The Bipolar Express

Last Train to Memphis?

Well, it might be the last train to nowhere, but we'll see.

At our therapy appointment on Monday - scheduled at noon Monday on a somewhat emergency basis - Mark assigned us to write down if we want to stay married, if we think we should stay married, and if yes, "how the hell are you finally gonna learn to show respect for yourselves and the other person?" (As I've mentioned before, the man doesn't mince words!)

So, after much thought and gnashing of teeth I've written a FOUR PAGE thesis in the third person. It reads like a social worker's write-up of a consultation with a couple. It sounds crazy, but using the third person was the only way I could keep my hyper-emotional self out of it. Crying until I puke is not going to get anything done during tonight's session.

In other news, my boss is going to place me on "informal intervention." It's like pre-probation. What it's really like is driving for hours and hours with a police car behind you. You make sure you do absolutely everything right, but you still have a knot in your stomach the whole time.

One of the things she's going to mention is my extremely poor attendance. I've consulted with my union rep and asked if he thinks I should reveal the bipolar disorder. It is basically at the root of everything that I am possibly doing wrong. Needing med changes, getting med changes cause psychiatric upheaval that cause me to miss work. Missing work, after my 10 days are up, means missing income, which causes more stress, which causes more anxiety which triggers a depressive episode. We have yet to find an anti-anxiety med that doesn't cause mania.

That's life today.

How're you?

Still Breathin'

Well, I'm still here. I still have no answers to life's myriad problems, but have continued to put one foot in front of the other for a whole week.

I went back to work last Tuesday. I found out on Wednesday that I missed a Very Important Meeting. (yeah, right) on Tuesday morning, and my ass is probably still in a sling.

None of my students had been told I'd be back, even though I e-mailed all the schools' secretaries, so I basically did nothing all week. My students have a big concert with all the other students from the various geographic areas of our district. The music for this concert has to be checked out from the central music library which is inconveniently located and not open when I need it to be. Further, I was absent when the selections were announced, so most of the music will be gone when I go to get it tomorrow.

I e-mailed my colleagues and explained my predicament. Not only is no one willing to send me a few stinkin' copies of music, no one even responded to the e-mail! Nice, huh?

I'm eating like a premenstrual maniac, and I'm not even close to that week. I had 200 carbs today, and I continue to exhibit compulsive/addictive behavior, not only with food, but with drink as well. Last night I had three cocktails before bed. Then I got up in the middle of the night and had a protein bar, a glass of milk, and a bagel with butter and brown sugar! Good God in heaven, what the hell am I thinking?? I don't know what's at the root of this food orgy, but I have to get a handle on it before there's another set of handles on me!!

The new quarter starts next week - for my paralegal studies. I'm taking Legal Research & Writing II, and Torts. The texts for both classes are the same ones they use at the prestigious law school downtown. Yeah, one's not hard enough. Let's take two!! Moron...

One fun thing: tomorrow I'm having a fancy lunch - I usually have a lean pocket and a quart of water - with the local paralegal association. Chicken parmesan. Yum! (Boy, I am easily amused.)

That's all my ramblings for now. OH! Except for one... I have a friend who lost her job last week. In addition, she recently lost her boyfriend, and her mother is nagging her from 1500 miles away to come home. (I sense that while she's home, she'd spend most of the time getting ragged at for the very things that the rest of the world admires her for!)

Anyway, she posted this info on a board I participate in, and the well-meaning readers wrote post after post about how this is a "new beginning" and she's "so lucky" and she can "go anywhere she wants" because she doesn't "have a husband or children" to weigh her down.

What a bunch of crap! Let's remind her that she's alone, shall we? Let's remind her that she's lost a job she loved and a man she loved in the same week. It's not like if we don't remind her, she won't know. As Billy Crystal once said "why don't you give me a paper cut and pour lemon juice on it."

I DO NOT understand how otherwise intelligent and reasonably compassionate people could so completely miss the point!

If you're reading, hon, know that you are not alone. And this progression of life events truly sucks. You have no reason to feel bad that you're not "embracing the future" or whatever pile of crap snowballed in that thread.

I wish I could be there with you, get drunk with you, rail at the unfairness of it all. I feel so bad that someone so wonderful has to go through something so terrible by herself.

Sometimes life just really isn't fair, and that's all there is to it.

From Bad to Worse?

Things are bad here. Very bad.
I was going to "flunk" (read - gentlewoman's 'C') my advanced research class, so I dropped it.

I'm still home - unpaid - from my accident.

I have an appointment with my PS to talk about a scar revision for my belly. I have adhesions under the vertical scar because he did such a crappy job, and it hurts/pulls when I move.

Haven't exercised since before the 1/24 car accident. Have gained 7 pounds. Back to 180 again. It makes me cry to type that.

The family situation is horrid. I don't think Jack is ever going to be able to have a steady, loving relationship with my boys, and I positively cannot stand his daughter most days. It hasn't always been this way. But it is seriously time for her to graduate college and get the hell out on her own. She's almost 22 and acts it about 10% of the time. The rest of the time she acts like a irresponsible child with a filthy mouth. Nice combo, let me tell ya.

Example: over the weekend she borrowed R.J.'s car. She brought it back reeking of smoke, and with a nearly-empty tank. R.J. is allergic to cigarette smoke; it gives him migraines. So he can't even drive or ride in his own car. AND it has leather interior, so you know damned well someone was actually smoking in there; it wasn't just the amount of smokiness you get from "bar clothes." That wouldn't sink into leather that fast. I am so pissed.

I am pissed at life. I am teary, fat, in pain, and fear that my marriage and family are about to fall apart completely. I have no RL friends and I can't talk to my Mom about anything important, so I'm all alone.

I'm so tired of thinking that stability and happiness are just around the corner. There is no fucking corner. Just a cruel twist or turn here and there to make me think there's hope.

There isn't. Time I faced that.

Mildly Freaking Out

You remember that memo I finished the other day for Advanced Legal Research? Well, I got it back this morning with a big, fat 85% at the top. The teacher was very positive in her comments, but a certain degree of frustration seeped through as well. Apparently in my citation work, I did not use the format we discussed in class. (I have no recollection of this discussion, but have no doubt that it took place. Did I mention that this class starts at 8:00 on a Saturday morning?????)

Our next assignment is another memo, but this one has two or three separate legal issues within it, rather than the single issue contained within the first memo. She said if this one is done well, it will be 7-10 pages long. (The last one was 4.)

Here's where the freaking out comes in: due to having an incompetent boob as a teacher for Intro to Legal Research, who didn't know how to lecture, explain, grade... in other words teach!! I ended up with a B. I don't mind getting a B (well, ok, I do, but not if I've earned it.) I earned an A in her class without a doubt.

If I end up with a B in Adv. Research, I will likely have trouble finding an internship and later a job. I know that sounds a bit extreme, but legal research is what paralegals do all day: look up an issue, find precedential cases, make the necessary arguments, etc., and wrap it in a nice neat document to submit to the supervising attorney(s.) If I'm not absolutely 100% sure of the techniques involved in this to be successful, I will not be retained long, even if I am hired.

Drugs: My psych just increased my mood stabilizer, but eliminated my Ritalin. She feels that the stimulant effect of the Ritalin is throwing me into manic episodes. Unfortunaely, the higher the manic, the lower the succeeding depression. So I'm an inattentive, spastic mess right now, who's future career requires a level-headed, detail-oriented person who simply doesn't make errors; at least not big ones, and not small ones often.

What's really sadly ironic is that I absolutely love to do research! (I know, I'm a freak. I also used to enjoy diagramming sentences!)

I'm going to make an outline for what I have to do this weekend, both for school, work, and home, and stick to it faithfully. My family is going to have to take back burner for awhile.

Oh, and I'm also behind at my job.

You know that pre-flight spiel you get about oxygen masks? "If you're traveling with someone who needs assistance, please secure your own mask first before assisting others." My household has turned into that atmosphere, and I keep running around adjusting everyone else's "masks" and then find myself unable to breathe. (sometimes literally.)

Mom's stuff's gotta come first for a few weeks, maybe longer. The youngest kids are 12, for god's sake. They should be able to function without me standing over them.

That reminds me: I was reading another blog which mentioned adult children who never really leave home; never really cut the apron strings. I think when I was a single Mom - even though it was only for 2.5 years - I babied them a lot. Probably out of guilt. Then, I've continued babying the twins because they're the size of 9 year-olds. So, I tend to treat them as if they were 8-9, and then when I get frustrated, I'm all - "You're 12 years old! It's time to grow up a little!!"

Poor kids.... Momma's nuts! lol...

Back to the Grind

Starbucks, here I come!

Well, after my sort-of-four-day weekend, it's time to go back to work. If you can call what I do work.
I spent four years in undergrad, two years getting my Master's and have taught on and off for 20 years.

My latest teaching assignment is elementary band. I teach in five low-income schools. Unfortunately, in addition to their myriad of other problems, low-income students' families cannot afford to buy instruments. Because our district is so poor, we don't have enough instruments for all the students who are interested in playing, so my enrollment is abysmally low.

Among my five schools, I have a grand total of twenty students. My colleagues who teach in more affluent neighborhoods have that many students in each of their buildings.

During a 6-hour day, 8 hours minus lunch and plan time, I teach an average of two hours. Sounds like a great gig, right? Teach a little, sit around and do nothing the rest of the day. Well, if there's a treatment for brain paralysis, I'm going to need it soon!

The good thing about it is that I have time to do the homework for my paralegal studies. The bad thing is that my "teaching spaces" are on stages, in oversized closets, and underheated hallways; not conducive to teaching or studying.

Two weeks before Thanksgiving we had a "lock-down" at one of the buildings because there was gunfire in the street in front of the school. Thank God no one was at recess. I wasn't there that day, but it scares the hell out of me every time I go there.

My husband works in a high-rise, ultra-high security building. He has to swipe himself into the building, onto his floor, and into his office. I can't wait to work in an environment like that when I'm a paralegal. I'll be working more hours for less money, but I'll actually be using my brain. What a concept.

Oh, and PS - I weighed in at 181.4 this morning.

I think I'll go get some cheese to go with my whine.

Thanks for "listening."

Student? Teacher?

My poor feeble little mind is completely confused!!

We had a workday at school today - teachers only, no students - in order to get report cards done. I also have a major assignment in my Legal Research II class tomorrow morning at 8:00.

So I did what any lazy-ass college student would do: I worked on the assignment all morning and most of the afternoon. (We have Monday off work, so I'll do the report cards then and try not to feel too guilty.)

I'm getting really close to finishing my paralegal certificate. I have two classes and my internship left. I'm excited to be progressing along this new path, but also somewhat apprehensive.

Financially, beginning this new career will cost me about an $8000 pay cut; something we can ill afford right now, especially after purchasing a new car last month! Although it was desperately needed, that is an additional $5000/year expense.

At the same time, I am so burned out on teaching and so ready to start a career that is more challenging to me and - eventually! - more financially rewarding. (The income potential is much greater than teaching, where I've pretty much topped out.

One thing I'm afraid of is that I enjoy studying in this field just because I enjoy studying period. I love to go to school. (I know, GEEK!) I would dearly love to go to law school. If I could find someone who'd pay me to take classes, I'd be happy as a pig in mud. Since that is unlikely to happen (!) I need to find a career that I will enjoy most of the time.

Has anyone made a major mid-life career change? How did it work out for you? Any suggestions on how to make a smooth transition?