I started college this semester. I'm a junior in mass communications. I'm taking a film class and a social media class. I also am going to have to learn Spanish again and catch up with everyone. I've not taken Spanish in about a year. I got my driver's license last week! The woman who gave the test said I did excellently. I had all but given up on ever getting it, because I was so nervous and careful. I've driven on the Interstate with an instructor and did fine. I was shaking a little because I'm not used to high speeds in a car and being that in control. I will get better with practice. Now I just need to save up for a car and get a job when I have a break from classes.

Started Vyvanse on top of taking Abilify; this combination is starting to work well for me. I just hope it will remain helpful. I'm reading a couple books on the side, one on Buddhism and Party Monster. My gay friend lent me Party Monster. He's really cool. I just met him this past week. He's friends with my new neighbor who moved in next door. He may help me make a film. I'm trying to avoid alcohol and weed, but there's a lot of temptation where I live, I just have to say no. It doesn't reallly do too much damage, but I just need to avoid it completely even if I used to use them in the right limit.

I just painted a really cool abstract painting with acrylic gesso and food coloring. Wish I could post the picture here! Other than that, I need to find out what my homework is.

Today started off well. I went to lunch, and then the symptoms of anxiety and overstimulation/mania started coming back. I hid it well, then decided to go to my parents to recoop instead of going to my apartment. I bought a book by my grandpa's partner who is also widely known for nursing accomplishments. It was a poetry book and it's sitting beside me. The poems are uplifting. So far I see a lot of talent. Mania for me is like echoes upon echoes of thoughts, running and skipping into each other and reflecting everything at once. I don't like it. I should have taken the medication last night. On the flip side, the break in routine was kinda soothing on my nerves and I meditated. But of course, symptoms came back and so that was the end of the wishful thinking. I'm still going to take the B12, it seems to help maybe for blood circulation or the heart?

Ugh, I've been in probably a depression stage. It is gnawing at me. The nice weather and feeling of being unaccomplished probably created this sense of dull fatigue. I wrote a memoir awhile back and re--read it. And I didn't like it. I didn't like how awful and exposing it was. I don't want people to read it anymore. But a friend bought it to support me and I hope he gets something out of it. It does shed somme understanding on how difficult it is, but at some point I realized how I just obsessed too much. I mean, all my thoughts were there for the world to see at those points in healing and torment. It was cathartic to write, but I hope it fades from public view completely soon. I did retire it.

So, I want to write poetry again. The mania doesn't help with coherence but it certainly seems to be a bit motivating sometimes. It gets me out of ruts, so a little dose of mania doesn't hurt for a day to get out of a rut. I'm going to re-watch "A Beautiful Mind" because I realize how much I can relate to this movie in a sense. The feeling of logical euphoria and being misunderstood, then total collapse. That's kinda like what mania is. I had bursts of euphoria before my symptoms, but I believe my onset was more of a mixed state episode. It was horrifying.

Empathy and visualization. I keep focusing on picturing a number or symbol, to help my cognition and kinda re train myself. It works or seems to help with that. Over time it becomes easier to overcome the mental blocks, and on medication I think clearly so the visualization helps with other stuff. I think clearly for the most part, until I get some theory and I obsess over it. I think that's Bipolar. I am not sure if it's Bipolar or Schizoaffective. I don't think DSM calls it schizoaffective anymore in 2013.

As you can see, I love to write. I write and write. I am writer. haha. Partly because this is how I overcome negative symptoms, rationalized some of the positive ones, and just kinda healed my mind from all of the stress of psychotic stuff. I don't really have it anymore as bad, this is because of how I write and how I think. After the illness I was, as Elyn Saks would say, shattered. My mind was in pieces. I couldn't think. I couldn't concentrate. I had catatonic features and others. So I worked on it and over a few years brought myself to the norm. Remission/before it all happened. So a message to those volenteers or mental health workers, you can definately treat a lot of deficits through listening and learning. People, and adults, with schizotype symptoms are not stupid. Many of us recover, but many do not have the right care.

Maybe this is why my therapist thinks I should do advocacy, because I really understand a lot or I try to be open minded. I hope I'm on the right track, so soon I will try and get my degree again.