Life of a Middle-Aged Student: August 2011

Welcome to My Bumpy Ride.......

Before you all read on, I guess it is best to introduce myself to you and let you know a bit about myself. I am Susan, and first and foremost, I am a mother to a wonderful young man. Though he is grown, he will always be that three year old little boy, that asked all those questions and expected answers to them all. Though I will tell you much about myself in this blog there is no one or nothing that is as important to me as him, even if I don't discuss him much, because he kina likes to remain private.

For years I was actively trying to find myself, but that was a big waste of time, since by doing so I was not living. All my life I have always known that I was "different", but was unable to know why that was. I first thought that perhaps it was because I was adopted, but that was not the case. Turns out, I am bipolar and pretty much have been all my life. This was explained to me about nine years ago when I had a major melt down. I tend to be more on the depressive side, but have on occasion been quite manic. My last episode was early thru mid 2008, with full blown depression. For five months, I bearly left my house, let alone my bed. Why am I telling you this? I just want it out in the open and let you understand that I discuss my illness from time to time.

Present day, I am currently a full time student, studying social work. At the end of 2011 I was approached by a mentor of mine, who mentioned a new program that was going to launch here in Rhode Island. This new program called the Peer Wellness Coaching, was something that I had always wished would become a reality and to add even more excitement was the fact that this mentor was inviting me to train for a position as one of the Peer Wellness Coaches.

So currently (spring 2012) I am part of the three phases of training and should be employed by the fall of 2012. What is even more excellent about this program is that they are aware of my education goals and are willing to work with me on maintaining those goals.

Also you might hear me mention NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness), because I am actively involved with them. I am a facilitator and state trainer for the NAMI Connection groups (peer run support group) here in Rhode Island, and I also help teach high school and college students about mental illness through NAMI RI's Inside Mental Illness program.

So with all that being said...I hope you read on to my daily activities and thoughts and such.

Sunday, August 21, 2011

August 21, 2011 School in 17 Days

I have been spending quite a lot of time here at home. Having my cat, Pooh, here has been a plus. He makes it so I have to interact with him and get up and feed him and care for his litter, so because of this, I have not spent much of my time here in my place, in bed.

To give you all an idea as to what my little world looks like I have taken some pictures to share. Here they are…

I know that my place is really small, but I kind of like it actually. I have to be really careful about what I bring home and not to make it cluttered. After living with Dennis (He saves EVERYTHING), it has been quite nice to keep things relatively tidy.

School starts up for me in 17 days. I wish I could say that I am looking forward to it, but at this point I can’t. I can say that I am not dreading it at all though, which is really a good thing. I did the look up on ratemyprofessor.com and found out that I am going to be having two difficult professors. I am not going to let those reviews bother me and I really hope that I can keep an open mind when I enter the classrooms.

Not sure if I told you all or not, I am take Introduction to Social Work, Biology and Physics. For the most part, only the Physics is what concerns me most, but Denny loves Physics and he promised to help me in the course. Biology is run by a professor that only requires that you make a power point presentation each week with your group, and you only have to complete eight of them. Sounds pretty easy breezy to me.

Denny will be four months sober on the twenty seventh. I really am hoping he keeps up with it. Every once in a great while I ask him on a scale of one to ten, with ten being that he just has to have a drink, what number represents him. Usually I will get a two or a three, but yesterday he told me he was between a five and a seven. This kind of scares me, but he is still taking the Antibuse, so that is a good thing.

Well that is the update. You all have a good one. TTFN

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

August 3, 2011 What’s Been Going On

Wish I could tell you that all this time that I didn’t blog, I was out doing something exciting, but the truth is, I really have not been doing much. Basically I have been watching movies and existing. With a month before the fall semester begins, I am not feeling much better, and I am afraid that I am not going to be ready for classes. I did however, decide that I will take the classes and hope for the best.

One good thing that happened over this long time since I have last blogged is that I was able to move one of my cats into my apartment. I took Pooh because he needs the most attention and he was not getting enough at Denny’s apartment. Not sure if he likes it here or not, but he is not having any physical problems that we were concerned about. Being that this place is smaller than Denny’s, I am thinking that he might be bored here, so today I went to the store and picked up some toys for him, in hopes that he will feel a bit better.

My parents are still both having health issues. Dad is wishing he would just die and that is making any possible progress difficult for him. We have started him with home health care and of course he is rejecting it. If Dad doesn’t start changing his attitude, than soon he might get his wish and if that happens, I fear that my brother will lose his mind. There is only one human being that I can honestly say that my brother loves and that is my father. When my sister died, we were all concerned about him and even thought about hospitalization for him. Thinking about it really gets to me.

Mom is doing alright with her lung cancer but she has had a persistent cough for well over two months now and they have no idea where it is coming from. They know that her lungs are clear and now they are looking into her throat. I part of me thinks that the cancer has made its way there. Of course her finances are not helping with her psyche. Mom likes to live a certain way and being that all her life she always lived above her means, she never saved for her retirement and now she is learning what it means to live on a budget. Even now she is living in an area that is too high priced for her and driving a car that is too expensive. Each time I talk to her she cries poverty and I so much want to tell her that if she would at least find a cheaper place to live and a least expensive car she could make do easily. I even tried in a subtle way and she would not listen to me. I know there is no way for me to be able to help her. What she did that pissed me off to the max was to write a letter to my father, asking him for financial help. What balls she must have. I mean they divorced back in ’79 and here she goes and has the gull to ask my father to send her money.

So other than I just mentioned, nothing much is going on with me, but I thought I would write to let you all know that. The picture above is of Pooh in his new basket. TTFN