School time. The time of year that seems to always have me wondering why the hell I became a teacher. I'm so stressed out just thinking about it. I'm consumed by anxiety. I'm smoking almost a pack a day, when I was only smoking five cigarettes a day. But whatever gets me through, right?

It doesn't help that I opened my fattoush last year and somehow became the director of the new technology program. And it doesn't help that I also have to go back to school myself to get my special ed certification - that class started yesterday. I'm doing it online which is good because I dot have to drag my *** to class but bad because it's accelerated which means twice as much work in half as much time.

I'm just so scared of an episode knocking everything out of whack for me. I absolutely cannot afford to be sick this year. Now that I know the terrible places my brain can take me I'm scared. Financial pressure doesn't help either. I know I was miserable in retail but some days I wish I could go back to that mindless job where I didn't have to take work home with me and I didn't have to go back to school and I could just deal with dumb people all day and go home.

But in the end I know I love teaching. I just don't know if I can mentally handle it. I literally sat in the social worker's office (my classroom was being used for a preservice) and just stared, paralyzed by anxiety. And that was WITH the klonopin.

I think if I just get in to the school year I'll be ok but for now it's bumming me out. I'm not quite stable on meds yet. Better than I was, loads better, but still swinging in the breeze, just not a mad hurricane. Bonus - I did listen to a lecture for my online class today and took the first quiz. Bombed it, but I took it. And I don't feel I could have prepared any better for it and I don't think it counts for too much anyway. So I am forcing myself to do SOME things. I just wish I could wake up and be happy. I miss the hypomania. Meds have stomped that out for sure. The hypomania I had the last few weeks was a dark one. Is love some happy euphoric confidence and energy right now.

It will get better. Right? Someday. I'll wake up happy. I wish I could find that true joy. I haven't felt it in so long. Not since March, and that was artificial. I need to practice more mindfulness or something, gotta get out of my head. Enjoy my little boy, he's starting preschool on Tuesday! Another source of anxiety. I'm afraid I've failed as a mother and his horrid behavior will get him kicked out in a month flat. How irrational is that!

I just want joy back in my life. I want the anxiety gone. I want the depression, no matter how mild, gone.

Thanks for listening.