Participant #1:
You are listening to hello, Cupcake. It's me. A podcast with your host, Michael Peterson. Hey, everyone, michael here with hello? Cupcake, it's me. Today is th july 14, 2022. And how are you? Welcome to episode 33. So starting off last night I'm sorry, starting off Tuesday night, we kick butt in trivia and now I think we go up against a pretty much undefeated bar and kind of worried about that. But you know what? We did pretty damn well for being down three players. And this coming week we're going to be down at least another player. It's getting more and more difficult to stay optimistic about just getting everyone together and actually playing. But I'm still having fun. And when it's going to become a problem is when I'm no longer having fun doing this. Then I'm going to have to find something else to deal with my Tuesday nights, which is going to suck because I've really enjoyed it and come to really appreciate being able to get out and visit with people and meet new friends and stuff like that.

Participant #1:
Also, has any of you been having like really vivid dreams lately? Like the dreams that I've been having are really vivid. Like I can't tell if I'm actually in a whole another world or if I'm in my waking world type vivid dreams. And what I'm talking about is in the dreams I've been having, I've legitimately lived entire month where I go to sleep. In the dream I wake up. I do stupid, mundane, boring shit like taking out the trash, having to do the dishes, going to the grocery store where like in the dream, days, weeks, months and years have passed. And when I wake up, I actually go through this kind of like depressive state where I mourn the life that I left and the people that I left behind. And it's a weird phenomenon for me. I don't know if it happens for everyone else or what have you, but just for me it's been really kind of sad and it makes it really difficult to the point where I don't want to wake up a lot of times because I'm just so enthralled in my everyday life in that other world or in my dream world. I don't know if that's part of mental health or if that is just having a really vivid imagination or what have you. I just don't know. So do any of you ever exhibit anything like that or have anything like that happen to you in your dreams? Please let me know. I would love to start a conversation about this.

Participant #1:
But yeah, along with that I've just been feeling out of sorts with time and just out of sort in general, like the days filled both longer and shorter simultaneously. And I don't know how to really deal or compensate or whatever you want to call it because it's just really weird. I'll be sitting at my desk and I'll look at the time and then I'll be sitting there enthralled and engaged with something completely different and then it'll feel like 5 hours have gone by and I look up and it's only been like maybe three minutes or just the opposite. I'll be laying in bed and I'll look over at the time and it'll say like 05:00 p.m. And then I'll stare at the wall for a few minutes and then I look back at the clock and it's 09:00 p.m.. I'm having these really weird fluctuations of time and it also caused me to like lose days or show up to appointments earlier or later than I expected. So I don't know, maybe I'm just out of touch with things. But yeah, last night was also one of the most beautiful full moons that I have seen in a very long time. And I actually went to the beach and just watched it come up over the water and stood there in awe and fascination of how magnificently beautiful it was. And it was really peaceful. There was no one around the first beach that I went to. There was people camping there and I really couldn't just get out of the car and enjoy myself because they were being loud and having campfires and doing all that other stuff and it's kind of a spiritual thing for me. I like to just get out there and decompress. A lot of times I'll just go out in the middle of the night, especially on a full moon, go out to the beach and just hang out and be in that nocturnal nature energy and it really just helps me disconnect and reconnect and it was just so freaking gorgeous and I really just enjoyed that whole time there. So yeah, hopefully you guys got a chance to see it. It came out kind of late here in the Pacific Northwest. I think it started rising about 10:00 p.m. And was at Apex by 1145, but still really gorgeous. Also, it's been a while since I kind of talked about my peer counseling and stuff. I've told you that I've been doing some continual education courses and getting more information about things but

Participant #1:
yeah, I was looking into just taking some more classes and yesterday I got signed up with the American Psychiatric Association and I'm going to start taking classes through them. And in the process of doing so, it started coming to my attention that I might need what's called an NPI number, which is a national provider.

Participant #1:
If that's the case, then that's a whole another slew of things that I got to go through and applications and stuff. But I need to find out what the actual verbiage of that is because I don't want to go through all of that application process just to find out that I don't need anything like that to have group sessions. And I'm not even 100% sure yet what the hell I'm going to be doing with the education that I have right now. I'm mainly just taking it so that I have a better understanding of my own mental health and being able to help other people with theirs should the issue arise. I have kind of kicked the idea around of trying to start up a group next spring and I don't know what that's going to be comprised of yet. I still got to try to find a place to facilitate it and see what all is required of me to facilitate such a group, what kind of things that I want to talk about in that group, and so on and so forth. My ultimate goal is going to be to set up several groups and then be able to fade away from them within three to six months of having that group started. And if I'm able to do that, that's going to be really awesome because there are no real support systems here in my area outside of NA and AA and stuff like that, but there's just really no mental health support groups that I'm aware of. And so I'd like to start one for LGBT members who are suffering with depression and need just that group support and then maybe after working with that group for three to six months. Fade away and let that kind of go on its own and then start up another group for maybe people who struggle with eating addictions and finding what the correlation between comfort eating is and how to better help them or how to help them make better choices in that. And then in three to six months step away from that group and then go in for a bipolar group and people who don't like taking lots of medications but are suffering with mental health issues and things like that and try to get that established and then walk away from it and then just kind of oversee all the groups in general.

Participant #1:
So, like I said, that ultimately what I would like to do. I don't ever think that I will go to work for an agency or anything like that just based on the terms of my own mental health and my own Social Security disability limitations. I don't know. I got to just kind of figure things out and take things one step at a time. But I'm really enjoying taking these classes. I'm really enjoying getting the certificates and the diplomas and the state recognized educator courses that I've been taking. It's been really amazing and helping me to feel very accomplished and it very well could just be that I'm following the dopamine right now, and if that's the case, cool, I'm following the dopamine. But at the same time, I'm getting information and I'm getting help and I'm getting the tools that I need to help myself and to be able to help others. Because I've had a lot of friends who have shown up are like called me up and said hey Michael. I'm just feeling really down right now and I need someone to talk to and blah. Blah. Blah. And just being able to sit there and hold space for them and have the knowledge and the resources and the training to be able to tell them. Okay. Well. Listen. You're not alone and feeling this way. Your feelings and thoughts are valid, but maybe you should think about doing things this way or here's a resource that you can check out and things like that. So it's been very good for me in that way and I like being helpful to people and having that font of knowledge and just being a touchstone for people and having resources available that other people may not know about. That's just something that really appeals to me. But anyways, guys, I think I'm going to go ahead and wrap things up here. So if you have any questions, comments, concerns, put them in the comment section down below. Please make sure to just reach out to me. If you need to talk to me or want to talk to me and have show suggestions, ideas, questions, whatever, you can shoot me an email, Hello Cupcake, it's Me@gmail.com. And you can also just interact with me here. Head on over to the YouTube channel Youtube.com Hellocupkeekatsme and go check out the blog, Hellocupcake, it's Me.com. And until next time, I will talk to you later. Bye guys. Thank you so much for tuning in. You have been listening to Hello, Cupcake, it's Me, a podcast with your host, Michael Peterson. Please make sure to check back often as new episodes are released by weekly. If you have any questions, comments or concerns, please feel free to send a message to Hello Cupcake, it's Me@gmail.com. And until next time time, stay happy, safe, and keep doing the best you can with what you have been given.