The ferry ride home from the beach. I had a really nice day today. I met an old high school and college friend at our old university town and we had lunch and walked across campus and got a cup of coffee before heading home, each our separate ways. She's very impressive, studying Chinese, has written a book about her bipolar experience, and generally full of plans for the new year. We had a lot in common, including the way our forties were a complete write off. She too, started smoking because of the hospital policy to let smokers go outside twice a day. I haven't talked to anyone with such similar experiences. When I was in hospital, which was many times, I found that everyone was a lot younger than I am. We were friendly because they thought I was their age, like high school or early twenties - I didn't start to look my age until about 45. I remember them though and wonder how they are all doing. I felt very good. I realised, in walking across campus and talking about our lives, that I am very happy with where I have ended up. This is a new development. I look back on the dark, unstable years and I just give myself credit for trying - I studied, edited a film, made a little single with my musician brother, had a great photography job for a while. I mean, it all ended up in successive stays in the hospital and there were many "wasted" months, but at least I really, really tried to start something new again.
I have put more thought into how to start the rest of my life, now that I have found some - just some - stability with Latuda. For instance, I worked at an art and framing shop when I was at university for a few years and last week I wanted to frame a photograph for my Mom's Christmas present. I thought, what if I could just volunteer at a frame shop for a day or two a week as an experiment? I went into the shop, but I began to feel a bit confused and found it hard to focus - I was trying to keep up with his measurement calculations for the frame, which I used to be able to do very easily. I thought then that it was still just too soon to think of trying anything like that. I felt the passage of years since I last had that, or any, job and I realised that my pattern, whenever I start a new medicine, has been to bounce back to school or a job, which ends up in a hospital stay shortly thereafter, which means a new medicine, it's just a vicious circle. I think I am just at the point where I have to accept the fact that I am disabled, and to adjust my thinking to fit that, in order to stay out of hospital. The onset of an episode has occurred other times, like when I tried to investigate what it would take to put together a site online for my film and photographic work. My mind starts racing and I just destabilise. The same thing happened a couple of days ago when I googled around for photographic clubs in my state. I found a couple and joined, they were free to join and offer a couple of free workshops a year along with lots of photo ops in studios or on location, for quite hefty fees, which I can't afford. I decided that if I make it to just one free workshop in the next couple of years, that that is as much of a challenge as I can meet in my present condition. I am reminded that I felt even better on Haldol at first than I do on Latuda, but as I kept taking it, I plunged into a depression and had a lot of the negative symptoms of schizophrenia for the first time since the onset of schizophrenia in the first place. I actually needed some hospitalisation during some of that but I just lay low in bed for about three years and no one really noticed much. I feel good on Latuda now, but it has only been three months. I don't know how it will be like say next summer or thereafter. I just don't think I will have what it takes to actually be a professional again, I'm not steady enough for that as I have already had three-day benders with voices and hallucinations, like I had on Haldol. It's just when that's not happening, I'm better, I wash and brush my teeth and hair and am able to try things like short bouts of painting or a little photoshop session. I mean, it's nice, but I think I will never be in shape to be a professional again. I just have to be happy with managing my illness to the best of my ability.
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