Don't know if I am ever going to be the same. I try as hard as I can, but it isn't getting noticeably easier, whereas I am losing hope and becoming disheartened. Understatements, all of it....

At any rate...a good first step towards rebuilding my life would be going back to school. It's been so long since I took any math that paying $300 for the college algebra class would be a total waste of money (along with also being another nail in the coffin or demoralizing event or whatever you'd like to call it). I don't remember the math prior to college algebra well enough to be able to do that final class (which, recall, has already been taken, unsuccessfully, 6 times). But here's the thing: I didn't do well in beginning algebra either, passing only with a C, and the same with intermediate algebra. So what I need to do, even though it will be expensive and time consuming, is to start over at the beginning. I should take the beginning algebra class this summer. Most of the material will be familiar to me and I should do OK with it, which is good because the summer classes are accelerated. Then in the fall, intermediate algebra, since I'll have the entire semester. If I''ve passed the prior two classes, by spring, college algebra should be doable. This will not only enable me to pass the class that's been such a hurdle, but also I'll have the opportunity to improve my GPA by hopefully getting better grades on those classes. I could also conceivably take psych classes if that's the degree I'm after...a question I can't quite answer yet.

So I now have a plan for how to handle this math class. The next question will be, how to pay for not one, but three classes? I'm not sure yet. I will be taking all of them online, to save on gas (also communting time) and also for grading strategy reasons. They won't all be taken at the same time, so the money doesn't have to be produced all at once either, but it would be good to have a plan for that, too.

And....there's so much that I don't tell anyone. So today, I told my therapist some of it, opened a window into the pain, the hell and loss and utter desolation within...and being a level headed sort, he didn't freak out, which was good. People don't typically want to hear the sort of stuff that's in here....and it just hurts nearly all of the time. Nobody wants to know about that. They just want you to get better...as if I didn't want that, too...but it's against the rules.