I’m on a fair amount of medication. I was on a large amount of medication for some time, so I consider that an improvement.

For years I spent most of my days too lethargic to move and too sedated to think thanks to medication side-effects. I would stare off into space, or just sleep. Mostly sleep. Now I wake up in the morning feeling refreshed, ready to take on the day ahead. I am also able to think clearly again, which is something I am most grateful for. Unfortunately there are limitations.

I can only focus on one or two things at a time. Spreading myself too thin or immersing myself into chaos has bad results. This can be a tough thing to accept for a former chef and restaurant manager, seeing how I would multitask in my sleep and dive head-first into chaos every night for a living. But that was another life…

Another limitation is that by the time evening comes around, a fog is starting to settle on my brain. The several doses of medication I take throughout the day adds up, and by the time the sun is going down, so is my ability to handle any thought I’m not already focused on. Someone will tell me it’s snowing and I’ll get all pissed off – not because of the snow but because I was thinking about frogs and now I’m all confused.

I’m not a fan of these limitations, but I am much less a fan of paranoid delusions, auditory hallucinations and psychosis. To be honest, I’ll take a bit of fog over the alternative any day. I do miss thinking clearly all the time, though.

I have a lot of ideas, and these limitations hold me back. Stacks of notebooks containing outlines for novels, films, art projects are piled up on my desk. I even have a (very rough) working model for an interactive way to present books on iPads. It would create a whole new reading experience (no, that does NOT sound boring. Shut up. lol). Some days I want to dive into the entire pile, my desire to create overriding my need for sanity. Other days I know my head will explode if I don’t practice some restraint, so sanity wins out and I focus on one thing at a time.

I’ve been dealing with a chronic mental health condition for over 15 years now. I began showing signs in 1998 and progressively got worse, until in 2003 I was found to be disabled. Since that time I have learned a lot about myself, my limitations, and how to work past them. I learned that nothing is out of reach, I just have to work twice as hard. I can still be a success, but it requires more focus to keep things organized. I can do great things, but maybe not as quickly as I would like.

Accepting my limitations has been the real struggle. I need to constantly remind myself that reaching for the stars is not the problem, but trying to grab them all at once just might be.

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