Swelltide.

A terrible day. In a horrible mood and though I tried not to, took it out on people around me.

Everything sometimes seems to be far more complicated than it needs to be. I couldn't print off something for school, the printer is broken. Go to my parents house, who just happened to get a new computer and printer today. The website is down. All day, have been attempting to study to sound of kids playing, baby crying, television-- always too damn loud. The house is a disaster. I'm retaining nothing that I've been studying for the last couple of days.

Yes, still have the family staying with us at the expense of my sanity, my grades and general peace and quiet. No, I am still not on my meds. Have tried for over a month now to sign up for the healthcare exchanges. Everyone around me knows the amount of stress I'm under, and have really been keeping some distance-- on a personal level. Not that anyone is really trying to make it easier for me. Not that they should and they're smart to back off, I think. I can feel a meltdown coming. A big one. And, I don't really know what to do about it.

School in general has been a disappointment. I have been a disappointment. Taking a break and going back to my tedious, dead-end job-- would be just as depressing and needlessly stressful for different reasons. Something has to give.

Swelltide.

Fuck it all.

Swelltide.

Are you ever overwhelmed by negative thoughts? I am. I was in the middle of a math test tonight and I kept asking myself, "What the hell are you doing?" I have years to go still until I get my bachelor's. What a depressing thought. I will be some kind of statistic. Thirty-somethings who've gone back to get an education....

I am thirty. Say it takes me another three years to complete college. I will be competing with twenty-somethings for work. While this might be something of an advantage-- I mean, who really wants a younger employee? I will end up working for, at some point in my life, someone who is younger. Who did everything right and went to school right out of high-school, graduated at 22, and now runs the show. 

Someone who isn't bipolar. Who shows up for work on time and doesn't feel like they deserve any better. That is what I really think. 

What is the point? Of any of it? I can barely get myself myself out of bed on time. I can barely make it through a normal week without feeling run down. Without feeling like time has been stolen from me. Without feeling tired, and kind of defeated. 

Sometimes, I don't want to go on like this. I don't want to be inept, incapable, the one whose mind isn't working properly for whatever reason. Not a day has gone by that I don't think about this.

I don't like myself. I don't like how I am not like other people. I don't like how seemingly simple things aren't as easy for me as other people. How it always seems to take a little longer for me... How it always takes a little more from me. 

But, I am not ready to give up yet. 

Swelltide.

Feeling isolated.

Study is a very lonely thing. Usually, it's just me and book. Me and and a tornado of notes, homework, and papers. I can go a day without saying more than a hundred words to anyone.

I spent the majority of the day yesterday combating irrational negative thoughts. My abilities as a student. What an awful friend I am. How lazy... how stupid... unstable... finishing up with school was a pipe-dream... can't even get yourself out of bed on time... And, there is some merit to all of it. I'm not a great student. I may have been a little overly ambitious in what I could handle, the kind of work load I could deal with.

But, it doesn't change anything. I still want my degree. I still want away from being stuck in my shitty job. I still want more.

Swelltide.

I've been feeling pretty worthless.

No money. Borrowed some from my parents-- again. No energy. Sick. Can't work enough to cover all of the bills because of school and I'm not doing as well in my classes because I need to work. Still haven't gotten my refund.

All I do is study and worry. Ambition isn't everything, I guess. My brain obviously doesn't work like everyone else's. What should take some people an hour or two can take me three or four. I lose patience with myself. I get distracted. Noise bothers me and the world doesn't seem to want to slow down enough for me to get things done.

Swelltide.

I am trying not to think of everything at once. My mind the last couple of days has been wondering, blundering-- everywhere and nowhere. It happens when I'm under stress. All things seem equally poignant, equally important and I can't then concentrate on any one thing. Makes school difficult. Studying difficult. Makes small talk difficult.

Test tomorrow, and a test next week. Spent a few days in Florida with the girlfriend's family, which was amazing. Went to the beach, had a cookout. Met some of her family for the first time. But, I didn't really do any school work when I was down there. Now, I am playing catch-up, again.

Money issues, again. As in, I have none. Waiting on financial aide which won't come for a week or two (maybe longer). I know that there is no point in worrying about it. But, I do. How can I not? I haven't really been working and I don't have much interest in this job anymore anyway. I want to get away from the people there, who aren't good for me. The schedule, which isn't good for me. The environment. The dead-end. Which is why I started school back in the first place. So, I haven't been going out of my way to make myself available for work. And now, I have no money.

I need a new job. I need my degree already. I need insurance so I can get back on the medication. Go to a therapist. I need for real life to start.

Swelltide.

My last week or so has been pretty rough. It started last Thursday (or Tuesday? I can't remember). Woke up late for a job, which I found out later was scheduled even earlier in the morning and I didn't get the voice message about it. This job was almost two hours away from my house, which I was pretty angry about in the first place. Why me, the guy who is in school and is spending every waking moment studying and doing homework? Why me, the guy who has bent over backwards to make himself available on those days he isn't going to school? When I found out the job was scheduled even earlier, I got even more upset. Anyway, I missed the job after driving all the way out there, then had to make the hour drive to Richmond from it. Stewing the whole time.

On the way to the job, I hit a dog on the main road. I stopped and started to run to run back to it. I could see its legs up in the air and I have this vision of the dog convulsing, foaming at the mouth or bleeding from a gaping wound. I couldn't do it. I stood there thinking of what to do, saw a car coming and just left. I feel terrible for it. I know some people think nothing of killing an animal that walks out in front of their car. Not me. Thinking about it makes me a little queasy. Mad at myself. Guilty because I didn't do everything I could, and trying to justify that rather pathetically by telling myself that I was already running late.

Then the last week of school. Spending ten hours one day studying chemistry that I still don't understand. A whole day on a lab report, and then trying to catch up in everything else. I am scared that this is going to be, yet again, another semester where I fall behind because I am not getting things as quickly as I should. I got an email tonight that my lab report contained a few errors. Sunday, I spent the better part of eight hours doing math homework and algebra review.

I hope it gets better. I cannot, and never have allowed myself to drop a class. Surely my grade suffers for it but I don't need to delay graduation any longer than I already have. I am thirty. Thirty! The age when many are reaching their strides, creating careers. Here I am starting over.

I was reading this article about a L.A. musician. What life was like for him prior to his diagnosis of bipolar... It is equally heartening that there are influential people out there who live with it and do well, and disheartening what even these 'successful' people  put up with-- and put themselves through.  I am desperate at times for people around me to understand what it is really like. Nope, I am not touring all the time and dealing with serious substance abuse-- but the mania is the same. The depression is the same. It helps me, reading about such people, to not feel so isolated or alone.