distracting.

    This is a TTARTISAN 7.5mm F2.0 APS-C on a full frame, I think E-mount, the green lines are imaginary ASP-C sensor size.

    Here’s the Canon EF 8-15mm f/4L Fisheye which can be adapted to the R5 C as well.

    The only “issue” with the 7.5mm F2.0 is that it’s not exactly a circular 180 on the sensor and I’m gonna have to calibrate it to know exactly what the horz/vertical FOV is for metadata so it projects properly. It does seem to be the best for my use case as we retain left/right head movement and don’t quite need the full up/down head movement while in car as it would just be floorboard/roof of the car, maximizing sensor area for what we care about.

    Camera lenses, stereo, VR180, etc is kind of a bitch to understand and think about, then you have aperture, ISO, focus, etc to contend to. Like f5.6 and f8 should be the sharpest for this lens:

    It’s all going to boil down to ensuring I have the correct ffmpeg v360 fov mappings, but once it’s dialed in, it’s dialed in. It’s also handy the R5 C doesn’t have IBIS so we don’t have to worry about the sensor shifting and introducing judder/vibration into the image in car.

    Still, 8k60p files are gonna be a pain to deal with just due to sheer size. Thankfully I can copy what the adult VR180 industry is doing and it seems they use h265 at 20Mbps for 8k stereo content, 8000×4000 dual eye.

    General
    Complete name : /Users/Downloads/SLR_SLR Labs_Apple Vision Pro 8k demo_4000p_42338_FISHEYE190.mp4
    Format : MPEG-4
    Format profile : Base Media
    Codec ID : isom (isom/iso2/mp41)
    File size : 225 MiB
    Duration : 1 min 0 s
    Overall bit rate mode : Variable
    Overall bit rate : 31.4 Mb/s
    Frame rate : 59.940 FPS
    Writing application : Lavf61.0.100

    Video
    ID : 1
    Format : HEVC
    Format/Info : High Efficiency Video Coding
    Format profile : Main@L6.1@High
    Codec ID : hvc1
    Codec ID/Info : High Efficiency Video Coding
    Duration : 1 min 0 s
    Bit rate : 31.2 Mb/s
    Width : 8 000 pixels
    Height : 4 000 pixels
    Display aspect ratio : 2.000
    Frame rate mode : Constant
    Frame rate : 59.940 (60000/1001) FPS
    Color space : YUV
    Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0 (Type 0)
    Bit depth : 8 bits
    Scan type : Progressive
    Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.016
    Stream size : 223 MiB (99%)
    Writing library : x265 3.2.1+1-

    I’ll be focusing on VR180 Mono so I can half the horz and do like 4096×2048 or something and do square equiangular so we don’t have black boarders in the output video.

    Although many 360 videos are a minimum of 4K, content can often still look very blurry. I’ll explain why. When viewing 360 video content, the viewer is only seeing a small slice of the 360 footage at a given time within their field of view. This means that a 3840×1920 360 video is actually only displaying about 1280×720 in the viewing portal at a given time. This is why VR video content sometimes looks like television from the 1990s.  For this reason, every pixel counts!

    https://360labs.net/blog/vr-video-formats-explained

    Anyway! My Vision Pro arrives today so I’ll get lost in that for a bit and see if it sucks, or is magical. I really don’t want to fuck with Quest 3, even though I own one as I loathe Android development and the AVP has the most magical feature of them all, high quality screens and foveated rendering so you can display higher quality videos than anything else right now. Let’s home Apple keeps the spatial computing going

  • Skinsuit

    It’s been some time. It’s 6AM on a Sunday, a strange dream draws me back to this place but like most dreams. and most things it’s up to us to assign value, meaning to them.

    I’ve had a shift in mental state since moving here, the anxiety and stress I once experienced constantly, pacing the hallway in that shitty house on Arlington hitting the walls with my hand to focus on that pain seem.. well now that I think about it and re-experience it a bit, not that long ago but my sentiment going into it was something that doesn’t flash into my consciousness much anymore.

    Trauma and PTSD is a bitch, I was certainly in a state of both, and yeah fuck it, back then. It’s 2024 now. Back then, that feels good. Not that I have to put in a ton of effort convincing myself of that, literary word flow and storytelling.

    I think most generally I stay busy. Current project is perfecting the home office and getting a setup that works well for me. So many options and ways I could go about it and you know me when it comes to my tech, I’m highly opinionated.

    I play D&D now, I’m officially a nerd. We’ve been meeting up weekly with our quad and playing, it’s been nice. We had a spit of Poly Drama for a little bit there, some growing pains and resetting expectations, but I’m very glad to have been a little patient and reapproach things with more patience. I know it’s certainly good for Kasey to have that outlet and connection.

    She wants to learn how to 3D print! I should get her started today on that, we have the definition of an easy to use printer after all and I’ve loved buying her a Mac for her to use. She just bought a whole mess of D20 stickers and is going to stickerbomb her laptop. God, she’s such a nerd, haha.

    It’s been good things being stable, safe most generally and why I wanted to move here. New people are certainly hard to come by for sure, but that’s fine.

    Hey! I have healthy and delicious meals to start today! I’ve reupped my subscription to one of those prepared meal places. I had a mediterranean fish dinner thing the other night, kale and olives and such, it was delicious. I think 5 days of meals a week is a good balance and it’s less likely go to waste as I think that was the primary challenge last time around.

    Anyway, I think it’s time to start my day, and/or I’m tired of writing haha.

    Cheers.

  • Cosplay: Plumber, snow on the ground, checking out our new place

    Went to Peru yesterday, helped fix our friend’s plumbing and swung by and checked out our new place! It’s still not open, yet, and is looking like February or so before it’s open from what we can tell. Little cute rows of houses with garages. I am so looking forward to it.

    I very nearly headed to Kokomo on the way back, if I only had the Tesla back I would have to check out the supercharger station. They should be done with that come Monday.

    Overall, I’m in a good place! Cabin fever continues and we can’t sell these RVs fast enough.

    I’m starting to get feelings about driving more, going to Indianapolis for date night. I felt my old friend, anxiety, when driving to Peru and was just fine. I’m getting to the point where I know it isn’t so much the drive or being away from “home”, it’s just a bit of tummy upset and a bit of disorientation due to adrenaline. I think once we get moved, I get my car charger installed in the garage it’s going to be on like Donkey Kong as they say.

  • Annnnd, 50MPH Wind Gusts and -30F wind chill, again. The diesel is gelled up, again. Dejavu. This is a “bomb cyclone”

    Mother Nature wanted to give us one last hurrah before we left. I kept bitching about it not being like winter, and bygolley, I got it. Woke up to freezing my ass off, the heat pump is in perma-defrost, diesel heaters quit due to gelling. Have a bit of propane left over so switched the big furnace on. I did have to go outside and swap around tanks.

    It’s so cold and windy it’s hard to breathe outside. The temp is dropping another 5 degrees by 8am.

    Movers came yesterday, we officially are 100% moved out of Indianapolis. It was a clusterfuck. The storage place’s gates were frozen and there was no emergency number or way of contacting the owner/manager. The rear gate kinda opened, but not really.

    Manager refused a refund for the remainder of the month, ended up paying movers another $175 due to sitting around. Owners owns DQ next door, thankfully he came over and was able to take the gate off.

    2 Men and a Truck forged my signature on all pre and post move paperwork. I tipped the movers well and let them know I guess I have full rights if anything is broken or stolen.

    Lastly, dude at O’Rileys ended up scratching my windshield on the Tesla when we swapped wiper blades. It was a bitch as the mechanism was frozen and they made it unnecessary complicated for no reason. Kinda miffed at that, but it’s alright, the scratches are superficial and I have some oxide stuff coming to buff/polish the scratch out. I went to the Car Wash, the manual one as all others were closed, and used the wand to unfreeze the wiper blades. It worked, but was weird seeing the ice build up on the car as I was washing it.

    We’ve yet to hear back on timeline to move in to our townhome, it’s still going to be a bit longer, hopefully we get in no later than February.

    It’s 4am now and I’m kinda venting a bit, but there’s still a lot to be grateful for, and I am. My shit is out of Indy even if it didn’t go very smoothly. The heat is out, but now it’s warming up due to the propane furnace working. The water is frozen, but the tank and pipe heaters I installed last summer should keep the shit and water tanks unfrozen.

    I think that’s why the Texas grid failure was so extreme in 2021. I’m sitting in this RV bedroom right now and the wind is loud, and has been for two days now. You can feel the cold off the walls, in the air. In a house, you wouldn’t really know until you lost electricity then SMACK, right in the face.

    It’s going to be so nice having a warm and comfortable home. No more frozen water, longer than 5 minute showers on demand, no more RV rocking due to wind and loud wind noise or the chill of the walls and floor radiating to chill you while trying to sleep. And space. We’ll be going from about 250 square feet to 980.

    I’m so looking forward to it.