November 27, 2021 (Album Update/Rehabilitation)

` We begin recording a week from Monday and I'm really excited. It's been a while since I have had the energy I feel for the songs I have written, and it's going to be a lot of fun tracking them. I'm also proud that my treatment and medication has allowed me to create new lasting relationships with musicians who understand me. I realized that with mental illness, you either figure it out or you don't. You either educate yourself on disturbing/disgusting behavior or you continue it. I was an incredibly immature emotionally disturbed person throughout my life, and the guilt and embarrassment I have over my failures hurts my heart every day. But I'm proud to say that because of my therapy, support systems and education, I have figured out how to lead a healthy life alongside it. It takes time to unlearn problematic behavior with mental illness, but I am continuously doing it. I feel better about the person I am, and the way I treat people.

I wish I had a time machine to go back and educate myself on the pain my behavior caused, but it's unfortunately not how life works. All I can do is be the best I can be, and use my failures to create a safe healthy future for myself and the people I surround myself with. I have been on a journey that I wasn't prepared for, but one I have grown through. I am thankful for my friends, and I am thankful to continue to put out music. McCafferty means the world to me, and I am proud of it. I am grateful to anyone who listens, because as I have expressed before, it gives me purpose. In regards to the album, I have been experimenting with different names for the tracklist, and seeing what I like. I am happy with the name for it and I think the songs are some of my best ever. Putting words on paper is my entire life, and I'm going to sing/scream my heart out on this thing. I took inspiration from my earlier material and am going for a DIY sound in contrast to the cleaner sound I had after Beachboy. The opening track, Ugly Duckling, I think has potential to become a favorite. I am going to update the blog each day with pictures/progression of the record. We start December 6th-17th, so you can check out the gallery if you want to keep up with it.

I want to thank anyone who has written in recently, your messages mean a lot to me, and I am grateful for them. If your message has gotten lost feel free to send one through the website and my team will forward them to me.

I am proud of Snoqualmie Welcomes You, and I think it will be an album fans of the older sound will enjoy. I am thankful for my treatment, medication and support systems, and I am hopeful for the future. I won't give up, and to anyone reading this you shouldn't either. Chase the dreams and wants you have in your chest. You are capable of being what you want to be. That is something I am trying to do also. I will update the blog again when we start recording. Thank you for reading

Nick

November 22, 2021 (ACT Exercise)

The following is an exercise from Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT) (Steven C. Hayes, PH.D with Spencer Smith)

EXERCISE: Your Suffering Inventory

We would like you to write down a list of issues that are currently psychologically difficult for you

Painful and difficult issues I experience:

• Anger not knowing what I am going to do with my life

• Feeling I will never control my BPD/BP

• Feeling embarrassed/ashamed of my life and failures

• Not being able to hold a steady job because of paranoia (From people not liking me/being afraid of an active shooting and dying)

Go back and rank these items in terms of the impact that they have on your life

1. Feeling embarrassed/ashamed of my life and failures

2. Not being able to hold a steady job because of paranoia (From people not liking me/being afraid of an active shooting and dying)

3. Feeling I will never control my BPD/BP

4. Anger not knowing what I am going to do with my life

(I feel very similarly about all of these, it is hard to put them in an order)

The Problem With Pain: Often pain holds you back from the kind of life you want to live. It may be that you no longer go to the supermarket because you are afraid you might have a panic attack there.

EXERCISE: The Pain is Gone, Now What?

1. If being afraid of people hating me and setting myself up for failure due to paranoia weren’t such an issue, I would follow my dreams of working in entertainment.

2. If I didn’t have BPD/BP, I would have healthy relationships and live a fulfilling life, and most importantly be normal.

3. If being afraid of active shooters weren’t such a problem for me, I would go out with my partner more, and be able to go into the grocery store to shop.

4. If I didn't have my anger, I would have healthy relationships that i don’t ruin (This relates to BP/BPD)

The Problem with Pain: Revisited

Your pain is holding you back from living the life you want to lead. There are activities you would be engaged in if it weren’t for your pain and the role it plays in your life. The problems you wrote down in the exercises above refers to the “pain of presence” (issues that are present that you would prefer to go away) Those activities you would engage in if matters changed, represent a different kind of pain: they are called “pain of absence.” Generally, the more you live your life trying to ward off the pain of presence, the more pain you get, particularly in the form of pain of absence. While you’ve focused more on getting rid of the pain of presence, you’ve been feeling more of the pain of absence.

Living A Valued Life: An Alternative

Often we attach ourselves to our pain, and we start to judge ourselves based on how we feel and not on what we do. In a way, we become our pain. This is not about solving your problems in a traditional way as much as it is about changing the direction of your life, so that your life is more about what you value.

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I have been having panic attacks lately around the uncertainty of my future. My Psychiatrist has added an additional medication on top of the 4 I am already on for my BPD/BP. It is called Hydroxyzine Pamoate. I have been adjusting to the medication I am on, and believe it has been helping me be more functional. I have been actively participating in my therapy and ACT/CBT and am staying on a path of reaching normality and working through my mental illness. I want to be successful, so I won’t give up. I am thankful for my support systems, and for the treatment I am in. I will continue to update my blog with various exercises. I apologize for the late response to the messages I have received from my team. I will be responding over the next couple days. Thank you to anyone who checks this blog out and follows my treatment. I have found that typing up my exercises helps them stick with me and allows me to gain a deeper understanding from them.

Nick

November 21, 2021 (Reflection)

I wonder what happens after we die, and I wonder what my first words will be. We have first words after birth, so I suspect we have first words after death as well. When we die, do we meet our maker and have a one-on-one conversation? I think my first words would be “I’m sorry” because I’m terrified of death (as most are).

I feel like I will apologize to whoever I meet on the other side because I fear religion and I fear the wrath of God (if there is one). I used to want there to be nothing because I’m scared, and thought if there was nothing I wouldn’t miss or lose anything. But I don’t want to forget about the things I love here on earth, and I don’t want them to forget about me.

I want to be able to miss earth and the things I love. I hope there is something, and I hope it’s something that continues on from here. I’m trying to figure out who I am, and to follow a path of continual growth, so I want that to stay with me through death. But why are humans so special that we get something eternal and joyful after we die? What makes us so special?

I always figured there was nothing because we live in a world of reality, not fantasy, but in a lot of ways this world is fantasy if you think about it. We live on a giant rock that’s floating in space, which we have little to no idea about. Space itself is fantasy, and it makes no sense how it started.

But I do feel a soul in my body. I feel something that lives inside me and to the person reading, you feel that too. It’s something deep in our hearts, and I do believe it’s a soul. Something that will travel after we die.

I hope death isn’t scary, and that it's something I can accept because I don’t want to be forgotten, but dying is natural, we all do it. It is hard to wrap my head around it sometimes. Every single person on this planet right now will die. It’s terrifying. But it makes me want to live my life to the fullest and to pay careful attention to the smallest details that stick with me forever.

Holding hands on a walk, the way my partner feels as we fall asleep, the smell of fall air, the feel of the cool right before rainfall. The way trees look as they lose their leaves. I love so much about this place, and I hope after death I can remember it. Even if I can’t ever feel it again. I want to be a good person so I can look back at my life after I die and be content.

Nick