Black Cat Blog

Thoughts, Stories, and Ideas

  • A Rainy Saturday Morning

    I had to wake up early this morning because of a snafu at Walgreens. Despite it being a rainy morning and not wanting to take the bus to Walgreens, I did it and got that over with. I find rain very relaxing and enjoyed hearing the drops on my umbrella. There was something quite soothing about that, especially in the face of what life is throwing at me right now. My professional life is in absolute shambles. I have a co-worker that is dedicated to making my life miserable. From day one she decided she does not like me. That is perfectly okay but you still have to be civil, polite, and professional in the workplace. She is not.

    This morning I have to go into work early for a staff meeting and I am dreading it. I do not want to go to this staff meeting at all because it’s not going to be a good experience. There’s going to be stress and gripes and I just don’t want to hear it. Furthermore, I am not looking forward to what this one co-worker is going to say or do to try and sabotage me. It’s a good thing I sent an email to my manager yesterday to let him know what was going on. Hopefully he will deal with it.

    I feel exhausted and done. Again, I had a night that didn’t give me much in the way of sleep. I seem to have an easy time falling asleep but I just don’t like that I am waking up one or two times. I’d really like to sleep through the night; dead like a log. My brain is going in 360 different directions right now. I am trying to live in the present. What can I do right now to self-soothe? The most obvious thing is to listen to the Kitaro radio station on Pandora and let my mind drift away.

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  • Relive One Day

    If you could relive one day from your past, which day would it be and why?

    They say the best revenge is living well. If I could relive one day from my past it was the graduation from high school where I graduated at the top of my class with honors. This was a big fuck you to everyone that made my life a living hell in high school. Too bad I didn’t amount to much but at least I struck a note. Now I am just old.

    So yes, that’s the one day I would like to relive. I got the headmasters award. I got into a tier 1 liberal arts college. It was the best college out of everyone in my graduating class.

    It’s a shame that I am relegated to an angry, impoverished, shadow of a man now. So maybe they got the last laugh. Typical, I am surprised I never even got to be anything good. I got built up to believing that I could do great things. But I’m worthless.

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  • Not Gonna Lie

    The last time I felt this hopeless, I wound up in a behavioral health hospital. So what’s different this time? I’m using my skills. I’m using my coping skills. When I was in my 20s, I had thought seriously about running guns or selling drugs because I had such difficulty finding work. My thoughts are turning back to that. I now understand Walter White from Breaking Bad. I am beyond sympathetic. I’m empathetic. What else can you do when faced with the impossible?

    I’m using one of the best DBT techniques out there: a rubber band around my left palm. It has just enough tension that I can feel. Oddly, it’s calming. My therapist taught me this technique. I may need to pull out all stops to keep calm and survive the rough patch. I have to. I have no other choice. I want to get it in gear for August 26th. I want to be ready for the important first step towards entrepreneurship. The road ahead will be long and hard but rarely is anything worth doing easy.

    If my business teaching computers happens to do well, I’m legit going to be happy because I will be out of the rat race that I am in. I’ll be doing what I love and hopefully spark a passion from my students. Eyes on the prize. Less than 5 days now.

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  • I’m So Angry

    I’m so angry that I am bordering on an autistic meltdown. I have this one co-worker that seems to take particular delight in ordering me around even though she is not a supervisor and has been told so. Now I am upset. I have everything the benefit of the doubt. Now, I reported this in the chain of command. I only hope I don’t lose my job. I feel like I could explode right now. I must keep it together. I have to. I cannot afford to come unglued.

    If I become unglued, then the bitch wins. I’m not letting her win. I’m just going to go about my business calmly and rationally. Or as best as I can at any rate. It’s times like these that I know I need DBT therapy. The trouble is DBT is not quite available for folks on Medicare. Nobody in Delaware that does DBT accepts this insurance.

    This blog is my coping skill right now. I need to get my thoughts out of my head and this is working. I don’t want this co-worker living rent free in my head anymore. I’m going to keep my eyes on the prize: self employment. The journey begins next week at the Delaware Department of Labor. I’m trying to be realistic here. It’s going to be awhile before I will earn enough to be independent of this security job that I have now. Patience is in order.

    I’ve got to calm down. This isn’t good for my heart and circulatory system. I’m going to have a heart attack if I don’t figure out how to master this. I’m headed for a widowmaker if I don’t figure it out. But I’m determined not to die until I, at least, make the effort at business. I hope I can get approved by the DE Department of Labor so I can begin to break free.

    I just have to make it to August 26th and my meeting. I can do that. Hell, I can make it to tomorrow. Staff meeting tomorrow will give us pizza. I’ll get an hour of overtime as well.

  • Feeling Like Trash

    I am feeling like absolute trash. I am exhausted both mentally and physically. Too much has happened today. This is supposed to be one of my days off but it was mentally taxing. I went through the gamut of emotions today from extreme anxiety to fear of uncertainty and seemingly everything in between. I doubt I’ll be up for much longer as I really just want to go to sleep for the night but I can’t because I will just be awake early only to potentially have a repeat of today, tomorrow. Adulting sure is not easy and I wish I desperately that it could be. What I need is a Delta-9 gummy. Absent of that, I am just going to turn on some new age music and relax.

    This upcoming work week is going to be long and tiring. I just have to make it to Wednesday for my appointment at the Department of Labor. I want to get the ball rolling on my computer teaching business and this is the first step and an important one. It’s going to be that step towards self-employment and more independence. Being autistic in the workplace has become overwhelmingly difficult, even for security jobs. I guess the days of having a simple job are just about over. I would be willing to do landscaping, but even that I guess is not going to be a good fit for someone like me.

    I wish I was not experiencing all of these emotions right now. I wish I was feeling good and relaxed but I am not. I am ready to cry because of the stress.

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  • Mixed Emotions

    This morning I am feeling a lot of mixed emotions and I am having racing thoughts. I am trying to calm them down so I put my headphones on and I am going to listen to some new age music written by Kitaro, a Japanese musician. I found listening to Kitaro after work helped me to calm down significantly. I feel excitement, fear, and maybe a little anger all at once. I am naturally excited to meet my mentor to help get a small business started. I thought I was feeling optimism but I think I am just more excited about trying something new.

    At the same time that I feel excited, I also feel fear because of uncertainty and fear of failure. I still have failure in mind as a negative. In the context of business, failure is not negative but a learning experience. All entrepreneurs meet with some failure and success is never a linear progression; always ups, downs, and setbacks. I think the first step is to come up with some sort of business plan and get the ideas swirling in my head onto paper. I’d like to convert these ideas to opportunities.

    I also feel a lot of anger and it is quite possibly self-directed. I am angry at myself for being so intractable when I tried to start businesses before in the past. I always just tried to do something in IT but it was a folly. The managed service provider space is really crowded. It’s a shame that it took a mental health inpatient experience to have an epiphany about what it really is that I want to do: teach and mold the next generation of IT pros.

    While I was inpatient, the idea came to me in a flash and it seemed exciting but I was dominated by fear of getting started. I was afraid of failing yet again. Now here we are 8 months later and I am taking an actionable first step. I have to create a to-do list. I think if I did this, it might stop some of the swirling thoughts.

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  • Dealing With Uncertainty

    Daily writing prompt
    How do you deal with uncertainty?
    View all responses

    This is a good writing prompt because it is causing me to think quite deeply about how I deal with uncertainty; which is to say not well. Yes, I struggle with uncertainty and it is hindering. Uncertainty frightens me and it has prevented me from starting and succeeding at business. I am also grateful for this writing prompt so that I can get my feelings documented for my next therapy session. I am trying to accept that uncertainty is a part of life.

    I am currently reading a book about starting a business and the author wisely talks about some of the mental health aspects of this journey. One of the topics he brings up is mindfulness. It is his opinion that successful entrepreneurs are mindful people which is to say that they live in the present and work in the present. Furthermore, he believes that they don’t look at their past failures and concentrate entirely on what their present business opportunity is. They do not look too far into the future either.

    So I know now that the best way to deal with uncertainty is not too ignore it but to live in the present and be mindful. I struggle with being mindful and with being my own harshest critic. I also struggle with “shiny object syndrome.” Part of said struggle is that I am not living in the present. I do believe it will be possible to get this business started and off of the ground. I see how mindfulness can really help .

    I am slowly re-programming my brain to simply accept that there are not many certainties in life. When I feel myself starting to get anxious or afraid, I am telling myself to accept what I cannot change and to let these feelings flow through me. By flowing through me, I mean simply just going by only fleetingly acknowledged. Since I have a passion to be my own entrepreneur and start my own IT training school, I will be more mindful .

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  • My Adult Moment

    What’s a moment when you realized you were officially an adult?

    I realized that I became an adult when I was handed my high school diploma and went to college. I was no longer beholden to a power structure. I felt some immense freedom but it took some time to get used to. At first I found myself asking other adults for permission. Getting out of that power structure wasn’t easy.

    To be honest though, I never made the transition to adulthood smoothly. I’ve been told nobody really does but I’ve struggled more than the average because I’m on the autistic spectrum. I’ve always been a late bloomer. But once you’re an adult the world becomes less patient with you. We may become adults but we don’t stop learning, hence we will continuously meet new situations and challenges. It’s is unreasonable to expect that, simply because someone had reached some arbitrary age, that they have everything figured out. That’s my 0.02 anyways.

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  • Shiny Object Syndrome

    I just read about this thing called shiny object syndrome in my business book. I begrudgingly admit that I have this. The phrase originated from how magpies tend to collect objects with sheen in their nests. When applied to business or real life, it means latching on to new ideas constantly because they seem like good ones. It’s a lack of clear focus and moving in 360 different directions at once. I realized this might be one of my shortcomings. Oh well, I’m grateful for the insight.

    I know that I want to teach technology to high schoolers and adults. I love technology when I can experiment with it. The segue into technology experimentation for a living is teaching where breaking and fixing systems is part of learning. This would be one way of turning my interest into a money earning one without it becoming something I hate. Plus no after hours emergencies or anything like that. Don’t get me wrong though as this kind of business has its challenges; albeit different but they are nonetheless there.

    I’ve had my idea validated that it seems to have something going for it and I can turn it into an opportunity. It is my belief that IT education has fallen short because it’s been designed to be a form of vendor indoctrination. Let’s go back to teaching people to become good IT generalists and not lock them into one way of doing things when there are many different ways of reaching a solution. We also need to teach the budding professional that Cisco products, for example, don’t belong at every business. This is why it’s so important to have good generalists.

    Good generalists understand the “reference” implementation of technology. This is the one which the standard is built around. Each vendor modifies this slightly to suit it’s marketing terminology but it’s more or less the same thing.

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  • Excitement

    Since I have been reading this book called Starting A Business: A Quickstart Guide, I have been feeling some excitement. I am also looking at life a little bit differently. Since the material is somewhat weighty for someone new to business, it has been slow going. But I learned the difference between an idea and an opportunity. An idea is just that; a notion or thought but has no value. An opportunity is actionable and has value. I’m learning to look for opportunities.

    I’m even practicing active listening and engaging with people. I’m trying to see what works and what doesn’t. I’m trying to gauge how I am being received. This isn’t always easy because people will, more often than not, not reveal their true feelings. This is a challenge for an autistic person. The best piece of advice I ever received was to be an active listener. Given my disability, this did not soak in until later in life but it’s only too late when you’re below ground.

    So during the slow parts today at work, I will be reading more of my book. Hopefully I will continue to learn. Sometimes I feel like a deer in the headlights and I do not even know what I don’t know. This simply means I need to read more so that questions get formulated in my brain.

    Nevertheless, I am excited to embark seriously on this journey with a mentor and guidance. I’m not looking to build an 8 figure IT educational empire. I’m just looking to have a reasonable income and be able to give others the same.

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