Man am I not doing well. I have a whole heap of life issues all at once that have caused me in recent weeks to be in terrible panic and anxiety. I can't sleep well at the best of times and even with a huge dose of meds each night my sleep is worse now because I'm so panicky and hyper-vigilant. I can't change any of these life issues except to accept them, but I do all my AA (I'm a sober alki too) and my therapeutic tools, but it's just one of those times when life is simply overwhelming. I am very alone as most people have bailed because of my mental illnesses - even though I am in recovery in psychiatry, psychology and AA, when family members aren't in active recovery. And I had to bail on some of them as they won't address their problems.

What happens with me is that if I am in deep panic and anxiety for an extended period, Bipolar Major Depression, and then suicidality (which I have acted on previously and from which I nearly died) kick in as my system just goes into overload and the depression seems to be the natural course of things.

I saw my psychologist and psychiatrist today and they are both excellent, very loving and caring - thank God for them. My psychiatrist is a straight shooter, which I like and he told me today about one of the issues in my life - a huge financial issue. He explained what usually happens with this particular issue and while I knew the facts in general what he said confirmed that it IS a very difficult situation and that I must adjust myself to the worst possible outcome. He is totally right and it will help me to adjust myself to the situation but that is certainly easier said than done, as the psychologist agreed when we were walking out.

I am also going through terrible dramas with my University - I am back studying after many years. The academic part is fine - fun actually, as I'd hoped, and I am passing. But in another subject the Uni has totally dropped the ball in enabling me to go forward to do the subject and their whole admin interface is an absolute disaster (including the "suppport" of the Disability Liaison guy - what a laugh) - it has been a relentless experience of terrible disfunction for the six months I have been engaged with them and the stress is such that I've come to a complete stop and have no mental energy or forward momentum to keep dealing with them. But cancelling the course would have many bad ramifications for me (I tried to go back to work last year and couldn't, and nearly didn't make it out of that episode alive).

I've gone through everything in my life to see what areas I could disengage from to release pressure off myself and the only area in the University study - but my psychologist agrees with me that that would not be a good course for me. Of course as my life has shown in the past, sometimes with mental illness, and the disfunction of others, events can overtake themselves and things will be taken off you whether you like it or not.

So my strategy right now is to back off, to any extent I can from everything, just get through life's necessities with the least possible effort.

Sorry for the long post, but that's all only the tip of the ice-berg.