I've been busy trying to get things done with the neurotypicals. It's been a bad experience. I cannot work that slow. Delays, red-tape, fevered egos, people with visual impairment, people with aural impairment, people with BOTH -- gosh, it was like trying to get something done when your partners are all Helen Kellers, BEFORE she learned the cue for water and became a poet. These people were so disabled it was like they were way far out on the autism spectrum. It was so frustrating.

I was trying to do a project for my condo apartment building. My idea was to turn our wretched convenience store here in the building, whose lease is expiring, into a bodega specializing in superb fruit, and vegetables. Convenience stores only sell cancer and diabetes. We live in what the urban planners call a "food desert." This is an urban area where there are no shopping opportunities for healthy food. There are 2000 people in our neighborhood -- more than enough to support a mid-range small grocery store bodega.

There are 17,000 bodegas in New York City. Half of them are owned by Yemeni immigrants. The other half are a mix, mostly Hispanics. A bodega earning revenues of $500,000 a year (mid-range) would provide a profit of 20% to 30%, or $100,000 to $150,000. This far exceeds the profits from a convenience store.

I did a rudimentary business plan, and all sorts of hours of online research. I prepared a display of products the bodega would carry. I created an entrepreneur's pitch, and practiced it with my neighbors until i got it down to three minutes.

The monthly owners' meeting arrived, and building management would NOT let me speak! Not for three bleeping minutes! Rats! I had all these visual aids (a flip chart, samples of products to hold up), music over my hidden Blue Tooth speaker while i took the floor, alcohol free wine and alcohol free beer samples, homemade confetti, etc.

I wanted to do an entrepreneur's pitch first thing in the meeting, because the matter of the convenience store closing is divisive, and controversial. I knew the meeting would turn ugly if i did not offer a solution to all our problems first on the agenda, before everyone started yelling.

But they wouldn't let me speak, and just as i expected, the meeting turned ugly, and a fight almost broke out. It was a real bleep-show. I did not even attend, as i am sensitive to rancor, and knew it would upset me to be exposed to all that negative energy. My neighbors told me about it the next day. We all agreed that all the ugliness, and fighting could have been avoided if management had only let me speak for my measley three minutes.

Honestly, management does not act in their own best interests in this building! I did all that work for free. Well, there was a screw-up with my grocery delivery order, and i got four free bottles of alcohol free wine, so that's something. It also brought me closer to my neighbors, so that's worthwhile too.

I don't know. I exchanged a maelstrom of emails with building management, so they have all my research, and a rudimentary business plan, so maybe something will come of it in time. I just cannot work with those people, they are so slow, and entitled, questioning how i arrived at every little decision i made. It was enormously frustrating trying to work that way.

I worked on a franchising project for the federal government in the nineties as the department computer programmer, have a univerisity degree, and am a quick learn. I am friends with the convenience store owner/operators, a loving Middle-Eastern family who have done me countless kindnesses. I am experienced enough to launch a small business.

I did not intend to manage the project permanently, for health reasons. But i feel well enough to take on a nine month project, as that is how long it would have taken to re-imagine the convenience store into a bodega selling mainly superb fruit, vegetables, and other healthy foods.

It's also in MY best interests that we replace the convenience store, which sells mainly junk, with a healthy food option. I am taking an interest in my physical health, and without a car, there is no way i can get fruit and veg other than to order them online from a delivery service. This is expensive, and not sustainable permanently.

I've been experimenting with cooking. I can now make excellent vegan rice and bean dishes. I've shared my cooking with my neighbors, and they have all been in raptures over them. But, again, it's expensive ordering fruit and veg online, so this is not sustainable permanently either.

I don't know what to do. Shopping in-person is a nightmare. It shreds my psyche to be exposed to all that stimulation, and the horror that is currently public transit in my city. I've tried to invite myself along grocery shopping with my closest neighbor, but she uses a meal delivery service, and only does the occasional grocery shopping trip for bread, eggs, milk, etc., so that's not really practical.

So: it's an obstacle i cannot overcome at this time. I'll limp along with online grocery shopping for the moment, but i have to save for retirement, or rather for when i turn 65 and lose 67% of my disability benefits income.

Cooking is not affordable. The start-up costs of stocking my kitchen have been steep. I'm hoping it will be worth it in the long run, but the steep price of eating healthy is discouraging, compared to the affordability of eating chips and pop.

It's just not right that eating healthy should be MORE expensive than eating junk. After all, with a steady diet of junk, one ends up being a burden on the health care system, as it destroys your health. High blood pressure, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, heart disease, cancer, you name it, eating junk will get you in the end.

But i just don't have the money to eat healthy. I've clawed into my savings and i've only been at it six weeks. Hopefully the costs will settle down once the capitol costs of setting up my kitchen (new heavy-duty fry pan, an order of a ton of staples, seasonings, herbs, spices -- all expensive).

So: thing are not going that well. Part of the problem with the bodega project was having to interact closely with neurotypicals. That project did not suit me. I am a one-man-band, always have been. I move faster when i go alone. I cannot tolerate having my judgement questioned, having to persuade people of my every tiniest decision, dealing with the sight and hearing impaired seniors, delays, red-tape, bureaucracy, all the negativity, and their attempts to destroy my joy.

So i'm putting that project in my rearview mirror. It was fun to work on, and that will have to be enough. I can't do much if management won't support me. That is not going to change. It's a deal-breaker for me. Best to cut my losses and move on.

My diagnosis got reclassified from bipolar (which was never a firm diagnosis anyways, the doctor was so ambivalent about it, he wrote "atypical, mild form" in his notes, which isn't even a thing in the DSM). The first doctor i saw didn't know what to do with me, and just made something up for insurance coding purposes.

The bipolar meds have NEVER worked. I found out why, when the diagnosis of "Prolonged Grief Disorder" (PGD) came up in my support group. Turns out this has been a new diagnosis since the 2022 revision of the DSM. PGD much more accurately describes my experience. There was the and the long years of Stockholm Syndrome, befriending my horrific parents for the purposes of survival when i felt intense contempt for them,

Then there was my divorce at 29, which, while not grief due to death, was still intense grief due to the rejection by my beloved husband, and the deafening silence of his absence in my life.

There was the grief of becoming too disabled to work, and losing my career, which was my whole identity.

Then there was the recent death of my younger sister, probably due to a lethal dose of alcohol. She was only 53, and i am astounded that of the two of us, it is *i* who have survived, being that she was so much better adjusted than me, so much healthier, physically, and mentally. She had anger mangement issues tho, and anger can poison you.

Well, i'll leave it at that, and thank the few of you who have made it thru this long, long post. I'll try to get back here participating on the forum, as i surely am not successful out among the neurotypicals.