Teros

So a few updates. The new job has picked up. Maybe a bit too much. I went from 1 client to 8 (with two of them liking the sessions so much that they want to come EVERY WEEK which is pretty uncommon) and I'm trying to juggle writing all the notes, getting the billing information collected and processed, and then I keep getting other info I need to do like a w9, get a personal identification number, and other stuff for even *starting* the job. It feels hectic and I don't like being pulled in multiple directions. I'm trying to take care of this while dealing with the other jobs. (I'm pretty sure I mentioned I quit the hospital, but that still leaves me with this new job, supermarket, and the nursing home that I'm doing). Items aren't being pended so the supervisor can't see and it (so she manually has to type in someone's name) and is telling me I need to do it. I straight up clicked the button in front of her yesterday and showed her that it's not showing up. She goes, 'huh...weird. I don't know what's going on' and then proceeds to email me about making sure the things are sent....like 3 hours later after she literally watched me do it. Making sure there is insurance all set and all these other stupid things are fraying me a bit. There's a lack of communication and maybe I just need to sit down with someone and go through step-by-step. Still, this is a cakewalk compared to the hospital so although I'm annoyed, I'm keeping shit in perspective. I'm going to make a template for future casenotes. That way I can just copy/paste that format into the note and fill in what we talked about in session. I'm figuring the more I do this stuff, the easier it will get. I'm already getting a bit better at collecting insurance but I still end up having questions: like ok, they can't sign off on paperwork if I'm doing Telehealth so.... do I just email them everything and hope they send it back to me? Weird shit like that. I don't really know what else to talk about right now since this has been the bulk of what's going on. I haven't done any art. I talked to the director at the nursing home to see about the mask: she never got to check with the family to see if they want *his* mask ( I brought mine home to finish) so I'm hoping next Monday, I'll know what is going on with that. Gym is still going well. I did cardio on the weekend and I did arms/back on Monday. Today was supposed to be leg day but I had to deal with these stupid notes for work so I was up at 5am doing that, then going to work at the market. Now that I'm home, I'm finishing up the other notes and the last thing I want to do is go back out and go to the gym so I might push that to tomorrow morning since I have no clients until later in the day. My breakdown that I'm working towards is like this: Sunday: Gym (Cardio) Monday: Gym (Back&Biceps) + Nursing Home Job + Nursing Home Job NOTES. Tuesday: New Job Wednesday: Gym (Legs) + Supermarket Job + New Job NOTES Thursday: New Job Friday: Gym (Chest&Triceps) + Supermarket Job + New Job NOTES Saturday: Gym (Cardio) Ultimately, I'd like to get into a rhythm of doing this and in the very very near future, cutting the Friday: Supermarket job hours out. That's next for the chopping block. So I need to realize that right now it's annoying and a lot to deal with but it will get easier. As I have continual clients (instead of new clients) I won't need to do the billing stuff. I won't need to write up the huge intake notes. I'll just have smaller session notes and it'll get easier. Just... a little more to grind through.

For the past 7sh months, one client at my Nursing Home job has been doing really well. Originally, I was told that despite not having the correct insurance, because the nurses were having issues with him, that I was able to see him. We bonded instantly. I did his intake and we were talking about how frustrated he was and how he felt directionless and I brought up art. His eyes lit up and wanted to see what was possible. I told him the following week, I could bring in an assortment of art that I've done and could go from there. I brought with me a few painted minis, some stuff I made out of milliputt/clay, a couple paintings, and a few paper mache masks. He was so excited. 'Ohhh woooooow you.... you're great at this! Hey, have you been to the art festivals around here? You could sell this stuff for a couple hundreds bucks I bet!' I told him that none of this stuff was really hard and, if he wanted, we could make some art together. "I'd love that!" he cheered. Fast-forward about 3 months and there is a family meeting with the staff. The director of the nursing home asks if I can sit in on the meeting and I said I totally could. It became this...I don't know how to describe it... The nutritionist was talking about making some changes and then the director pointed to me and said that I went 'above and beyond' to work with this client and the results have been amazing. The activities person started beeming and saying how he's in the side room, working on art stuff every single day and they have all these projects that he can work on. Painting bird houses, paint by numbers, ideas for more things he could do: it was like something inside him woke up and there there every day. He felt purpose. His demeanor changed completely : hasn't argued or fought with the staff once since I started working with him. The client's son was there and said that working with him made a huge difference. It was like... a whole room recognized what I was able to do for this man. And he was previously in the military (had PTSD as well) and this little old man who is skin and bones stood up and stuck his hand out from across the table and shook my hand with as much strength as he could muster. It was a manly shake. He said he respected me and thanked me for helping him. I don't do this job for the accolades...but having this room full of people *see* what I was doing was just.... words can't describe it. I was proud of him and proud of myself at the same time. Sometimes you don't realize just how much you affect someone until a moment like this. I kept working with him, every week. We were building up the masks, adding layers of paper and glue, talking about what was going on in his life and the next steps for the mask. I cut out the eye-holes, nostrils, and mouth. All he kept saying was, 'Oh wow.... oh Woooooow! Look at that! This is gonna be great!' as he looked at both of the masks we had. Started painting it and got a couple layers on top (you need to paint a few times because the paint soaks into the paper). Two weeks ago he asked if I could help him with a paint-by-numbers because he wanted that all finished up and then next week, masks! "We're gonna finish these masks! Don't forget. MASK! MASK! MASK!", he cheered. Then last week, things took a serious turn. I go in last week and I see him laying in bed, eyes closed, making little moaning noises. His entire family was there, all surrounding the bed and glossy-eyed. His time had come. His health had been failing for over a year now, but once he started the art stuff with me, it was like he got a life-extension and was feeling pretty good most of the time. That Friday though, his health declined rapidly. The nurse had come in and checked some vitals. They were going to tweak his meds - to make him more comfortable. I talked to the son that I had seen back a few months in that meeting. I asked if I should go. He told me not to, that his dad would still probably be able to feel my presence. So, I stayed. I sat by the edge of the bed. Made a little small-talk but it's not like people are there to socialize but at the same time, the other four people there had never seen me before so it felt a bit awkward so I told them what I was doing with the art with their dad. Eventually, I left and I told them that if they wanted, I would be back next Tuesday (today) and I was going to work on the mask. I felt that it would be what he wanted. I knew that would be the last time I saw him. I went in today and there was a new patient about to get set up in my client's bed. My client died soon after I saw him the other day. There were no family there, but I checked the art room and the paint-by-numbers pictures were gone. However, the mask was still there. I wrote a note to the director (she was in a meeting), asking if she could check and see if the family wanted the mask. If not, I feel like it should be something I finish for him, along with finishing my own mask. I just needed to process this for a few days and sort of sit with it, you know? Once my client started on his art journey, it livened up the entire nursing home. The director would call him 'Picasso', the activities director would beem about what he was working on. The little woman who took everyone's menu orders would stop in while we worked together and would talk about how nice the projects were coming along. The guy who washes the floor and calls me 'Ay Boss!' would let me know the client was in the art room and waiting for me. It's a small place so there wasn't anyone who *didn't* know what we were doing. When I came in today, it seemed....colder. Less smiles. And this was before I even checked his room to see what I knew had happened. A strong handshake and a salute to you. You'll be missed. I'll finish the masks for us buddy and they'll be as cool as you were expecting them to be...

So Tuesday has come and gone. I asked about the whole 'full time' thing, as well as spoke about a new client that I just had. It was explained as such: There was a full-time spot for *adults* and that's the spot that Danielle currently has. The one the woman I hate and saw is taking a full-time kids therapist (something I have zero interest in doing). The company received a grant for how to integrate kids therapist along with the connection to doctor's offices. In other words, they just got a shitload of money to hire *ONLY* kid-therapists. Because of this, they are overloaded and she has to hire three new people for this project alone. Once that grant runs out (in a year) they will use that grant-money to hire more people and have the business grow. They don't want to depend on trying to get grant money, but this was a golden opportunity for the business to start getting some good $ and expand (in the future). In other words, Danielle has the main hours for adults. I have the extra hours/clients for adults. Everything else is going to be kids, kids, kids. And if they are supposed to hire 3 new kid full-timers, that means they are going to enroll some 240 children into their services (40 kids/week, seen every other week means 80 kids per hire....3 hires = 240 kids). The thought of working with 80 children and nothing else made my stomach turn. I have zero experience with this, nor do I want to jump into that with both feet, you know? It wouldn't be fair to even attempt that. A key note here is that this grant lasts a YEAR. Which means this is going to be the focus for the near-future. So I could struggle and have a couple of scraps of clients for the next year and when the grant runs out, *THEN* they can use that money and hire me full-time and I can work with adults or.... I can look for greener pastures. So that's what I'm going to do. Another thing that was said in the conversation that made me feel.... off.... was talking about the poor and impoverished. I had a client that I wanted to work with but they were on Medicare for insurance. I was told that they took this particular brand of insurance but they actually don't do that, and the woman that I was talking to on the phone was distraught, "Oh, I wanted to work with you. I've been on this wait list for over 3 months and nothing is happening. I trust you and you know what's going on with my mom and this is just awful". I felt awful. We have someone who needs help, someone who provides help, but because of insurance b.s, it's not happening. So I want to know: The answer I got was underwhelmingly shitty. You see, because I am not independently licensed, who *I* can work with is directly tied with my supervisor. And *she* is not working with medicare/medicaid. My follow up was, well, can *I* get that license? Can she get that license? I mean, people that are on medicare/medicaid are the poorest of the poor and therefore are usually the people who need mental health the most. During my interview, I was told that this company was all about "helping the community". That was a selling point for me. Then I get told that medicare/medicaid don't pay well, and so she isn't going to 'deal' with the hassle of getting certified with that. There is 'bullshit' tied to helping that population. Let me get this straight. The poorest and most needing of therapy don't PAY well and it is annoying to get that certification, so it's just never going to be done? And since any contacts I have made are within that population (two internships with the homeless/addicts/people with ptsd, etc), the clients I can get here, though rare...wouldn't even be able to be seen by me. Her response was, roughly, that she tries to help 10% of the clients that pay less, but "I gotta eat" and I she stated she charges "$100/hour." Helping the Community. 10% Poor people are a hassle. The sadness is real. She brought up how bigger agencies can get work with the government and have government contracts, meaning *they* are able to work with the poor, but not *this* company. I guess they are busy getting the kids-integration but not the poor. I think the thing that bothered me the most was the whole '100/hour'. I mean, if someone was passionate about helping the community, you would think the pricetag of $100/hour is a bit...high? I mean, I was ecstatic with getting less than half of that $$$ and the contract I'm in means I'm getting 20% taken out of taxes and that's still a crazy amount of money to me. It seems...spoiled. I work at a supermarket as well and make $14/hour so someone telling me that they care about the community and are unwilling to make less than $100/hour just seems fucked up. Am I wrong in this? Afterwards, I had a new client so I worked with him and then my day was over so I went for a little drive. Now that I know where I stand (handful of clients and virtually no progress in my field for the next year), I'm going to contact that job in Massachusettes that wanted to talk to me again. When I did that original interview some 2ish months ago, she told me that they work almost exclusively with the 'lower income'. And the thing is.... they were going to pay me $42/hour (as opposed to my $50/hour at this current place but which had more $ taken out for taxes) so.... are they actually making that much less? Or maybe I'm getting a bigger share at the Massachusettes job? I've been thinking a lot about this and about something else that happened at the nursing home job. Not ready to talk about it yet but I will.

Where to even begin? Last challenge I was full of piss and vinegar and I felt like my old self again: I finally had the starting of a new job that was FINALLY doing therapy work which is what I spent f*cking years grinding towards. A lot of life shit happened: love of my life got cancer and is now gone, mom died, sister got cancer (and still fighting it), and you know, the whole epidemic clusterf*ck to layer onto everything else. Sprinkle in a shitshow of over a dozen different potential g/f and their disasters in life which compounded the problem as I was working multiple jobs and going through a master's degree and internship. But I finally had shit under control and was ready to GET. SHIT. DONE. Then a job in the field....filled with lies and not nearly enough hours (a year ago)(Nursing home). Followed by another job in the field....filled with lies and not nearly enough hours (8 months ago)(Hospital). Followed by another job in the field....filled with lies and not nearly enough hours (past 2 months)(Counseling Center). It's obstacle after f*cking obstacle and I was bright-eyed and optimistic when I was starting the Counseling Center. Fast-forward to today and UGH. I need to do a 180 here with my fucking life. Nothing is working out like it's supposed to. I should be losing weight. I should be getting hours in the field and making money. I should be advancing my career and improving my physical and mental health. And where am I at? This all culminated last Thursday and boy-o-boy is there a tale here to tell. So I was working job #4 on Thursday and the one client I had did a no-show so I was sitting there with my thumbs up my ass just waiting. It turned into posting on here (my last post of the previous challenge). What I didn't write was what happened after that post.... Quick overview is that I was bitching about the stuff listed above. You're all caught up. I'm frustrated that I signed up for this job and they were super excited to have me on board and were talking about how the clients would come POURING in, Oh my goodness! I was going to have so many clients! Cut to Thursday and it's been over a month and I have literally *1* client. I should have 15-20 by now. As I write about this, I leave and head to my car and I see someone walk out of the same building as me a few seconds later. I squint and holy shit, I know this person. Rewind some 3ish years ago, when the whole future-wife got cancer/working multiple jobs/internship/mom died/trying to get through school bullshit was happening: there was a woman in my class that was so empty-headed that it hurt me. She never remembered homework. I was the one reminding her about upcoming assignments (we were in multiple classes together). She didn't know how to set up stuff on her computer so I showed her. She didn't know core concepts in the field and I taught her. I didn't want to: like, yes, I am a helper hence the field that I was in, but it was an ANGRY sort of helping because her incompetence made *me* and people in the field look bad. Like, you're so f*cking bad at this that I feel embarrassed to be in the same field as you level of stupid. Flash to right now.... there she is, exiting the building I was just in. I call her name because I'm wondering what in the flying f*ck is she doing here. She is so excited to see me. 'Oh my gosh! How are you! You work here!? That's amazing! It's going to be so GREEEEAT that someone I know is here!' I asked her what is going on. She just had an interview with my supervisor for a full time position doing what I do. I ask some follow-up information. Well they are looking for more people and she wanted to know how it was working there. What, the 1 hour every other week and who blew me off so I've done literally nothing in two weeks? It's just f*cking peachy. And she starts going on and on about how great this place is and she's hoping she gets the job and MEANWHILE THEY WON'T EVEN GET ME ANY CLIENTS. I just.... I... Inside my brain: Outside: You hire me and because I'm iffy on fulltime right away and want to ease into it, I get a different contract. And then tin that contract it says they are supposed to get me clients. And then after 2 months they want *me* to get clients while they get, what, 1/2 of what I make? And there's no one here. And THEN I see, THIS. FUCKING. WOMAN. telling me about how she's looking to get a fulltime position? Steaming. Fuming. The rage is real and it is sharp. I was swearing the whole drive home as I relive the past 5 minutes of conversation. So rather than get me more and more clients and then once I had 20+ and then I decide to pull the trigger and go full-time, they instead abandon me and just try to hire someone else for the role? I tell myself to stay calm and just drink some juice, go to the bathroom, just chill. I have zero chill. As soon as the door closes and I put my bag down, I grab my phone and message my supervisor saying that because of the lack of clients, I'm thinking I should just go fulltime and put in hours at the Doctor's office (originally the fulltime spot was half in a dr. office and you would work with clients there and basically refer them to yourself. So a couple days in a dr office and a couple days of clients that you bring in to do counseling with. When they hired me for what I'm doing *now*, they basically nixed the dr office stuff and said they will get me clients to fill in for part-time....and that never actually happened. After I shoot off that text message, I get a reply saying that something like that would be an in-person discussion. Fine. Let's discuss. Tuesday will be when we are having a little chat about all this. Then something happens. Like a goddamn miracle. Suddenly, they have new clients that are showing up. There are 3, no, 4 within the next 24 hours to follow up with. Oh look, they booked one already on Tuesday morning, another on Thursday, and an email to follow up with a parent for another. And there's 1 more on top of that. On Tuesday, I'm still talking about the full time position. I've realized that this profession does not give a F*CK about it's workers and I need a couple thousand hours in the field before I can take my LICSW and then have my own business. So this is the start of the 180. Instead of going slow, I'm going to just say 'fuck it' and go full-time, get my hours done. Grind for like a year and a half. Get my upped license. And then I'll do WHATEVERTHEFUCKIWANT. Oh, and I QUIT THE HOSPITAL. I had my dentist appointment on Friday. I have another one in 3 weeks and then after that, I can QUIT the MARKET TOO. And lastly is the weightloss. I've been doing heavy lifts for over a year now and I've lost.... zero pounds. Can I do 100+ pound rows, 100+ pound bench-presses, leg machines that are maxed or close to it? Hundreds of reps when the trainer wants to challenge me and I BEAT her goddamn challenge and it pisses her off? Yes. But I have lost ZERO pounds. What is the point of being the Hulk if I just look like some fat f*ck? So another 180 I'm doing: Cardio. Instead of lifted being the focus, I'm going back to being a cardio bunny. I'm going to still do some lifts but what's important is burning those hundreds of thousands of calories. And before anyone says, 'Oh jeez, you can't burn ___' or 'you re-eat the calories' or whatever other gym factoid people wanna say: doing whole30 and daily cardio was what had me lose 120+ pounds. Well I've gone back and forth with whole30 but I feel if I make this cardio commitment then I'll also do the whole30 commiment. So how's that? Applying to go full time because F*CK that woman. Quitting a job and about to quit another one. And completely revamping my exercise and about to go nazi-esk strict on my eating. Because I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOO DONE with looking and feeling and acting like this.

Honestly I don't even know what messenger I should use at this point. This new job wants me to log on to facebook to find clients and I haven't been on that f*cking thing in like 2 years and I'm not sure if I even know the login information. Come Tuesday, we'll see. Making a new challenge thread right now so I'll update that. Mmmmhmmm. How hard is it to get a job that ISN'T a load of bullshit and the work is the *only* thing you have to actually worry about? New challenge incoming....

So I'm currently at my new job, waiting for a client who is not going to show up (22 minutes late). I figured I mine as well stay the full hour before I ditch. I fell off the wagon. Hard. I had a really really bad bout of depression. I didn't want to move at all. I was stressed out about the hospital job and was looking forward to quitting it. But I also was looking forward to picking up clients at the new job (the one I'm at currently). And it all sort of bubbled up to the surface on Monday. Monday was a holiday and it was my last scheduled day for the hospital job. I should have been estatic: just a few more hours and I never have to come back here. But the problem is that this new job....is fucking empty. I was promised back in July that there would be TONS of clients and people would come rolling in. Then 2 weeks later I was told that it is less in the summer but before the end of August, I'll have a full 15-20+ clients a week and I'll be doing great! Then August came and I was told that when the school year starts in late August and the season changes, there will be more people because of the upcoming holidays and impending stress of the fall-into-winter season. Then last week I was told that there aren't any clients yet but I could join a random facebook group and try to start hunting for clients to get. It says in the paperwork/contract that I signed that *they* were getting me clients. I have one. ONE. And she didn't even show up today so I'm sitting here like a jackass with nothing to show for it. I'm so fucking frustrated. I had two jobs that wanted to hire me and I waited and took the closer local one because it seemed like a better fit. What good is the 'fit' of the atmosphere if I literally get 1 hour of work EVERY TWO WEEKS and they expect me to somehow find my own people to do sessions with. Explain to me what the fuck is the point of you charging these people $100/hour and me getting half that (and then contractor taxes takes a bunch of that so it's more like $40) if no one even show up? I would glady take less pay and, you know, get hours that count towards my license and can make money. The whole point is that I do the actual work of sessions with a client and that's how I get the $50, and THEY figure out the insurance and book clients so that's how they get their $50.....but they want me to find clients now as well? If I do the sessions AND find the clients..... Despite this, I talked to a woman who is related to someone I work with at a different job and she has been begging to work with me. I told her because of insurace coverage, that I can't, but if the company expands and takes more insurances then I would let her know. Well 2 weeks ago I was told that HURRAY, we now take 2 more insurances. One of those was 1 that the woman had. So I was so happy - I called her up, told her that we expanded and are taking her insurance, I believe, and that I needed to get her insurance card information. I could forward it to the department that processes this stuff and we could see about it. The woman was overjoyed. Kept thanking me. Saying this would help her so much because she knows she needs mental health. I forward the information: I'm told that we *don't* take *that* insurance, because it's a sub-type that we don't do. So you're going to tell me, 'We take United Health' and then I find someone with United Health, then collect the information and I'm told that we don't that that *TYPE* of United Health? What the actual fuck is happening? I get to call back to woman who is now crushed and explain that, no, we don't take the specific type of that insurance. I collect some more info and as we're talking, she's telling me that she has been on a wait-list for over 3 months and no one calls her back and she's so miserable and she trusts me and knows that I know her situation and wants so badly to work with me and I have to just feel shitty about it. I want to work with her. She wants to work with me. But the government is like, 'Nah, instead she can rot for months and get no help'. I fucking hate this with every fiber of my being. This woman clearly does need help and my hands are tied because this company doesn't have the right sub-type of insurance. I started thinking back to the other job: the one that I turned down and how they said they work with the poor and that there's tons of people that need help. Might be a crap-shoot but I'm going to contact that and see if they are still looking because where I'm at now sucks. I like my supervisor. She's nice and helpful and very knowledgable and between that and this job being 20 minutes away and having my own office, it felt like a slam dunk. Once I thought this job was going to be 'the' job, my attitude changed completely and then I was coming and posting on here. That black cloud that hung over me for years suddenly went away. But the past week and a half-ish, that cloud came back. This feels fucking hopeless. I went and got a goddamn bachelor's degree, and master's degree, and license, I pay these fees for malpractice insurance and it leads to: August 2022: A nursing home where I'm told that I can work with all these people, but then because of insurances I'm able to work with a grand total of 5 people, and 4 of those 5 people score so low on the BIMS (an orientation/dementia scoring tool) that I can't work with them... so I get to work with ONE person in a nursing home of 40. I get lucky and the nurses say that someone else needs special attention and I advocate to work with them and I get to...but that's still just 2 people a week... January - being lied to about what the job even is at the hospital and I'm just harassed by E.R. pages, doctors who don't know how to put in consults, and medication prescription shit. I'm a receptionist-monkey just juggling a bunch of shit. This isn't therapy or social work: it's a fucking desk jockey job where I print papers and feel stressed out because of how EVERYTHING is an emergency. July - This new job where I'm near home and told I'll get AAAALLLLLLLLLLL these clients and I'm sitting here at the start of September with a single client who just no-showed me and I'm told *I* need to find my own clients, but the one that I did find I can't even fucking work with. I'm giving this place one more week. And I'm contacting the other job I didn't take to see what is available. I don't want to jump through that other place's hoops only to get 1 or 2 clients though so I just feel so incredibly defeated. I need some sort of guarantee in writing that I'll get at least a dozen clients or something. My creativity is completely shot so I haven't worked on any of my vampire cannibal monster army. I've just been playing Skyrim and eating my feelings and feeling so fucking worthless right now. So this past Monday was all the above shit sort of rolled up into one goddamn pity-party for myself where I feel like a fat useless twat that spent so many years and so many thousands of dollars for this education with nothing to fucking show for it. I'm going food shopping tomorrow and I'm doing an actual whole30 instead of these half-assed things that I give up on. I need to turn something around in my life because right now I'm just drive-into-a-fucking-tree levels of depressed. That's why I haven't posted on here. I notice that ON-ME and OFF-ME are two different people. OFF-ME is the depressed version that eats junk, watches youtube, and plays videogames. ON-ME is creative and wants to do art projects and post on the forums and socialize. I guess I'm frustrated enough with the client no-show that it kicked me in the ass to post this. I'm packing my laptop up and heading back home. I'm going to write up a food shopping list and do some cleaning to at least feel somewhat useful today. At least I went to the gym and hit new PRs for some things so maybe I'll write that real quick: Hip Adduction (The legs opening machine): 260 lb. (maximum on machine) Hip Abduction (Legs closing machine): 170lb. (+10) Leg Press: 280lb (+20) Calf Raises: 280lb (+20) Sumo Squat: 280lb (+20) Leg Curl: 100lb (4 sets so +1 set of 10) Leg Raise: 100lb (4 sets so +1 set of 10) Alright, 12:56 now. I'm out of here.

+ + + So these ghouls were phase 1. They are the footsoldiers, but they do not make an army. Up next is going to be tackling the Crypt Flayers. Taken directly from the codex: Crypt Flayers haunt the night, soaring through the sky like dark shadows above the battlefield. With keen eyes they pick out enemies in the gloom below, and their powerful nostrils latch onto the waft of fear. Swooping down with lightning speed, they snatch hapless victims off their feet, sinking their fangs into their captives even as they soar back into the air. Crypt Flayers are born when the blood of monsters flows freely on the feasting table. On such fell nights, an Abhorrent Ghoul King might bestow a horrific transformation upon his servants. The deranged sovereign mixes his blood with terrorgheist flesh and necrotic fluids, and those ghouls who sup on this concoction are twisted into new and terrifying shapes. A layer of writhing skin grows around the ghoul, and then from this fleshy sack a Crypt Flayer emerges into the realms. After being reborn in this way, the enchantments bestowed upon the Crypt Flayers take full hold, transforming them into dark predators. Growing huge and twisted, Crypt Flayers gain the added nightmare growth of leathery wings. Their claws elongate, spines burst from their backs and their eyes glow stronger to pierce the murk and gloom of battle. No longer bound to the earth, they take to the skies as airborne scouts and warriors for the court. Ferocious killers, Crypt Flayers wheel through the air above their king's domain, sniffing the wind for juicy hunting grounds. Those of who are seen as most noble by their cannibal kindred are called Crypt Infernals - taller and stronger than the rest, they lead from the front as shining examples to their 'men'. --- Those that are within the delusion of the Ghoul King are completely and utterly devoted to him and are swept up in his madness that spreads like a sickness of the mind. Those that are deemed worthy enough will drink the Ghoul King's blood, letting them gain more power and deepening that madness between the Ghoul King and his subject(s). The 'terrorgheist', well, that will be for another time. For now, my target is to tackle these Flayer models: There are two things that I really hate about them. #1 is their heads. They look sort of....idk....derpy to me. I feel like if they are going to sprout wings, they should have more bat-like features and a head-swap is in order. #2 is the leader of the pack has an extra set of little teeny baby wings. No bueno. I'm not using those. But this means I'll need a different way to distinguish the leader. I have some ideas I am kicking around but I'm not sure how feasible it is. First up is going to be the color scheme. I love the Kantor Blue that I used on my ghouls, and it only makes sense that the blue is incorporated. It says in the description that they get glowing eyes that are able to see better than average. I think this means that I'm going to keep their eyes instead of milliputting over them. This got me thinking though; I don't want all my army to have the same uniform color, but instead have a thematic colorscheme that ties them together. I also feel that the wing-membrane should be a different color from the skin-tone. In the battletome, they also have alternative color schemes and I noticed one of them had a chest that was one color as an 'underbelly' and the rest of the skin was a different color. Other thoughts in my head are that if they are soaring up in the air and are trying to dive-bomb people, they should be darker. My original plan for the ghoul-sqaud I painted up was debating between purple or blue. Well I think I know where I want to incorporate the purple. I'm thinking if I do a dark deep purple, like almost eggplant colored as the base skin, I have a solid color. Then I can have contrast and incorporate the kantor blue into the wing membrane. Having that dark eggplant purple skintone also means that I can paint glowing eyes and have a really cool contrast with the face being dark and the eyes being bright. (Color though... I'm not sure. If I do blood effects then I wouldn't want red eyes AND red blood on their face so red is a definite no-no. I'm debating green since purple and green have been 'villain' color schemes in culture.) For the 'underbelly', I could again have a chance for contrast by using the kantor blue and lightening it up, making it more like the ghouls skintone and tying them together more thematically. Then, there's the fact that the Crypt Flayers are thought to be the King's 'chosen', so that makes me think they should have either bone-chimes as 'badges' or possibly some random metal trinkets. So overall, my idea for color and tweaking is: I found some dollar cheap fake gold chain in my box-o-stuff so I'm thinking I'll add some 'drip' to some Flayers, and this is the rough idea for the colors I'm thinking. I'm also going to look into my box-o-bits and see if I have any dead bodies lying around or maybe I can make some bones/skulls out of milliputt. --- Also, I have some 'thank god' type of news. I went to the doctor's office and when I last saw him 3ish months ago, he wanted me on TWO medications after being on one wasn't enough. Well.... I never took the second one. I stuck with only 5mg of the first one (which is the smallest dose possible) and I've been eating better and better. Avoiding take-out food for over a month. No candy for a couple months now. I had my doctor's appointment and my blood pressure was 125/80. The head nurse said that was good and my doctor looked at the number and said it was 'EXCELLENT'. Then he started talking about the meds I'm on and I said, "....I never took the other one." I knew it. I fucking KNEW that if I just stuck to eating healthy that I could reverse this and maybe in the near future, I can be off of ANY med.

The ghouls have arrived. Marching forward is one of the oracles, the civilization's healers who have a magnificent staff of glittering gold and threaded with a tapestry on top, or an insect's carapace tail with strips of butchered bloody skin caked together with filth. Beside him, one of the bodyguards decorated in filigreed silver armor and perfectly polished short-sword, or bug shell pauldron and a shiv made from filed down carapace. At the other end, a standard-bearer who has a marble effigy on a long staff, or a skeleton torso picked clean of any meat, using another insect carapace to be propped up. Nearby, one of the esteemed and entrusted 'herders' who is staying watch while near the youngling steeds that will grow up to be big and strong, or the insect nesting brood sacs that are covered with sticky film that get turned into resinous glue. Nearby, one of the honorable protector guard is marching file and rank with his glistening curved scimitar and his arm decorated with badges of honor, or one of the poisonous claws that the insects have being wielded and splinters of bone stabbed through his bicep. Behind him, another of the guard with his mighty warhammer, ready to battle any unhonorable foe, or a savage that is still chewing on a hunk of ripped flesh from a recent kill still dripping from his mouth. In all, they are 20 strong. The proud and noble defending serfs of this land, ready to rise up and protect their glorious king, or a band of blind savage half-naked cannibals wielding pieces of insect chitin bound together with tattered clothes and leather straps by using the sticky brood egg's coating and the burning sun to bind everything together. The ghouls have arrived. And they're hungry...

Cutting out a lot of mindless youtube in the evenings is helping a lot with getting more hobbying stuff done. So I settled on a color scheme that I like: I'm going with a lighter blue (with a darker blue wash) and when I do *another* batch of ghouls, I'll go even lighter since these turned out darker than I wanted. I also will use a purple wash on another batch. I need to do a LOT of ghouls so my plan is to change up what I'm working on after I do a 'batch' of a certain unit type. Right now, I'm obviously doing the footsoldier ghouls and it's in a batch of 20. With the colors figured out, I just started assembly-line painting them, coating one, then coating the next, then looping back around to the first and doing details. I have a mob of 20 ghouls. This is some progress pics of how 1 ghoul gets done: Step 1 is the blue colors and then when dry, hitting it with a blue wash to make it look dirty and less uniform looking. Step 2 is when I pick out the cloth details. All of that is custom made milliputt that I sculpted onto each ghoul. That gets a mournfang brown. Step 3 is when I start painting the insect carapace pieces, like the shell and pincer/leg for weapons. Step 4 which isn't shown because I was so fucking excited that I kept going and didn't take pictures, is picking out the random bone fragments that they have stabbed into their arms and legs. This particular ghoul didn't have of those details, but there's a bunch that do. They use the bone fragments as 'medals of honor'. Step 5 is to do a brown wash on the bone fragments so they look like dirty and old bones that have been there for a while. Step 6 is the galaxy sheen coloring I do on the bug carapace. Step 7 is BLOOD. Step 8 is gluing them all onto the little round bases. Step 9 is adding some elmer's glue and sand to the bases to give it texture, and then painting the sand/rock. I'm currently going with a deep gray to sort of offset the colors of the ghouls themselves. Also I feel like their environment is in underground tunnels so it would make sense thematically to give them all 'tunnel/rock' bases to be on. Step 10 is covering all the ghouls with a hard-coat so the paint doesn't rub off. I went with a matte finish because a gloss would make them look almost wet and I think that wouldn't work. Step 11 is painting the rims of all of the bases black. I will be having finished product coming soon, but the bigger question for me is: what do I start working on NOW?

After the battle, some of the survivors started to convulse. It appeared that the insects had a poisonous bite and those that were injured but weren't killed in the initial melee were infected. The infection would spread and as it coursed through their systems, would cause blindness. Most would recover from the infection and not die, but were left with severely damaged eyesight. The tools that were used for drilling and fighting were repurposed to crack open and preserve fragments and segments of the insect carapace. The outer chitin was bound together with strips of cloth and then the sticky coating from the eggs were used as a resin glue. Baked through the magnifying glass of the Aqshy sun, these mere rags soaked in glue became tougher than leather armors: now the Court had suits of armor to wear for battle. The eggs of the insects were segmented off into other sections of the tunnels and turned into birthing pens. They were to be raised as a continual food source and weaponry for war. ---- Here is a comparison of what the 'regular' ghouls look like: And here's what mine as looking like right now: Instead of the weird back fur, I chopped all that off and have cut up some tyranid bits to act as the insects from my story. Here's a bunch of them. I painted the bug carapace in deep blue and also deep purple. (1), (2), and (5) are all just a base coat of that deep blue. (3), (4), (6), and (7) are me experimenting with a galaxy colorshift paint on top. I wanted to give the shells a sheen and also have that sort of insect wing light refracting look. You can also see that I smushed milliput into their eyes before I did the painting so they all have almost vestigial eye sockets because of their time in the caves combined with the insect's venomous bite-infections. In pictures (1) and (4), I used milliputt to create leather straps to cover ghoul asses and also act as straps around the chest to keep the carapace 'armor' on them. I've been experimenting with different washes as well. The blue wash that I did on the already light blue skin made them darker than I want them to be, so I'll either have to use 1) less wash 2) a different wash 3) change the basecoat of skin to not have any blue to compensate for this. However, it's not a big deal because even though they are a whole civilization that will, through generations remain mostly underground, that doesn't mean they all have the *exact* same skintone, so as long as they have a blue 'gradient' of skintones, I think it works for them. I'm going to pick out all the cloth bits and paint them brown, the carapace will be a purple base coat and then the colorshift sheen on top, variations of blue wash, and then I can start adding blood and putting them on bases so that'll be my next pictures. I'm currently trying all sorts of colors and gluing bits and adding milliput sculpting all over the place between 20 ghouls so now that I have a rough formula for what I want to do, I can sort of batch-paint these guys and have a cohesive little mob of savage cannibals pretty damn quickly. So I wrote up my notes and the note was submitted through the account THEY gave me (which was a temporary one) so although I filled it out fine, it all had to be redone in *my* new account so after some back and forth about drop-down menus and what to put in certain spots, I had a solid note written up. Now that I have this under my belt, future notes will be easier. I made a step-by-step tutorial word document so I can follow that from now on to make it more efficient and easier for me. We talked about future goals in our session and I explained that I obviously needed more clients. She said with the fall, people will come rolling in. For some reason people take the summer 'off' from mental health and then all rush back in the fall: she even changes her work out between summer and the rest of the year because of what a shift it makes. (This would have been nice to know a month earlier so I wasn't freaking out about getting clients, but whatever.) Along with more clients, I stated that I wanted a variety of different cases: different age groups, orientations, beliefs, personality disorders, etc. I told her that I wanted to be able to master therapy and be able to handle any client that comes my way. I also said that I was interested in learning about all the major modalities, like CBT, DBT, Narrative Therapy, PTSD/Trauma Informed Care, etc. She said she has about 10+ years with trauma care and we got into a big conversation about trauma and how it is, quite literally, stored in the body. Yoga and weight lifting is able to reset the circuitry in the body and help it heal itself so I talked about how I was interested in also getting some sort of personal trainer license. She apparently had a yoga license and does yoga with some patients so this just got me thinking: I may indeed have one of my dream goals of being BUFF THERAPIST.

Feeling good this morning. Checked in with 10 or so people and I feel like I'm socializing more. I really need to check in more often, because when I see a post from over a week ago and the topic has changed, I'm just like: We're talking about burpees now! GET WITH THE PROGRAM! Anywho, this weekend has been going well. The next 3 weekends will be my final 3 weekends at the hospital job. Dreading it but at the same time, I can think, "Yeah, only 2.5 times left....only 2 times left...only 1.5 times left" as the clock ticks on. I can only give so much of a shit. Other news: had my first client and was nervous as hell. I went so far as to not eat anything for 5 hours before the session. I thought to myself, "What would be more embarassing: to have a stomach hunger growl while in session, or to have gurgle guts because I'm about to have explosive shits?" The answer, is that I'd rather be hungry than about to explode so that's the choice I made. Afterwards, my supervisor came in and asked me to explain the whole case. I went to shut the door and she went, "oh no it's fine, everyone else left for the day so it's just us". Obviously, HIPAA compliance I can't explain a lot of what the session was, but it was related to anxiety and a lot of being pulled around many different directions and how to cope with that. My client never did therapy before so I explained it as if we were in a car together and I'm Siri: you are the driver and are in control, but you want directions for 'better mental health' or 'help processing grief' or 'anxiety reduction' and I'm telling you how to get there. Overall we work as a team, and there might be detours and backed up traffic, and there might even be a point where the destination changes to something else that you'd rather work on; but overall this is a road that we travel and learn along the way. I gave some 'homework' between now and the next session, as well as a charted route for what I think would work best and the client agreed and was really interested in it. I explained this all to my supervisor and I explained what I thought the deeper issues were and according to her, paraphrasing, I hit the nail on the head, knew exactly what was going on, the homework and the plan moving forward was great, and she loved the explanation I used for therapy and she might use that with new clients as well to help explain it all. So this was a bull's eye, 100% hit, perfect, whatever you wanna call it. As for my guts and my initial feelings of this job: I have this weekend to write up my casenotes and on Tuesday, I'm meeting with my supervisor to go over the system (how to input it all) and any questions I have with the system. She also intends to talk about what my future goals are, which there are many (first of which is getting MORE clients sooner rather than later to make up for the hospital job quitting). I also have my 2nd dentist appointment on Monday and after that, I *could* technically quit my other job since it hinged on getting this appointment done while I had insurance. But I think I'll hold onto it for a little bit until more clients come in. The next few weeks are going to suck with the hospital job but I have a handle on it. OH! I also saw this: It was alright. I think it's better than a few of the other recent movies I've seen (I watch a LOT of trash...). I didn't find it scary, though it markets itself as a horror movie. I won't go into spoilers: I just think that the crew should have been....smarter...than they were. I also decided to watch Morbius. So I ended up seeing two movies about vampires in the same week. I don't know...maybe the FleshEater Courts art project is starting to rub off on me. I can do an actual review of Morbius and Last Voyage in the next post (with spoilers), but honestly, despite all the memes and shit that Morbius got, it wasn't much worse than the generic Marvel movie and I actually laughed and had a good time watching it. I wish he actually said, 'IT'S MORBIN' TIME!' though.

and that's the reason people don't go to the gym when they know they should. I've learned over the years to not give a shit but there are plenty of fat people who know and *feel* those thoughts are around. --- Hope you're feeling better soon. Kick covid's ass.

I'M HERE!

When I start talking shit about myself and beating myself up over near-impossible standards, I try to remind myself that stress = cortisol and that = weight gain, so beating myself up will only make it worse and I need to just do the best I can with what I have....which is already what I'm doing. It helps me circle back around to realizing that being mean only hurts more, it doesn't motivate. I mean, you've been dealing with straight up burn-out for like, how many months now? You're doing your best and I hope you find something else to replace what job you currently have because it hasn't done you any favors as long as I've known you.

There was a cheesy movie showing at a local theature and it was fun as hell. Then covid hit and they disappeared. It was a shame, I liked it way more than going to a more current movie experience because a bunch of people had already seen it and there was more engagement. Was wondering where you were and you're on the previous challenge list!