Especially while juggling health problems. The ups, the downs, the in-betweens.

So, after I was hacked and went through the most humiliating and embarrassing time of my life of nothing short of what I would call pure torture, distress, paranoia, and exploitation, I paced back and forth in my head on why did this happen to me? It is not that I deserved it because I was a bad person or must have done something horrible in a past life. But I did trust too easily. I didn’t enforce my boundaries. After getting back together with my high school sweetheart, our love blossomed like it did when we were kids. It was great while he was sober. But as soon as he relapsed the monster came out. Months later I gave him my pin on my phone to set up an Amazon Alexa for me. Then I noticed security alerts, new pop-ups in my notifications about my Facebook being signed in from other devices. One day I was driving to Starbucks and he pulled in directly behind me to harass me. Wow. And you think you know someone. NOT! And, I thought it was just him messing with my phone, but it had gotten so much larger that I am still quite pissed, as anyone should be, that no justice was served. No criminal charges filed on him or whoever was behind the entire operation. It makes me sick about it. But I just couldn’t figure out for the life of me why God would have allowed such atrocity to happen to me, as if the rest of my life hasn’t already been hard enough. But then I had bill collectors calling me and asking me what my business was. And it made me think that maybe I should have one. So I started to research. And, I know, you don’t have to tell me. I know I have a foul mouth from time to time. To be honest I hadn’t read Proverbs in the Bible until the last year! I read the whole New Testament in a matter of weeks years ago. And then I started at Genesis taking extremely detailed notes and got about eight or nine books in and, well, life got in the way. So I missed a lot of the wisdom from Proverbs as well as the Psalms and stories of King David crying out to God- a man anointed by God but also in such sorrowful states at times, and I identified with that.

Now, I had always been a licensed Estetician, waitress, bartender, or a pharmacy technician my whole life so the only computer work I ever really did was putting in someone’s order or counting and verifying a prescription. And I know a lot of people who are authors or just who stayed up to date with tech are always on top of the latest updates and new tech. Not me. Even in high school, we were one of the last homes to get a desktop computer, and I was raising kids in the 2010’s so I even missed the Ipod phase.

I have always struggled financially so I never even had a good phone until my ex bought me an Iphone years ago. I actually kind of still like those cheap Motorolas, maybe it’s just because I am used to them. But after I quit my job I decided that I no longer wanted to work for someone. After dealing with some very, very dark and heavy depression and alcoholism, I decided to go to detox after God had given me a dream of me in the future being a swollen, jaundiced, yellow-faced alcoholic. I looked at myself in the car review mirror in my dream and my face was so swollen my eye was half shut. Needless to say that scared me and I took heed from that dream and sought help. And after going through counseling sessions and quitting smoking, I finally felt well enough to work again.

And here I am. I cannot find anything else I would rather do than lead people to Jesus Christ. Not necissarily be a preacher, just maybe a spiritual advisor of some sort, teach spiritual warfare praying, and share supernatural stories. I have spent a lot of time on Reddit and there is a lot of need for help in these departments. I would be honored to work for God. I do not have a want or need to be noticed, recognized, big or famous in anyway. But whatever is God’s will for my life is better than my own plan and I am OK with that. If that is what He wants, then fine, but unlike most people who want to go viral, I don’t!

After I got the drinking and smoking out of the way, I then found out my current home I have lived in for ten years has toxic mold and I am allergic to it. I also discovered I have a ton of – I cannot say food allergies – I don’t need an Epi-pen, but I have a lot of foods that showed up on an allergy test that do not agree with me. I am pre-menopausal and paid for bloodwork from a Functional Health Doctor and my adrenals are shot and I am low in Testosterone which can affect brain fogginess, drive, ambition, motivation, and energy. I was told I am full of inflammation and sometimes it seems that whatever could go wrong, does. I recently gained weight due to Depakote, a metabolism-killing Bipolar medication. Besides that and I have been dealing with Hypothyroidism, plus Bipolar and Narcolepsy – two opposite ends of a spectrum that is very hard to find a happy medium for – I just got it all piling up now. I try to be grateful and thankful as I know it could always be worse, but I am feeling less than enthused about my body weight. I need to get my hormones under control and I just told my Psychiatrist I refuse to take the Depakote anymore so here we are on drug combination #4532. Point is, between the health issues and the lack of tech knowledge it has sure been one hell of an uphill battle. But I am slowly getting there.

As an uneducated person on computers, I have learned A LOT these past few months about website design, E-mail marketing, content strategy (even though I don’t listen to that and wing it), digital products, and AI. There is just SO incredibly much to learn that I feel like every day on Youtube I am adding a minimum of a dozen videos to curated lists labeled things like SEO, Print on Demand, Podcast, AI, Affiliating, Book – just in the event I might want to look at some of that one day. I guess if I did learn every video I saved, I’d be stuck here for the next damn two decades watching back to back videos!

I know someone out there agrees with me on this one but the fast pace of technology advancements are crazy! As soon as I learn one thing, it’s almost not the cool thing anymore and something new to learn that is better, faster and more deliverable is moving in its place. It’s hard to keep up! It has also been extremely frustrating at times, trying to learn AI prompts and such things. These people on how-to videos make it look too easy, it doesn’t matter if it’s about making a website with AI, a t-shirt, a business card, or anyhing else. I tried their methods and sure, I got some simple, low-level basic output. But, that’s not my style. I like personalization, I like things tailored to MY liking, not just some AI slop expenditure. So, I just don’t accept that crap. They aren’t good enough for me and I guess that’s a good thing but also bad because if I would just keep pursuing I would have other things launched by now.

But, it takes time to learn all these new tools especially when the only thing I had knowledge of coming into it was how to send a damn e-mail and how to type. That’s literally it! As a matter of fact, I had a guy friend ask me the other day how to send an e-mail and I thought, ‘you got to be kidding me,’ but in reality I could see why he didn’t know because he is an outdoor laborer so he really never had a need for a computer.

I guess everyone started not knowing anything until they learned, right? So, I try to be patient with myself. Rome wasn’t built in a day. But, boy it gets aggravating sometimes! I hope to be proof that even after a major setback like the exploitation I experienced, and juggling the ridiculous amount of health issues that with the right dedication and mindset, you can achieve anything. And maybe one day I will do just that.