Meetup and Mental Health

(Hudson, Corey, Eba, and myself)

Right before my mother left to tackle the Camino De Santiago hike in Spain, she said to me "AJ, I think you need to find a hobby, consider looking up REI workshops or find hiking groups in Pittsburgh as you seem to enjoy that". I sat down and googled "hiking groups in Pittsburgh" and discovered an application for my phone called "Meetup". I had no idea what this was, and had no idea that there would be options for so many activities, hikes, and meeting new people. I signed up for the app and had been asked about what interested me, so I picked some interests of mine: digital photography, socializing, outdoor health and wellness, personal development, confidence and self esteem, night life, etc. The app gave me the option of listing what I was looking for, which I chose "practice hobbies, socialize, and make friends". Based on the interests and what I was looking to get out of Meet Up, the app filters groups in the feed and one is able to RSVP to events once joining specific groups. I had joined a few groups to try it out: South Hills Hiking Group of Pittsburgh, Beat the Blues Wellness Group, Pittsburgh Adventure Lovers (PAL), Pittsburgh Twenties and Thirties Collective, Pittsburgh Hikers, and Foodie Friends of Pittsburgh Twenties, Thirties, and Forties, among other groups.

In the last three weeks since joining the social networking site, I have attended ten hikes and one other activity with some of the groups I joined. My first impression of this social networking site is: the application is easy to use and there are so many different events to choose from. I already encountered my first dilemma in choosing events. Orignially on Friday September 22, 2023, I had planned to attend an event with the Pittsburgh Foodies group which was a meetup at Arsenal Cider at 7pm to get fall style adult beverages. There was also an event taking place at the same time, 7pm, with the Pittsburgh Twenties and Thirties Collective of attending the Cultural District's quarterly gallery crawl. I opted for the gallery crawl after seeing that only three people including myself and the host had signed up for the Arsenal Cider event. There is also a future dilemma: either attend a hike in Frick Park in Pittsburgh with the Pittsburgh Twenties and Thirties Collective on October 14, or attend a Strip District Food Crawl with the Pittsburgh Foodies group also on October 14 and nearly the same time as each other. I want to talk a little more in detail about the groups that I have since associated with and the activities that I have attended as well as some of the people I have interacted with, pseudonyms of course as I am not sure of their preferred privacies when it comes to being featured in a blog article, if a meetup attendee sees the post, feel free to comment and reveal who you are and more about you if I have missed anything.

• The Pittsburgh Hiking Meetup Group: I attended my first event with Meet Up with this group and met about five people for a "South Side Slopes Steps" hike. This is not the typical hike through the woods. This is walking up and down steps repeatedly in an urban environment traveling the routes of many of the old mill workers who walked these steps to work and home after their shifts. These steps are not well maintained and are a step away from falling if used too much in some areas. I joined the group leader Ryan for the hike along with David, Allison, Samantha, and John. The group leader Ryan works for an architectural firm in Pittsburgh that actually had a hand in designing the emergency department that I work in. David is originally from New York state and moved to Pittsburgh about 18 years ago and has been in the city ever since. David later invited me to a vocal group's practice that happens about a block from where I live. Katie is friends with David and they attend events together was my understanding. Samantha is newer to the city and lives in one of the neighboring areas of the city and is in the film-making industry. She reports the current struggles with the industry due to a lot of the writers on strike and not being able at the moment to find a good internship that is fully guaranteed. I didn't much speak to John during the hike as he and Ryan were up in the front most of the hike and steps for me are more difficult all at once like this. I have completed the steps hike before, but not in variation of ups and downs like this particular hike. I opted to bail at a point where I had hiked nearly 4.5 miles of ups and downs. Ryan was okay with this and invited me to future hikes, despite bailing once, it had no bearing on making it to future events. I have already scheduled to attend a future hike On Wednesday September 27th at Franklin Regional High School's loop trail.

Here we have David, Samantha and others below looking on at the downward descent on the South Side Slope Steps Hike.

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• Pittsburgh Adventure Lovers: I joined a morning hike in Boyce Park with the Pittsburgh Adventure Lovers (PALs). The group had consisted of about seven people, myself included. We hiked on mostly the Yellow trail in Boyce Park, myself near the back of the group hiking with Ray and Robert. Ray was the group leader's husband. Ray and the group leader Deb just returned from a trip to Acadia National Park in Maine and had done a lot of exploring of New England with their RV. They started by way of Northern Pennsylvania to New York state, into New Hampshire, Vermont, to Acadia National Park, and then down through Massachusetts, and Rhode Island back to Pennsylvania. During the hike, speaking to Ray about various topics including their trip, why I joined meetup: to socialize, meet others, and engage in hobbies like hiking with others; and various adult drinks I enjoyed as Ray and Robert talked about their favorite beers, iron city included. The hike lasted for about four miles. While on the hike, I heard two women talking about other groups they have found on the application, one of which was called Sixties and Smiling, which is a group for people in their sixties to enjoy museums, going to Phipps Conservatory, the Zoo, and out to lunch with others. Another example of how great this application is for meeting others and engaging in sociable activities.

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Pittsburgh Twenties and Thirties Collective: On Friday, September 22, I joined an event in the Cultural District aimed at being a gallery crawl at different art galleries hosted by the Cultural Trust of Pittsburgh. This is a quarterly event held in downtown Pittsburgh where different art galleries have different exhibits for people to come in free of charge to view. Personally, I have never attended a gallery crawl, so I thought this could be some fun. I showed up at the meeting location outside of Barcadia, which is a bar that features arcade style games in Market Square. About seven to ten people showed up for this particular event including the host Dan. Dan lives on the North Side of Pittsburgh in Deutchtown and is in real estate, Dan is from New York and has only been in Pittsburgh for about two years. He has been hosting meet up events for the last couple months as a way to get out and meet others in his age group and hang out. Dan is into the improv comedy scene and takes classes at a Shadyside Improv Studio. As an icebreaker activity to start off the night and to get social, Dan has us play a game called "Seven Things" which is an improv style game trying to name seven things about a particular topic. The topic chosen by the person standing to the left of you. Topics picked in this group that I can remember were "things to do in Toronto, Ontario, Canada", "Famous People", "Pizzerias", "College Football Mascots", and at least four other topics. Mine had been "Famous People", which I picked mostly baseball players and a few movie stars, and Chris Rock.

Our first stop on the gallery crawl, the doors to the exhibit were locked, so we skipped it and went to the exhibit at the Urban Academy for children in grades 6-12. This featured a performance on Steel Drums by the kids in the school. Their artwork showcased on the walls of their cafeteria in various drawings related to peace keeping in their communities. During the walk to each exhibit, we were offered the chance to speak to other people who came out for the event. I spoke with a few people in the course of the evening. One of the guys during the "Seven Things" game was presented with college mascots and forgot the mascot of UConn, which in our conversation, I started with "for future reference, if asked it again, the mascot of UConn: Huskies". Turned out this guy had only been in Pittsburgh for two months and he moved to Pittsburgh from Hampton Roads, Virginia. We instantly found common ground as my undergraduate university is located in Hampton Roads, Virginia. He is a systems engineer and is now in Pittsburgh for work. I also spoke with Nate who shared he is in a program at Pitt for some sort of psychology or psychiatry, and he is currently in an internship at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, specifically at the Starr Center. During the opening "get to know eachother" portion, Nate shared that this is something he is very passionate about. We spoke a little more in depth on the crawl that mental health in an acute setting is fascinating and it is really important that people have easy access to mental health care in our country.

Our second stop on the tour was the August Wilson exhibit in the African American Cultural Center in Pittsburgh. August Wilson was a Pittsburgh born and raised playwriter and is known for many plays including Fences in which he won a Pulitzer Prize for. The exhibit showcases Wilson's early influences for his work as well as how he would write and where he would write, such as coffee shops and diners in the city of Pittsburgh. Wilson's childhood home has been turned into a museum and is located in the Hill District neighborhood of Pittsburgh. Throughout the exhibit are playbooks of Wilson's works and scenes from some of his plays that have been recreated into movies and re-enacted through other plays around the country. The influence that Wilson had is underappreciated in the city of Pittsburgh from what I have found, but cherished by the African American community. I remember the cultural center being constructed, back when my father worked in the Federated Investors building, outside of his office windows, we could observe construction of the building back in 2008-2009 when it was completed. This was the first time I had ever ventured inside.

The third place we visited was an improv theater, our guide for the event: he does improv in Shadyside and thought it would be cool to experience improv more in detail. During this segment of the tour we stopped by the Arcade Comedy Theater located at 943 Liberty Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15222. Improv is really an interesting artform. The theater hosts classes, does live productions, and holds practices weekly. It was rated the number one improv comedy academy in Pittsburgh, according to one of the cast members of the show.

Our final stop on the tour before our group leader left us, was an exhibit called Divine Feminity, which was a collection of artwork pieces done by intertwining different cloths into forming animal like creations. After this area, we were left to our own devices for continuing the crawl or heading out separate ways. We were going to stop at a couple more exhibits but the lines were long and we opted to head back towards our cars.

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Pittsburgh Hikers: Another group that I joined was the Pittsburgh Hikers group, they usually have events on the weekends and sometimes during the week. With my schedule, I am flexible enough to attend a fair amount of weekend hikes and also attend some weekday hikes usually on Mondays and Tuesdays. The day after the gallery crawl, I attended a Saturday morning beginner hike in Frick Park with about ten others. While going through introductions in the group, it was revealed to us as a group that two of the members of the hike, met on a hike several years ago and are recently engaged and planning a wedding. It was a brisk morning with no sun and mostly clouds.

I attended a Sunday morning hike with this group as well, it was a misty rain and I met up with the group leader Jake and his friend Roy for a hike in Frick Park which was labeled as a Healthy Hill Hike, but due to Jake's knee issues (rheumatoid arthritis), he is unable to do a lot of hills consistently. We did get to stop at the Frick Park Environmental Center for a rest which was a cool little place and also took a coffee break at 61C Cafe in Regent Square before finishing out the hike about a mile later. On Tuesday October third I attended a morning hill hike in Schenley Park which also due to Jake's knee issues, ended up being more of an urban hike through the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University, but on this hike I got to finally meet the legend of Hudson. Hudson is an 82 year old man who leads hikes for different groups and tries to hike at least five miles daily. He is in incredible shape physically and mentally, and it has been really fun getting to experience hiking with him. Since meeting him, I have attended four more hikes with him.

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Beat the Blues Wellness Adventure Group: I attended my first Beat the Blues Hike on September 26 at Beechwood Farms Nature preserve and met about ten others all relatively close to my age (29) at the Beechwood Farms parking lot at 7:00pm. Beechwood Farms is located at 614 Dorseyville Rd in Pittsburgh, PA near Fox Chapel. We completed about a three and a half mile hike with our hike leader Rick. Rick works for a HVAC company and shares he is in his busy season. I also met Ava who is in the midst of studying for her nursing boards exam and Mason who is a financial auditor for a large accounting firm in the city of Pittsburgh. Also on the hike was a girl named Alyssa who works for a staffing agency and helps people find jobs in the administrative world. She told us a story of her rookie hiking experience, when she was at State College, PA of going for a hike without downloading the map prior on All Trails, and getting lost in the woods during a downpour, by herself no less. I guess in order to learn lessons, you have to experience mistakes first. Overall she is a really cool person as are most of the people on this hike. I talked a lot with a girl named Elizabeth on the hike, she took a year off between finishing her nursing degree to travel the country and relax, and in a few weeks will be starting a position as an emergency department nurse at a local hospital. Sharing our various life experiences while hiking was pretty enlightening and cool. After my first hike with them, Alyssa raised the idea of heading to the Hartwood Wine Cave which is a small cafe and wine bar, for a post hike bonfire and drinks.

(Initial Beat the Blues experience group photo: Rick taking it selfie style on the left, Mason in the Pirate shirt, Alyssa in the purple sweatshirt, Ava in the front right, a woman whose name I can't remember behind Ava, Elizabeth behind her, and myself and two others.)

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Meet Up is notorious for always making sure there is a group photo for every event, which has gotten me out of my comfort zone. I, for one, have never wanted to smile in any photo that I have ever had taken of me, even to the point where one time at a party for former President George W. Bush's groundbreaking ceremony for his presidential library, while posing for a picture with the former President, I didn't smile despite my mother telling me to smile and after the photo was taken, I took a shot to the stomach by President Bush who exclaimed "AJ didn't smile cause his mother told him too", which caps off most of my experiences in photos by being punched in the stomach by a former President of the United States after not smiling.

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I decided to make the Tuesday evening Beechwood Farms hike a regular thing after my first hike with that group, I also attended a Beechwood Farms hike with them on October 3. It featured pretty much the same crew of people followed by another group photo and more bonding by the fire with the crew who stayed later on for the Wine Cave group gathering. It was another night surrounded by new friends and making connections with people that I would have never had the chance to meet had I not decided to go out and join people who were like-minded with something I enjoy like hiking.

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I had hiked three more times with three more groups: South Hills Hiking Group of Pittsburgh, I did a seven mile settlers cabin ridge park hike with Hudson, Corey, and Eba, in which Hudson got us turned around a number of times while trying to stay on the All Trails map. I attended a Saturday morning seven mile hike at Hartwood Acres with Beat The Blues Wellness Group with about ten other people, and then attended a morning hike on the South Side with Hudson, Corey, and Kate on the morning of October 9. This one featured a stop at Cup to Joe's Coffee Shop in the South Side and totaled about 4.2 miles with an extra .8 miles back to my car with the South Hills Hiking Group of Pittsburgh.

(Left picture is the Hartwood Acres Hike with most of the people involved in it, Hudson took that photo; Right picture also taken by Hudson but featuring Kate in the middle and Corey on the left, with myself on the right).

I want to end this post talking a little about my experience with these groups and how it relates to my overall well-being and mental health. When I found meet-up originally I had been off of work for an extended period of time (two weeks) and as a person, I have a hard time with social anxiety and am also an introvert. I am proud of myself for being able to get out and fight the resistance of my own self-sabotage by going out and associating with others and attending these events with complete strangers. I have always had the ability to cope with my depression and anxiety by listening to music, NF in particular, and had the ability to focus my negative energy into sometimes getting out and hiking by myself or taking walks by myself. It just got to a point where I had been overworking myself for a period of time since returning from my Wild West vacation and had been experiencing the effects of burnout that I really needed to get out of my own little world and explore. Getting out of my place for me sometimes can be a chore and since I have been attending these events and getting out, I am almost excited every time I leave my place for a hike. I am also eating much healthier foods when I am at my place than before I started to go on these adventures. In the past, so many times I would just sit on my couch, play video games or watch youtube and eat ice cream, which sounds great for like a one day thing but not over every time I was off. Now I look forward to getting out of my shell and going out and attending different events and hanging out with familiar faces and catching up. I was asked yesterday about having a "book of ways to handle depression" and although I didn't get to finish the thought, I don't think that there is any set way to handle depression and anxiety. Every case is different, every experience for everyone is different in how they handle their own demons. For me, I need to get out and explore with like-minded individuals. I need to talk to people, I need to focus on what is most important for me, and I need to surround myself with people who genuinely show an interest in me and that I can feel are caring for me. I continue to listen to music, I recently started to listen to self-help audio books when taking a walk here and there. There isn't a one size fits all for coping with depression or anxiety, or any mental health, what works for me, isn't golden to work for someone else. How we cope with things are different and that is okay. It certainly for me, isn't as simple as someone saying "well don't feel that way" or "get over it". It is deeper than that for me. Meet Up and the people I have met so far: all the pseudonyms in this blog are real people who have made a real impact in my life over the last three weeks and I am really excited to see the continued impacts that those people have going forward.

As always, thanks for taking the time to read another article of mine. I have enjoyed writing this one and have enjoyed Meet Up so far and will share other experiences soon.