"experienced and softened".......what a great way to put it!

I'm sorry you have to live on so much less money than you're used to. That is my greatest fear---winding up poor again, struggling to make do and mostly doing without. I've been dirt-poor and not-so-poor; not-so-poor is better. Thus I keep plugging along, trying to stay employed and useful so I can maintain the lifestyle to which my family and I have become accustomed. We're far from wealthy, but we do all right on my husband's Social Security and my nurse-manager's salary.

I know I probably ought to try getting on disability. Work that I used to enjoy has become stressful to the point that I'm almost paralyzed by anxiety and my inability to stay on track long enough to complete many projects. Even medicated, I tend to have frequent hypo/manic episodes which shred any credibility I might have built up between them. Interruptions and highly-charged confrontations make me crazy even under the best of circumstances; when I'm in a mood episode they're catastrophic.

But, I can't make myself quit, or even go to a less-stressful job. I am stubborn (mule-headed, my pdoc calls it) and it always takes my heart longer to understand what my mind already knows.