Update, June 1st 2012 - meltdown, lack of focus, upcoming wedding

Wow - once again, it has been a long time since my last post to this blog/journal. I have been posting to "The Thought Buffet" recently though. Ok so some quick updates : GCU let me go about 2 weeks after my last post. Ryan, my former boss, gave me the option of resigning, or he was going to fire me. Turns out that being best friends with the boss does have its advantages, so Jay got to stay and I went. I was none too happy about it, felt it was very unfair, and even lodged a formal complaint with the HR dept there. From what Debi (a BA I worked with there) said in an email after I left, there was some reorganization, and Ryan was now under a different director, no longer reporting directly to the CIO. So perhaps I had something to do with that. I'd like to think so.

In other news, I did do all of the things I said I was going to do to get back into fit spiritual condition : started going to meetings every Monday and almost every Friday, bought a nice treadmill and wieght machine for the house and started working out twice a week and went and saw Diana. I have still not been meditating as much as I would like, but I am working on that. Debbie and I have been doing well, although we have had some challenges. My birthday was especially rough, but we made it through. Now, we are only 3 weeks away from the wedding.

Ok, so now I want to get to why I am posting in the first place. Over the last 2 or 3 months, I have been experiencing what I can only describe as a lack of focus spurred on by intense interest in global affairs and events that could have profound spiritual meaning. Basically, I feel a lot like I did back in '93-'94 when the whole "coin-incidence" string of events occured, the main difference being that this time, I am sober. I don't know that the events that I am experiencing now are quite as coincidental as the ones back then, but there has definitely been some synchonicity happening, and my mind has definitely been racing with a strange sense of urgency.

Now as much as I would like to say that I'm sure it has nothing at all to do with the whole 2012 thing, the fact is that I'm sure it probably does. I would be lying to say that at least a little part of me wasn't somewhat curious to see what might happen, and another part of me seems to sense something major coming - or at least that is the sensation I get. I mean, I have always had periods of distraction and burn out when coding, but this seems to be a little different.

And that is a real challenge I have been facing this last month or so - trying to stay focused and on track at work so I can get some stuff done. Fortunately, I guess I am a good enough worker that I can spend quite a bit of time doing "other" things, research and stuff, and still please the person I am working for. That is truly a blessing. I can't help but feel guilty though, like I am getting paid for something and not doing that thing I am getting paid for, which causes me to tell myself that I am being dishonest and fraudulent. And that is a thought and feeling that I don't like to have - not one bit.

So, I have tried, albeit not with a whole lot of effort, to start looking for and being open to different opportunities, like writing positions or something, that might allow me to do something I could actually maintain focus on and give 100 - heck, even 75 % to! I even posted a request on this angel investor site called "Go 4 Funding" to see if I couldn't attract some angel investor to give me enough money to write a book that might be able to get me into a full time writing career. I have been posting short articles to this open "news" site called "before it's news" to see if I can maybe get noticed there. And I attempted, once again, to get in touch with Gaetan Delaforge, only to get a response from the writer of "Mission," Patrick Tilley and begin a brief correspondence with him. Alas, he was not able to lead me to Gaetan, and after about a week, he gave a polite "we're done here," leaving me right where I started. Yep.

And so I sit here, at my contracting job at MAAX Spas, working on their Team Portal web app (or at least trying to) wondering what the heck I am going to do with myself. I ran out of medicine Wednesday and forgot it again yesterday, so I was pretty out of sorts when I got home. When I did, I opened the mailbox to find a letter from the HOA board at the condo, which I am walking away from, saying that they are doing a $2500 assessment, and that the total is due by August 31st. Yeah, nice. Then, I go inside and head to the bedroom to get changed into my workout clothes only to have Emilee knock on the door and tell me that our dog Cooper had just peed on the floor in the workout room - at which point, I came unglued, screamed and yelled at Cooper, put him outside, sprayed him down with the hose, picked him up roughly, rubbed his nose in the pee, and spanked his butt hard. It wasn't pretty, and I was pretty disappointed in myself - that I could get that angry and out of control.

I felt absolutely sick about all of it after I finished, and promptly went into the bedroom, closed the door, got my jammies on and curled up in bed. I'm sure the lack of medication had a lot to do with it, as I was extremely light headed and a little dizzy for most of the afternoon. Adding the letter from the HOA to that condition put me in a prime state for freak out, which Cooper set off completely by peeing on the carpet. I was not pleased with the way I handled it at all, and actually felt very dark, as if I was myself "evil." I layed in bed until Debbie came in at 9 contemplating what had happened, thinking back over my life and how I used to be, wondering who I was/am, who I want to be, and even meditated and prayed some. I think it all helped, as I felt halfway decent before I actually went to sleep, which is no small feat after having blown that big.

Today, I have opened my mind to a belief I used to have back when I was the total "spiritual seeker" and wannabe guru : that I am a spiritual warrior, and my battle is with myself, my lower nature - my anger, pride, lust, envy, greed, sloth. It is a real war for my spirit, and if I don't take it as that, if I let up on my spiritual "exercise" - prayer, meditation, contemplation, etc - then I am opening myself to attack from the 'dark side' of myself, or other powers or presences. Strangely, I have been remembering some thoughts or intuitions I had about this time period, and even weird "self prophecies" about 'deals' I made with God about getting to be here for this, and being prepared and my vehicle being pure and stuff. I know it all sounds weird, and sometimes I don't even know how much of it was real and how much was just drug-induced delusion.

I do know that I am sober now though. And I know that there is some crazy, spooky stuff going on in the world. I know that I am concerned I am not in touch with a god - a personal God, that I can have faith in when the times get tough. I am afraid that in refining my view of God to this impersonal, "Force" like presence, I have lost that protective father figure God I need in times like this. I actually found a post by someone on a website today about this very same thing, and the person said that now, in his 50's, after having gone through the same stages, he is back praying to that personal God. And you know, I just might do that too. I guess at this point, it doesn't matter as much that there is that personal God as it does that I feel that there is, and that someone, something somewhere is listening to my pleas and is going to help me - help all of us get through this time of spiritual darkness.

I know that I am very, very thankful to have a loving, supportive woman in my life, and to know that I don't have to go through any of this alone.  I am thankful that I am not .001% more unfocused than I am so that I CAN continue to work to provide for the family. I am glad that I have my sobriety today, and don't even smoke cigarettes, so I can take comfort in the fact that my physical vehicle is about as pure as it's going to get. And I am thankful for everything else in my life - the kids, the place, the vehicles, the friends - everything. I think as long as I stay in that gratitude, and keep praying and meditating, I might just make it through all of this ok. Or at least as ok as I can be. Hey - they haven't killed me yet! Lol

The year of my battered self-esteem (as far as the career goes anyway)

As good as this year has been in some respects - mainly, my relationship with Debbie - it has been incredibly difficult in other areas, particularly as far as my self-confidence in my professional abilities goes. I suppose I ought to give the "rundown/"

I think it really started when I was still at Banner, and a lady who was a bigwig in payroll or something lit into me in a meeting about the Better Together campaign after it was over regarding some issues that surfaced. Her name was Lisa Davis I think, and in a meeting with her, Camille Horn, Jennifer and Dawn, she RIPPED me, basically calling me out and blaming all of the issues on me. I was really expecting someone to stand up for me and defend me, especially after all I had done to ensure the success of the campaign. But that did not happen. I was basically left sitting there, getting ripped, and it felt horrible. My boss Al said that I shouldn't worry about it, that she didn't write my reviews, but it still stung.

I ended up leaving Banner for what I thought were "greener fields" at a company called Black, Gould and Associates. And right up until they told me I wasn't the "type pf person they needed," I thought things were going great - or at least well. Then, one Friday, Cindy called me into her office and asked me how I thought I was doing (I had been there 2 months at that time). I told her that, all things considered, I thought I was doign well. She then proceeded to tell me that she had different thoughts, that they had expected more from me, that they thought I was going to put all kinds of "bells and whistles" on their website, that I wasn't the "type of person they needed." I was totally taken aback, as they had given me no previous indication that they felt this way. She even brought Paul in to talk it over too, and he proceeded to basically tell me (in not so many words) that I was incompetent. That Monday, I was gone.

And I remained unemployed for an unprecedented 5 weeks. It turned out that while I thought I was quite a hot commodity, and that the skills I had learned were very valuable, I seemed to be lacking a LOT of skills that employers want. I went on a number of interviews and started to wonder if I was going to get a job at all. There were a couple of times when I really struggled to keep at it, to keep looking. But it seems that the Universe was looking out for me, and out of nowhere, I got an email from an internal recruiter from the company I now work for - Sage. And within 3 days of getting that email, I had been offered, and accepted a position.

So all is well, right? I feel good now, right? Well.... For starters, the software product I am working on is very large and complex, and it is really shedding light on some areas I don't know much about - TFS, unit testing, release builds, Q and A, etc. I am used to building websites which are pre-compiled and then published to a web server. And this is a WHOLE different animal. A bigger, more complex animal. And one that has behaviors and systems I have not seen before, like it's own IDE that is used to build and deploy the website. But I have done fairly well (I think) at getting up to speed. That was, until I started this latest training class Monday.

It is supposed to be a 3 day class, taken online with a virtual PC to do the exercises, a chat client for questions for the instructor, and a series of videos along with a pdf workbook for learning. I started yesterday, and worked steadily through the day, only to find that I had fallen a little behind the agenda. Not to worry, as they (the instructors) said that the agenda was merely a "guideline". Cool, I would catch up today I thought.

And then, shortly after completing the next exercise or 2, I ran into a major issue - the web page that I had been working on, and desperately needed to display, wouldn't : it kept saying something about a missing resource file. So I told Jason, the trainer, and he told me to close and reopen my browser. I did - no luck. He told me to delete all the files in the local www directory for the site I did - no luck. I told him, and he said to simply "delete the page", and that it shouldn't take that long. The page he was talking about had all kinds of stuff attached to it - there was no way I could just delete it. He didn't seem too concerned, and even got terse with me one time, saying "IISRESET" through chat. Not cool.

I got pretty stressed and pretty upset, as he basically told me he didn't know what happened. So I decided to do a restore back to a copy of the VFS that set me back about 4 hours, at least. I rushed through today after FINALLY getting the thing straightened out again, hoping to make up lost ground. But I could only do what I could do, and so I emailed Jason telling him that I was really behind and that I didn't know how I was going to finish the training. To which he replied, "I don't know what happened, but you need to finish the training and complete the assessment." Wow, thanks. Nice, I appreciate that.

Now what makes this all a little extra weird is the fact that he is an instructor at DeVry, and he knew of me, as I knew of him, although I had never taken any classes that he taught. I thought that might kind of add a bit of comraderie between us, but it seems like it is making him be a bit of an asshole - similar to the experience people have when they work for one of their parents - they are much harder on their kids than they are on others. I can't imagine he would be this way to some outside person taking the course.

And all that was enough. But then, in the chat window at the end of the day, some other guy is asking questions about the final project?!?! How in the HELL can that guy be that far already I'm asking myself...

CONTINUED - it's Friday now, I finally completed the course yesterday, and have been battling with depression and anxiety all week. I actually made an "emergency" appointment with Diana Tuesday night, and seemed to be doing a little better Wednesday. I came in and set to finishing up the workbook and project, working furiously, determined to get it done. And I did just that - cranked on getting it all completed. But when 3:30 Wednesday came around, and it looked like I was not going to get the hands-on portion done, I messaged Jason to let him know, and asked him what I should do. He asked me "so what's the plan," and I said the he could let me take the assessment without having completed the hands-on, considering that it says right in the workbook that the expectation may not be to actually finish it, but to submit a SOW and get it approved. I figured that given the technical difficulties I had, that would be fair.

BUT, that was not his thinking, and he proceeded to get a little snippy about it. I have the details save somewhere else, but suffice it to say that for some reason, he seemed to make it a very personal thing, made some rather terse comments, and even threatened to escalate to my manager. I was pretty blown away by all of it, as I thought this was supposed to be a TRAINING course, and that was how I approached it. But he made reference to the fact that I was an internal developer, and that's why he left me to figure out what happened on my own. He also said that was why he was "giving me more rope," and then got really defensive when I asked how a trainer would handle the situation (of facing major technical difficulties and falling behind as a result) if I were an outside customer.

So I stayed after work until about 5:30pm Wed night working on it after he agreed to leave the machine open for me, and had plans to even work on it at home. But the screen resolution would not allow me to see much of the VPC at all, and I sent him an email stating as much, asking if I could perhaps get on again Thursday morning to finish.

After all that, I was a little stressed and talked to Debbie about maybe going over to spend the night with her - thought maybe a little time with my sweetie would be comforting. But when I got there, and she opened the door, I could tell immediately that she was upset. Apparently, Emilee had let into her about me coming over, saying that she should have asked her about it first, that Debbie didn't listen to her, and that the relationship with me was going to end up just like the one with Fred did. I tried to convince her to not let it get to her, but I know how it is when someone upsets me like that - it's not as easy as just forgetting about it. She said that it wouldn't ruin the night though.

And it might not have. But for whatever reason, when we decided to head to bed, and Emilee finally emerged from the bedroom, I was triggered into a state of fear and depression. I almost felt like a kid again, like when my grandpa Everett was drunk, and I would get scared and try to avoid him. Needless to say, it wasn't a pleasant thing to go to sleep thinking, and it was a rough night.

Wow, this post could go on forever. But suffice it to say that I was very depressed yesterday, I think Jason basically told on me to my manager John, who came over and nicely (really) explained some things to me,I did finally finish the hands-on project, and I went to see Diana again last night. Today, I am feeling somewhat better, and though not 100%, am much better than I have been all week. I am still considering whether or not I want to stay in software development for my career, but that is a decision I can come to gradually now - I am through the "panic-get me the hell out of here" mode, which is a relief. And I went to lunch with a couple of the guys here today, Cameron and Michael, and that was nice, so that is cool.

Tomorrow morning, my AA homegroup is doing the hospitality at the Roundup at 7am, then the meeting at 8 after, and I plan on being there. Then, at 11am, I am going to DeVry to sit on a panel for an open house they are having. When I was really depressed yesterday, I sent Deena an email cancelling, as I didn't figure they would want someone there who was thinking of getting out of the field entirely. But I thought how selfish and inconsiderate that was and reconsidered. So I will be there at 10:45. I am supposed to take Tessi school shopping tomorrow afternoon, and of course will spend as much of the weekend as possible with Debbie.

I am hoping that it will be a nice weekend, filled with healing, and the company of loved ones. I am hoping that the worst of the depression and anxiety is behind me, and I can get back on track again - even if I do decide eventually to change career paths, and/or walk away from my condo (another thing I have been leaning towards). The thing is, I don't want to act impulsively out of fear like I used to. And by God's Grace, a good counsellor, AA, and my wonderful girlfriend (as well as a little bit coming from myself, and the tools I have learned), I was able to avoid doing that. I have to remember how huge that is for me, even now. Because I REALLY wanted to run - just run and hide. But I didn't. I'm still  here to face another day, and for that, I am grateful (ok, so I am not totally feeling that just yet - but I'm getting there! Lol)