I was discharged from the hospital today. It was suuuuper nice outside, almost 60 degrees! So I went running. I'm super out of shape tho.
Strange to get out of the hospital and see that the world is in shambles because of the coronavirus. All of the colleges are now strictly online, including BYUI. All of my friends are heading back home. All NCAA competitions have been cancelled as well, strange to think about what it would've been like had I stayed at SUU.
Never before have I felt so lost and uncertain about the future. Usually I like to have an idea of what the next x months will look like, I don't even know what's going to happen a month from now. For now, I'm just grieving because of the mental illness I have. I didn't know it would affect my life so much. I've felt a lot of guilt and shame because of it, but my mom put it in perspective by pointing out that if my sister had leukemia they wouldn't be frustrated with her, it's out of her control. Just as my mental illness is out of mine. I didn't help manage it this year like I should've and there's some frustration there because of that, but overall I wouldn't have chosen to be where I am right now.
The good news is that I've been diagnosed with bipolar II disorder, which is better than bipolar I. It means I'm more likely to be able to function well in society. I've only experienced hypomanic episodes, but if I were to experience a full-fledged manic episode I'd then be diagnosed with bipolar I disorder. I'm still on the wait list to see a neurologist, the doctors determined that my memory issues don't require immediate attention. It'll actually be better to wait a few weeks before getting them addressed because it could be explained by fetal alcohol syndrome, ECT treatments, and my instability due to bipolar depression. If I can get my mood stabilized that'll help them to know what's more an underlying issue vs. a symptom of my bipolar disorder.
I'm very grateful to Sawyer for calling my family and getting me the help I needed. Our future has been put on hold, now's not really the time to be making any major decisions like wedding plans. First I need to get healthy, then we can talk about the future. I won't be going back to BYUI (we've decided that the traditional way of going away to college just isn't something I can do right now, I'll be looking at other options. Either transitioning to working full-time or doing BYU pathway so I can go at my own pace and work on it from home, or transferring to a more local university or college so I can commute). so I'm really not sure what I'm going to be doing from now on. But everything will work out in the end, one way or another.
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