Facing myself

Man, I'm just a bit too spacey lately to make the promised "this is who I'm reading" posts (I'm gonna have to grab myself a blogroll account and get to linking!). The cognitive effects of bipolar disorder are not always bad, but I've begun to realize that there *are* effects (not positive, unfortunately).

Starting up with school again has made these cognitive effects painfully obvious. Long story short, my algebra class is out and an Anthro class (yes, with my favourite professor) is in. Sitting in class with him on Thursday I realized that although many of his introductory comments were familiar, I'd forgotten who was who - and that my habit of copious note taking was going to have to be put into action from day one. It's definitely a help to read those full paragraph notes when I'm writing up an essay!

Right now it seems my struggle is to accept the facts. Not accept that I'll be like this FOREVER, but that my brain isn't working the same way it used to. Accept that I get stressed out faster than the average person, accept that I have a choice about what I do, even if making that choice makes me 'different'.

Came to the realization this week that it might come down to 4 years of part time school to finish up my B.A. - because I don't want to quit school but I also am unsure that a full time schedule will work for me. My dreams of being done with school by my 40th birthday may not come to pass.

But maybe I should look at it this way: I'm fighting back from a 20 year plus history with this mood disorder. I'm making up for lost time, and for that, I can take time.