PonderEthereal A La Aspie

The Petri Dish specifically aside, a big part of this transition for me is willfully giving up a career that I’ve carefully built based upon experience and know-how. I don’t have a college education (yet!). After high school, I got a job repairing laptop computers. From there, it went to desktop and network support. From there, it went to network admin and specialized support. From there, it went to specialized support and account management… and so forth, and so on, etc, etc, et all… etc. Till today when I am a development project manager. Had I not carefully planned what I was doing with my career, I wouldn’t have the experience to be making the salary I do now. Not that it’s an incredible salary or anything but I’m making a decent salary for where I live and where I am in life.

The thing is, I was never cut out for any of this. This professional world - it’s not for me. Putting on an image. Being nice even when someone is a jerk out of necessity because my livelihood depends upon it. Having no choice but to feign respect for people who don’t deserve it. It all rubs me a very, very wrong way. In addition to those intolerances and my difficulty with social situations, I have another professional fatal flaw. I don’t have an accurate internal gauge that tells me when I’m working too much and really, I’ve become quite comfortable with the stress and anxiety that comes with looming deadlines and way too much to do. But just like any other normal person, I can only hold up under it for so long before it starts to take a toll on me.

So, job after job, it was like a perfect storm. Eventually, I would inevitably get REALLY bored. Because I’m a brainiac mule, and obviously bored, the manager would pile more on me and I would hold up under it for a while but then I would get really overwhelmed but not say anything and thrive under the pressure until I broke. Then my social skills would start slipping as it became more and more difficult to maintain that on top of all of the extra work. Then said employer would start to complain about my attitude and/or demeanor and then I would get more frustrated because here, I’m doing everything they asked me to do, which is way more than typical and SOMETHING has to give. So my frustration would turn into resentment and all of that stress would start to weigh heavy and everyone would start to hate me because my social skills sucked… which only snowballed the whole thing even more. And so I would wind up anxious, stressed and depressed and even suicidal. Over a job.

But I could never understand why THEY didn’t understand why social skills were the first thing to go. Until my diagnosis in 04. Then it all clicked and I started resorting my life and my habits in order to alleviate the depression and stress and anxiety and I slowly became less inclined to compensate in places where I didn’t have the energy to do it without killing myself and I felt more like telling the people at my job to screw off and they felt more like telling me the same. And so, here we are.

This job - in this environment, which depends upon social skills, I cannot do. There, I’ve said it. I have Asperger’s Syndrome. I am highly functioning and I can and have accomplished a lot in my life for someone with AS… hell, for someone WITHOUT AS. I never want to be reduced to “I’m doing good FOR SOMEONE WITH AS.”. I’M doing FABULOUS and I will struggle against that stigma till the day I die. And maybe that’s part of the problem. Some part of me NEEDS to gasp for air and call uncle. I cannot continue to do this to myself. In the last two years, I’ve started medication for depression and after a year on meds, rather than decreasing or weaning off of them, I had to increase my dose. And granted, a good portion of that is stuff directly related to Petri Dish, specifically… but a good portion of what stresses me is the general mode of operation in a professional corporate environment.

I don’t mean to give the impression that I’m not doing well with life. I am. My life is awesome.. all except the job. My life rocks - except I DREED having to CONSIDER going to work in the morning because all of that blech ’stuff’ is lurking just over the threshold and I can’t do it anymore and I don’t want to do it anymore and just thinking about it makes me want to melt down into a heap. The rest of my life is peachy. I’m handling the family and the house and the marriage and being full time mommy just fine. I LOVE those things! I adore my LIFE! Those things come naturally to me and those people ‘get’ me. I don’t have to compensate for them and they don’t DRAIN me. But the job… that’s a different story. I steadfastly believe that the job is WHY I’m on anti depressants.

I cannot and will not continue to put my mental and physical health at risk for a fucking JOB. I don’t live to work. I work because I have to make money to live. I love to spend time with my husband and my son and my step daughter and to cuddle into the couch under a blanket and watch a chick flick with a glass of port and a bar of Godiva dark chocolate. I live to love my Feri family and howl at the moon together till midnight. I love curling up in front of the computer with aforementioned glass of port under a furry blanket watching reruns of The L Word that my DH taped for me. THAT’S what I love about life.

And I understand that some people love their jobs and so they can live to work… but I don’t. I hate my job. More than that, I hate what it does to me. I’ve tried to like my job. I’ve had moments when I liked my job. Like in all of the situations when I’ve had enough control to make my working environment suitable for me. I have kicked myself repeatedly for giving up my web design company for Petri Dish many times since I made that decision. I made that decision out of loyalty to Petri Dish because I really hoped that my enjoyment during that period of time would continue and I believed what they told me and I felt reassured when they told me I COULRyan do this job. I couldn’t and I held up as long as I could. And now I regret having given up something so important to me in which I was thriving for the promise of the security of working for a company that isn’t struggling in which I will always have a paycheck.

Which leads me to the shop. The shop is half mine. My business partner thinks the same way I do and our partnership agreement gives us both equal say… so I have confidence that I will maintain the say I need in order to maintain an ideal working environment for myself. I will thrive. The business plan is solid and the shop will do REALLY well. Of that, I am certain. Best of all, I’m immersed in Spirit at work. I was telling my partner the other day that I’ve figured out why none of my clients realize there is anything ‘wrong’ with me. When I’m giving readings, I stare off into space and rock and wring my hands and flap and take deep breaths and that is perfectly normal for a psychic. They never realize that that’s just how I AM. And by the time they do, I hope I’ve given them hope and healing and strength and it’s all good! :)

I digress. I’m still afraid. I’m afraid because I’m stepping away from a career path built upon experience that I have very carefully maintained and I have spent so m much stress and worry and anxiety and depression upon maintaining the best I could. I’ve held it together by digging my nails and my heels in - and now? I’m just walking away. That’s scary.

I’ll never go back. I like computers and I’m a geek at heart… but that’s not my life. My life is counseling. My life is the mind and the spirit. My life is growing and learning and teaching and this job is something that I truly live to do. It is a part of me. After having seen it that way finally, I can’t imagine what kind of heart and mind and soul people have who live to work a professional job. What a facade. All the fakeness and images and making appearances all to further the day to day business of a corporation that, in the end, is there only to make money. I don’t understand it and it’s not for me.

But it’s still really scary to walk away.