Well hello everyone. I have decided it is time for a new update. Here I am in the confines of my bedroom in the group home I have been staying in for the past 3 weeks. I am just typing away on my laptop on my bed. Lots of good news has come thus far though. The group home I am staying at is actually really nice, I have met some wonderful people and I will miss them dearly when I leave. Alas I am moving to better places and better things; I am moving to Towson Maryland. I am finally doing this after years of procrastination doing this. This is very exciting for me because I get to start at a whole new college and a whole new life. And I get to have my own apartment for the first time in my life. And I will be seen by some of the best Doctors in this country at Sheppard Pratt Hospital.

My plan is to arrive in Maryland and get all my things unpacked and then I have some top priorities on the list to do. I will start school in January to take pre requisites for the Certified Nursing Aide program. One may ask, why would you want to be a CNA of all things?? Well CNA’s work in healthcare environments and they are the first responders to the patient/resident. My grandfather is 98 years old and was recently placed in a memory care unit for people with dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, and that has touched me to work with people who have dementia and Alzheimer’s. Words can’t explain how hard it must be to have gotten that far in your life and then your brain spontaneously shuts down and you can’t even take yourself to the bathroom. Those are the people I want to work with. I think it will be very rewarding for me.

Aside from school and appointments in Towson I am looking forward to catching up with some old friends of mine, a few in particular ;) I am nervous but thrilled all at the same time. I think anyone in my situation would be a little nervous about something like this. It turns out I am going to probably have a roommate as well. I am looking forward to this because I won’t be completely alone, I will have someone there to say hi to when I come home. I am also looking forward to meeting new people I have never met before. I want to sit in Barnes and Noble and drink coffee and do homework, I want to watch Netflix late at night in my own apartment, and I want to be my own person. This is all so exciting for me.

My mental health has been on the middle of the priority list lately. I have been doing “average” for someone with Bipolar and an eating disorder. I am finally at my goal weight after years of going far below it and years of being above it. So I am very proud of that, but I still am completely repelled by the way I look and I still have eating disorder symptoms but I am stable. My Bipolar Disorder is not so stable in my prospective but that may be the way it is for a very long time. I have tried lithium, I even tried Depakote for 2 weeks but I didn’t like it. There is nothing else left to try, so I am trying to just push the crowded thoughts out of my head. I know eventually everything will be okay. I am currently on Topamax, Geodon, Pristiq, and Valium for anxiety. Geodon is supposed to be helping me the most.

I talked with my therapist and it seems that I have a personality disorder in addition to Bipolar Disorder 1, and EDNOS at the moment. My diagnoses change sometimes though. All that nonsense doesn’t even matter, all that matters is that my life is stable and I am doing okay. The rest is all for the insurance. I am still thinking long term what I want to do with my education and I have a strong desire to write. I want to write a novel, my life’s story a Shakespearian tragedy and comedy of Marissa’s life. That’s what I want to do long term, but I don’t know if that will work out because I am not sure if my parents will send me to school for that. Money is limited and getting a Master’s degree in writing may not be practical for me but I hope to pursuit it at some point. There are just so many opportunities out there. Hey you never know once I start working as a CNA, I might really like that work and just decide to stick with that. You never really know. I am really happy to be back blogging and I think I will get back into it full time now that I have more time on my hands. I am going to school 2 days per week but other than that I will have some time to dedicate to this blog.

 

 “You cannot find peace by avoiding life.”

~Virginia Woolf