Growth in progress

Six years ago today, I was in the hospital having a heart attack. I'm here today because a young ER doc, unlike eight years of ER docs before him, did not write me off as a panic attack. He asked me to stay, so he could check my troponin levels in case it was a heart attack. I am ever-grateful.

I was having a heart attack because six years ago yesterday, I was laid off. That's fine, I've been through org restructures before - but this was a job I had poured myself into for years, including getting the highest award possible for someone in my position (a rare platinum award, approved by the CEO himself). I had displayed entrepreneurial spirit, team support, innovation, and put in many long hours. Being laid off was a shock.

I was an example of broken heart syndrome. A coronary artery (in my case, the "widow maker") spasmed and blocked blood flow to my heart, sufficient to cause a myocardial infarction and damage the heart muscle. Argh.

I know this because six years ago tomorrow, my cardiologist went into my heart via catheter, fully expecting to put in a stent, and discovered there was no blockage but there was some damage. Investigating further, he diagnosed me with Prinzmetal angina. (It's been six years, and I still can't get the mental image of Prince doing a head-banging, heavy metal guitar move out of my head.)

That wasn't the scary part.

Well, okay, the heart attack was scary, but it was over. And the hospital staff had been extremely kind. When they discovered my birthday was six years ago tomorrow, they made me a makeshift card, got me balloons, and brought me a piece of cake. Too wonderful! It almost distracted me from being laid off and having a heart attack.

No, the scary bit was twofold.

First, I sat in my cardiologist's office a few days later and was firmly told my condition was serious. Apart from the heart attack, it turned out that people diagnosed with Prinzmetal angina had a 1 in 20 chance of being dead in five years. I needed physical therapy to learn how to exercise appropriately for my heart. I needed four meds (three daily, one rescue). I needed lifestyle changes. Above all, I needed to adjust the stress level in my life.

Second, I was about to start a new business. I'd spent the first day in the hospital thinking, I can't have a heart attack, I have to hunt for a job. I'd spent the second thinking, I can't hunt for a new job, I just had a heart attack. The third day I came out of my reactionary shock and started contemplating options. I needed to break out of my situation.

The reasoning went thus: I was a highly skilled designer, with an exceptional track record of innovation and great results, who still got included in a layoff even after working her heart out at a large, solid company. If I couldn't trust a company to keep me when I was working at my best, I should start my own company. Which I officially did, about a month later.

Thank you, Place That Let Me Go

At this point I want to thank The Place That Let Me Go, because the heart attack led to the diagnosis, which led to meds that suddenly made me stronger, more capable, and able to exercise, lose weight, etc. Also, starting my own company let me learn just how much creativity and energy had been held back by a poor work environment. Now it was unleashed.

However...

Stress is a constant

I am not going to bore you with the story of UXtraordinary, my now-defunct business. I chose work that required more movement: teaching! I taught data visualization usability, how to ensure minimum viable UX when you couldn't afford a designer, and consulted doing UX bootcamps. I set a goal of earning at least as much as I was worth at The Place That Let Me Go, and I surpassed that. I took a risk and joined a startup begun by two former Dell colleagues (I was chief design officer). Then life happened, and suddenly it was clear the level of physical effort required by teaching was not going to be possible anymore.

(Hey, why is it that "life happened" almost always means a negative event? Life happens in a positive way, too. It's like people who say, "They showed their true colors" when someone acts out; unless someone is a spy or otherwise involved in long-term deceit, aren't a person's true colors everything they do? Or is it just me who thinks this way?)

Regardless, stress happened, like it does to every single one of us.

• The workarounds and necessities from a newly-acquired disability showed me how much my family and friends supported me.
• A deceitful manager showed me workplaces could still be unpleasant. (Really, who promises a usability role to one person, then instead assigns it to others without telling the first person they've been excluded, and then cowardly avoids the meeting announcing all that? And that wasn't the only time they told me something utterly different from the rest of the team. I have since realized taking people at their word is a particular peril for autistic souls.)
• A new remote job, found through a former student, showed me places existed where poor behavior had consequences and even an autistic oddball could feel safe.
• A moment of bravery led to pitching a book and getting an actual book contract (I haven't forgotten, Marta!). Writing non-fiction is hard but satisfying.
• Getting a formal diagnosis and diving into my autism changed how I viewed my life, my past, and my future.
• A pandemic happened to us all.

We are the change (oh, I know. But it's a literal truth.)

So, stress is a constant. But in the equation of life, even if stress is a constant, other things are not. Some of those are:

• How to approach how we interact with other humans; how to think about how we act. My husband and I felt the stress of the pandemic (and everything else), but we knew we were stressed by all that. We had trouble finding therapy because so many others were seeking therapy, too. But much hunting on YouTube for stress relief led to a Thich Nhat Hanh video (I think it was about anger), in which he recommended understanding that the person yelling or being inflammatory in an argument is unskilled, and that you are probably unskilled in response. Recognizing this as an unskilled expression of suffering made it much easier to (a) be compassionate in the moment, (b) work on our own skill set before picking on the other person's, and (c) find the humor in two unskilled, middle-aged folks learning all over how to be in love in a pandemic. This approach helps with everyone, though you might not want to tell your coworkers or your boss to up their interaction skills.
• How we eat. Ok, I have not been good at this the past few months. But eating food that is anti-inflammatory can reduce many stress-inflammation symptoms. For me, a lowish-carb Mediterranean diet with absolutely no sugar is best; for you, it might be a bit different. I strongly advise searching on this.
• Be kind to yourself. This could be anything from giving yourself some gaming time to meditating to buying that cool thing to trusting yourself to do something you've never done before.
• Do something. Doesn't have to be something big, just something that makes you feel like you did something you wanted to. I find useful is strongly correlated with happy for me, so all I have to do is something small and useful and I'm good for a bit. Plant a few seeds and see what happens.
• Reevaluate your situation. If you're caught in a system that isn't working for you, how can you change that? Whatever it is, you may be able to improve it by asking for help, or changing your approach, or simply removing yourself from it (finding a new job, for example). I know none of these things are easy, because I've been in situations where I felt absolutely trapped by circumstance. On the other hand, I took a risk late last year and I am now in my dream design job. I've had years of job heartache, but sometimes things work out.
• Fight the good fight. So much of what happens to us is literally beyond our control. We can take charge of how we react to it, but we depend on people running much larger systems to make good choices. If you see something not being addressed (my personal, constant, gnawing-in-the-back-of-my-head concern is climate change), speak up! Speak out (civilly) on social media, call your representatives, see if there's something you can do to help, however small. Send a few dollars to a reliable charity. Drops fill the bucket.
• Above all, keep growing. Remember you are a living creature, and you must change and learn and grow as part of life. It takes effort to suppress that, but so many people do, I don't know why. Imagine you are a tenacious pine on a hillside, or blackberries spreading and providing good food, or a giant redwood tall enough to see all the sun's arc, or a comfortable, lovely pot of petunias, or a bulb, waiting to sprout with spring. All life grows and matures, and learns what all those changes are like.

Wait a moment - is stress really a constant?

So now it has been six years since my heart attack. I have not had another. I have had challenges, but I've learned through them. For me, in this moment, the only way out is through; the only constant is change. The stress happens when I forget that and try to control things. Maybe that means stress isn't a constant unless I make it so? I don't know.

Hoping for at least six more years with all of you! That's all; hope it was useful.

(Below, some hearts painted by Seattle school kids at a bus stop. I loved the bus stops in Seattle.)