I too mourn the loss of who I could’ve been had bipolar not hijacked my brain! Right before I was diagnosed I tried going back to school full time as a pre-nursing student- this was 2004/5. But anatomy class was like water off a duck’s back- the information just rolled over my brain instead of going inside. That and had I not gotten married but finished music school in 1995 I could’ve been a music teacher! But bipolar just ate my brain somehow. All those uncontrolled episodes of psychosis and the kindling that happened - each successive episode is worse than the one before it- with it was too much! BUT …. I raised 3 successful, intelligent, kind, right AND left-brained children who are doing well in life. And I managed to preserve their childhoods through my photography and recording the clever and funny things they said over the years! In fact, I made books of the photos and quotes! I sing in church choir with my youngest and I try to spend time with my kids when they have a free moment.