Life sentence? Or just a bad day?

I'm having a hard time knowing what to write. It seems like everything was slowed down by my lithium level being messed up this week. That's pretty much ok now, it's down to just causing me to be extremely thirsty. Thirsty I can deal with.

It's just that I feel like I've messed up in some of my responsibilities due to not thinking as well with the lithium thing. I have felt like I was moving underwater, and my actions have reflected this.

I'm worried about work because I worked as hard as I physically am capable to get a barely acceptable (maybe) productivity score. If I hear nothing but productivity this job won't work out. My doctor's note informed them that I can't meet normal standards, but they informed me they can't alter the standards. And I have no idea who wins in the accomodation battle. I just don't understand why we can say we are providing good healthcare when in fact we are attempting to provide rapid healthcare. I also do not understand a profession that is supposed to be all about ACCOMODATING DISABILITIES and yet is unable to accomodate mine. Someday I'm going to write an article about this. I just keep waiting for everything to stabilize.

I'm also going through some grieving again. I spent a lot of summer facing for the first time (I'm slow) how drastically and permanently my life is affected by this. A movie on Lifetime a few days ago made me think about this even more. I realized that in my professional life I have come to characterize illnesses as "big ones" and "that's hard but you'll be ok" situations. I think some attitude like that is necessary because how I approach treatment with someone who is terminally ill or just diagnosed with something really serious is different than how I approach someone recovering from pneumonia or something else that is transient.

Until yesterday, despite my years of working in mental health, I hadn't thought about which category these illnesses fall into. By the time my psychiatric patients were my patients it was clear that they fell into the "your life will never be remotely normal because of this illness" category. But then I thought about it yesterday. Atlhough I have never wanted to admit it, for me bipolar is like that. It could be worse, sure. I am so blessed to be able to function as I do. But at this point there is no treatment that is likely to give me much improvement or stability. I have taken meds for 4 1/2 years and I will continue to do so for the rest of my life, and at this point nothing indicates that the bipolar symptoms will really resolve. Even many types of cancer, as dreadful as the treatments are, have remissions and even cures. This form of bipolar (and I emphasize that, because I am a rare non-responder to treatments along with having an appallingly bad set of symptoms; my doctors tell me treating me is pretty much a one of a kind treatment), does not. I will always be a suicide risk at times. I will always have moods all over the map. There is not a point where I can say "if I make it 5 years I will be cured".

These ideas are sort of huge right now. I'm not sure what they mean, if they mean anything. I do know that it's giving me a lot to think about.