- Have you learned an instrument?
Yes. In high school when cheap rentals were a thing I played the trombone, and now I play keys. Tried learning guitar, but it was a steep and daunting learning curve.

- How has your condition shaped the ways you learn?
I have either schizoaffective or bipolar I depending on who is diagnosing me (along with PTSD and ADHD). I feel like it's hard to practice one thing at a time, so in a single practice session I'll do my warm ups, then constantly switch from genre to genre. I learn a lot of varied stuff this way, but never am an expert in any particular area. A "jack of all, master of none" sorta deal. I do heavily rely more on creativity and improvising rather than the perfect technique and my sight reading isn't that great. Overall, the music helps with my symptoms a lot and having something to focus on helps distract me from whatever chaos is in my mind...I can translate that to chaos on the keys and enjoy it (usually)!

- Do you have any advice or opinions based on these words?
Start with the cheapest instrument you're interested in, whatever you come across, until you get a good grasp on music theory and develop a good ear. If you really like the instrument, great! If you don't, or you'd like to learn something else, that's okay too, just move on to another instrument you're considering. Youtube is a great help for specific lessons, and it's helpful to know you're style of learning. For example, I learn more by doing rather than reading something, so I do a lot of fooling around with notes until I find something that sounds right. It becomes a lot easier over time. There are also books on strategies on how to learn as well as books for actually learning. I find the books on strategies more helpful because they teach you how to practice and develop musically. I have a couple books for learning but at this point I don't read the lessons, just practice the sheet music.

If you're not sure if you'll like an instrument, you could probably find a rental that's significantly cheaper. There are also rent to buy programs where you pay for rentals and if you don't like it you return it and if you do like it you get to keep it once you pay a certain amount in rental cost.