Well, I'm back from the brink again. Today was the best day I've had in a good couple of weeks. I think I've developed a case of the "awF***its" as I call it---I can't do anything concrete about this situation at this moment, so I might as well make some popcorn and watch the drama unfold. I'm still pretty unstable so I'm not even making plans for the next day.....gotta take everything a day at a time. But I'm no longer sui, and I've started thinking about other people again. Always a good sign.

I have just about decided that I am completely done with nursing. The only nursing jobs I can do physically, I can't handle mentally. I can't do the 24/7/365 responsibility thing again. I can't be on-call because I take so much medication that I can barely stagger to the bathroom in the middle of the night, let alone drive to the workplace and deal with whatever emergency has arisen. I need a job where I can do my work for 8 or 10 hours and leave it at the door when I go home---no emotional entanglements or checking back on a patient I'm worried about.

Besides....and I hate to admit this, but I get nauseated even THINKING about being responsible for another person's life. There was a time when I was very good at it, but that time has passed and it's not coming back. Something's crossed over in me and I just can't undo the damage that untreated bipolar did to my brain.

The hard part is not knowing what I DO want to do. Nothing is ever going to pay as well as nursing did, but it's just my husband and me, and we needed to downscale our life anyway. I didn't reckon on becoming homeless, but it hasn't happened just yet and who knows, the right job might land in my lap tomorrow and save us.