On Mental Roadblocks

or, how worrying about getting a visa consumes you when applying to college...

Hello! Dylan here again, and today, we’ll talk about roadblocks.

a concrete roadblock (attribution: HurwiczRocks under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license)

No, no, no, not that kind of roadblock. I’m referring to a mental roadblock - an impasse in my mind that prevents something from happening in my life.

What do I mean by roadblock?

To best understand this, I will try to illustrate the way that my mind works things out. The rough outline goes as follows:

1. Figure out what I am going to do,

2. Research the steps needed to do the thing that I want to do, and then

3. Execute the plan based on the steps I figured out in 2.

This seems all good, right? In theory, yes. I would argue this is probably the way a lot of people do big things in life - they plan something out, and then execute, and then wait and see what happens. To these people, the path from A to B is clear - it might be difficult, but it’s clear:

how going from A to B looks to a normal person

For me, it’s a bit different. I value having certainty in plans. By this, I mean that I want to be assured that the outcome is guaranteed, and that there is nothing stopping me from achieving what I set out to do. This usually requires more research on my part. Normally, this is not a big deal, however, if I reach a point where there is any sort of uncertainty, there will be questions floating in my head. Essentially, what my mind does is that it moves a task (or the goal itself) out of reach. Pictorially, it looks like this:

how going from A to B may look like for me if there are doubts. The cloud represents the roadblocks obscuring the route to B.

Let’s go through a few examples.

Applying for college

In my last post I stated that in a footnote that I would tell the story regarding Cambridge University at some point in the future. It turns out that this story will help illustrate the point that I am portraying here, so I will tell it.

For this, we have to go back to the fall of 2013. At this point in my life I was in my final year of high school - a time where most students are thinking about their next step in life, whether that be going on to college or entering the workforce. I wanted to become a physicist, which requires a college degree. So, obviously I had to look into colleges.

At this point I was deep into the Gifted Math Program, a program hosted by the University of Buffalo (UB) which offers some talented students the opportunity to receive college credit in some math courses¹. Naturally, it would make sense to me to apply there for undergraduate studies, as the credits would seamlessly transfer (ultimately, I did go there).

Of course, it would make sense to have some alternate places, just in case UB would reject me. Through some thought I came up with a shortlist of 4 places that I would try to apply to:

• UB

• University of Rochester

• California Institute of Technology

• Cambridge University

It’s the last place on the list that this discussion will delve into. Cambridge was on the list as my idol, Stephen Hawking, was present there. So I figured, why not try it?

Well, there is a slight problem - Cambridge is not in the United States, but rather in England, and I am not a citizen of the United Kingdom. So, I would need a visa in order to do my studies there. I explained this to my mother, but she had stated that I would have to apply first, and then, upon acceptance, then apply for the visa. Yet I was insistent that I need the visa first before applying. This sort of argument continued for some time, until after the deadline passed for applying. So, basically, the visa application acted as a roadblock for me, mentally. In hindsight, it really wasn’t a roadblock, as according to the Cambridge University International Student Office the visa application has to be supported by a confirmation of acceptance. Obviously, as I didn’t have that (and never submitted an application for review in the first place), the visa application would have failed. So really, this was a non-issue, and I should have just tried to apply if I wanted to go, and then worry about the visa if I was accepted.

Of course, there would have been other issues if I was accepted - I would have been going to a nation in Europe, which I have not done². I would also have to have gone alone, and at the time I really didn’t do much in regards to life skills, so there would be the question of whether I would be able to handle myself. Money would have likely been a concern as well. So maybe it was better that I didn’t apply.

Now, you may think, well, from this incident, did I learn not to make unnecessary road blocks? No, of course not. I still do so now.

The situation now

Ten years later, we are in a similar situation as we were then with applying to college. I am trying to figure out the next step in life, which would be getting a job and/or setting up a career in something. There are a few avenues available for me:

1. Continue to push on for my PhD in physics, and then, upon receiving the degree, look for a clinical position at a university. The issue here is whether I can find a job locally.

2. Look for some sort of teaching position at a high school or equivalent, teaching physics. This is promising, as there are likely more positions available. There is the issue of certification which I would have to go through, and I would be have to be trained, which requires time.

3. A lot of my time is spent on Microsoft Flight Simulator, simulating either real flights, or doing flights on the VATSIM network which have volunteers act as air traffic controllers (ATC). The ATC aspect is quite interesting, and with the FAA looking for more people to do this in real life, this could be an interesting avenue. This would require me to be trained in this role, and might require me to move for training and/or placement at a facility, which I view as a roadblock.

4. Look for some sort of advocacy work for people with disabilities, as a continuation of my current job, which is acting as a disability specialist for Niagara County. Perhaps this can be still with the county itself.

With a lot of these avenues, I’ve set these blocks out, and then they fester, leaving me overwhelmed while I do nothing.

So, how do I fix this issue?

This is still something that I am working on. One thing I am trialing is writing things down on a whiteboard to keep track of certain things that I need to get down, and then checking them off when I get to it. That way, I can visualize my progress.

Question for you all, but particularly I am interested in what neurodivergents have to say: have you put up mental roadblocks? How have you resolved them?

That’s all for now - check back soon for new content. Or subscribe, so you don’t miss out on future emails:

1. These are, at the time that I was in the program, MTH 141 (Calculus I), MTH 142 (Calculus II), MTH 241 (Calculus III) and MTH 309 (Linear Algebra). At the time of this happening I was in Calculus III.

2. I still wish to go to Europe at some point.