Grad School : 5 Hours of Sleep, 5 Hours of Study

I had an interesting chat with my psychiatrist last month. I relayed my level of stress as a first-semester graduate student to her and she placed me on an additional mood stabilizer. The mood stabilizer acts on a different set of neuro-transmitters (brain chemicals that regulate mood). This new drug is supposed to moderate my level of depression. So, far it has worked. But anyways, back to our conversation.

"Oh, you are in grad school now," she asked.
"Yes, it's really different. There's a lot of journals to read and they're all really technical," I said.
"How are you doing so far?"
"I'm doing good, but I sometimes don't study for as long as I would like to because I get sleepy around ten o'clock, right after I take my medicine," I said.
"Oh, yes, it is better to stay up and study. Less stress in the long run. You should stay up and study as long as you can," she said.

I am taking her advice to heart. I scored high on my tests after our conversation. I did indeed stay up late, by drinking two cups of strong coffee around ten o'clock. I also tend to do work in the grad study room on campus after my evening class. I get home around 10. I either spend some time with my boyfriend afterwards or else I go home and pass out, exhausted, but ahead of the game.

I still have to write two term papers before the semester is over. Three of my classes are easy for me. Two require analyzing raw acoustic data, translating it into plain English, making graphs that show the results, and applying the appropriate theories to the data. I feel overwhelmed, but I am confident that I can type out some reasonable analyses in time for the deadline. I am less confident about getting an A on these papers, but I will try my best.

Sigh. I fear that if I don't perform well I will have no chance of entering a PhD program. I really want to earn a doctorate in my field. It is the pinnacle of education. I am willing to work hard, do research, work at a real job on the side, and stay in school an additional 5-6 years in order to earn a PhD.

Part of me is motivated because I have a severe mental illness that hindered my progress for so long. I was too busy curled up in bed, experiencing troubling symptoms, to study or to go to class. Now, I have medicine, a therapist, and a chance at a decent future. I want to prove society wrong about mentally ill people, not by surrendering to a fate of disability checks, but by improving my status in society and being a mentor to the mentally ill people who are talented but too insecure or troubled to reach for their goals.

Here are some tricks I learned that helped me earn my belated B.A. despite suffering from a mental illness:
1) Wake up early, take a walk, come home, and write out the main objectives for the day. For example, item 1: complete homework assignment before 10 a.m. item 2 : eat lunch, less than 400 calories. item 3 : go to campus early. item 4 : work on lit review for term paper (at least one hour)....and so on.

2) participate at least one time during class. Participate less than 4 times during class, just in case I am manic and too talkative.

3) When in doubt about participation, doodle on notes. Doodling makes it look like I are totally bored and uninterested but at least nobody will know that I am socially awkward at that moment.

4) engage in 1 minute, trivial chit chat with classmate after class, just to practice social skills and to connect momentarily with another human being. Avoid long periods of eye contact, when person physically steps away, cut the conversation short and excuse yourself politely.

5) Drink coffee.

6) Keep a diary to vent personal self-doubt, campus gossip, and general fear of society. Don't share it with anyone except therapist.

This last point should be crucial for me, but here I am; divulging my personal struggles, dark secrets, and horribly out-of-reach ambitions to total strangers. Well, that's the internet for you. :)

Race, Class, and Academia

I just finished reading a little Yahoo! article on a White sorority that took time out of their busy schedule to dress up in Mexican-themed ponchos, sombreros, and took photos holding signs that said "will mow lawn for weed." I am guessing these girls are from upper-class and upper middle-class homes that have never had to actually work at menial labor jobs for a living. More likely, they probably feel superior to the Hispanics at their school, and in society at large.

It is classist to belittle the hard work of the struggling masses. Especially since, being pretty and socially groomed for success, these sorority girls will either find cushy jobs thrust at them or will marry into wealth and security. Not so for the people they emulated for a laugh.

It is racist to assume that all Mexicans cut grass, smoke grass, and are "fair game" to belittle and humiliate.

What really stung though was the comments people made about it being a) funny and b) "ridiculously PC." At one time, saying that racial slurs is "too PC" was common as well. Civility can be a bitch, can't it, elitists?

Here's the link, please read the comments by users and see the number of "thumbs up" that anonymous people gave them. It is just a small splash in what has become common place derogatory perceptions of the underclass.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/racist-sorority-party-photo-stirs-outrage-181258221.html

Skizzie Lizzie Prepares for Grad Program

In between blogging, checking my emails, chatting via myspace and yahoo messenger, I am mentally preparing myself to go to graduate school at a state university. For most, this would be a task in and of itself, but for someone who has paranoid schizophrenia this can be quite a challenge on top of a challenge.

I have to make sure I comply with treatment. I have to let my case worker keep tabs on me by dropping by and chatting about my ups and downs and future goals. I have to make all my therapy appointments. I have to take all medications as prescribed and show up periodically to let the doctor poke at my mind for 20 minutes.

Sanity comes in three medications, refilled only three times before I have to return to the doctor. I feel like Cinderella: I must return before midnight or my ride turns into a pumpkin and my mind turns nuts. I must think of it as just a routine, like paying my cell phone bill or internet bill. Keeping up with treatment is just another obligation. Or so I would like to think.

While everyone else is preparing for qualifying exams and their thesis, I am preparing for random spurts of paranoid delusions spurred on by episodes of mania. So it goes...(as Kurt Vonnegut Jr., the great modern American writer wrote...so it goes).

My therapist congratulated me for graduating from university. She said the percentage of people diagnosed with schizophrenia who go on to get a Bachelor's degree from an accredited university is rather meager. On the one hand, I know this, on the other hand, I want to be more normal than normal. I want to exude normalcy from my pores so that everyone thinks, "how can she be so composed and clear headed?" I want to achieve what a normal person achieves. I want education, I want employment, I want success, I want to change people's lives for the better!

I hope that one day there is a paranoid schizophrenic surfing the internet, debating whether s/he should even bother with enrolling at university---then accidentally clicks on this blog and reads this little entry. Then, s/he will say, "if this person can do it, of course I can do it, too!" That would make me thrilled! If you are that person, I wish you the best! Hang in there, little kitty!

Thank you for reading, and please be gentle with me! I am like a fragile dish that cannot be put in the dishwasher. :/

Why the State Pays For Part of My Education

I mentioned in previous posts that the Department of Rehabilitation covers the tuition of my public University which is not paid for through my Pell Grants, University Grants, and scholarships. It has occurred to me that some might think this is not fair. In a way, it is not. Education should be accessible to everybody. However, more people being barred from higher education does not make things more equal. More people being admitted and funded through their higher education makes things more equal. 

Still, you might wonder why my textbooks are paid for and yours are not. I have thus made this formula. Apologies, I am not a math major.

                                                     $$$DISB>$$COLLEGE

                                                      COLLEGE= [$$ of X]

                                                      .0725[$$ of X]=PRFT

where $ is equal to total cost, DISB is equal to disability benefits, COLLEGE is equal to college expenses, X is equal to the Person receiving services, .0725 is equal to the total state tax on all purchases, and PRFT is equal to total amount of profit.

Or here it is, but in words:

Annual cost of paying out disability plus health benefits to a mentally disabled person == a LOT $$$$

Annual cost of paying for tuition at a public University === NOT AS MUCH! $

Annual State profit from said mentally disabled person getting a steady job and paying taxes== $$$$ :)

Thus, the Department what tuition and textbook costs are not covered by the various grants and scholarships I receive is paid for by the Department. I stay in college, get my BA this summer, get a job, pay taxes, and serve the community. The alternative is that I drain the State's disability resources, drain the limited health care services I have, go off my meds, go totally berserk, wind up in a psych ward, sap the joy out of the mental health care workers' lives with my tales of secret assassins posing as fellow mental patients, get out, and contribute nothing to society.

Here are things I abide by in order to continue with services:

I take the courses that lead to a degree in an accredited field.

I pass all my courses without having to repeat any courses.

I adhere to all the laws of the federal government (even if this means I can no longer smoke my happy grass).

I agree to all the laws of the State, and also of the State University (i.e. no cheating).

I do not stop treatment for my condition of schizo-affective disorder.

Anyways, just wanted to stop by and tell you kind folks out there that your tax payer money is not going to waste. I am working my ass off in college. Soon, I will be employed and paying for freeway renovations and even paying a dime or so out of each paycheck to get somebody else like me through college. :)

Finals Week on Campus or why I'm Glad I'm on anti-anxiety meds

It's that dreaded time. Students crowd and push inside the campus library, searching for a seat to hunch over their textbooks and cram. They all sit like sardines in a can, sipping on coffee, leafing through notes, and praying to the higher power that their professors will go easy on them.

I am one of them. Luckily, I am on anti-anxiety medication, which makes this time slightly more tolerable. I take anti-anxiety pills for my schizo-affective disorder and the residual stress it causes, but it does come in handy during finals week.

Study Group always cracks me up. It is the soothing ritual of the student. The cult of studiousness. "Join us for Study Group," says the student with the dazed, overwhelmed look in her eyes and a monotone voice. I imagine them all sitting around tables, pounding out answers to study guides and chanting little mantras of "We're gonna pass, we're gonna pass, we're gonna ace this final!" They remind me of academic cult members. They come to bring you into the fold of Study Group from 2 pm to midnight. They read the ancient script of a long-dead academic doctorate. Then suddenly, in the middle of question 9, they suddenly become very lost in the topic of the new Bourne Identity movie coming out in the summer. Then back to question 9.

I will miss this. This is my last month of college as an undergraduate. I have a couple of summer classes but once they end at the start of June, I am free. Free until August when I will (hopefully) be fully admitted to the graduate program.

So far, things are going according to my master plan. I got a high B on a term paper for a tough class that half a dozen students are failing (and those are just the ones who told me about their F's). I am a little concerned about my Chinese language class. I need a B for my linguistics major, but I might have lost my high B grade after a horrible exam score. Other than that, I'm doing well.

Anyways, just an update. Thanks for reading! Wish me luck! My last final is in one hour! I should've been writing study guide questions but I wrote this instead! ;) winky face.

Grad School: to go or not to go

I have been approved to graduate from my University despite being 2 upper-division classes shy of the requirements. The academic counselor suggested I walk in May for my Bachelor's degree ceremony and then take two 100-series classes this summer to earn my diploma before Fall 2012.

By June 15th, I will have earned my BA in linguistics (barring a sudden, unexpected catastrophe) and I will then be faced with the obscure future of post-graduate existence. While I still have 2 and a half months to go, I must decide whether to apply for graduate school right away. I am planning on requesting a letter of recommendation from my professor and I need to give him time to procrastinate on writing it for me, as the deadline is in April.

I am reading a book called "The Graduate Grind" by Hinchey and Kimmel. This book looks critically at the culture and customs of the graduate education system. Essentially, the book points out the flaws of the institution, citing the University's habits of forcing conformist attitudes into their students. Add to this the stigmatization of students who are considered "others" (i.e. minorities, females, gays/lesbians, working class students). The System is a giant mouth with shark teeth that chews up Others. I am an Other. Mentally disabled, female, minority, bisexual, and working class. If I am indeed accepted into this program, I am already expecting a backlash against me. While I am passionate about the subject I am no idiot when it comes to subtle forms of discrimination or sabotage, and I have already been mistreated by faculty as an undergraduate (falsely accused of cheating by one professor and given a 0 grade on an assignment I turned in a total of 3 times by another professor, requiring me to inundate him with emails during his sabbatical with email evidence that he had received my work, thus forcing him to change my grade by an entire letter grade).
While I was a pothead, the worst case scenario was that I could get stabbed or shot or arrested during my attempts to acquire marijuana. Now that I am sober and a dutiful student, I find that Academia is another type of jungle; one where I could be failed, expelled, sabotaged, or psychologically attacked by people who believe themselves to be my intellectual superiors. I honestly can't tell you which lifestyle was worse.

I have every intention of groveling at the feet of my professor for the sacred letter of recommendation. Not because I want to partake in this culture of back-stabbing, superiority-complex driven, conformist crap, but because suffering this will lead me to my goal of teaching language or developing new strategies for language acquisition. I want to create, and apparently this requires a little certificate stating I threw my chips in and gambled with my time and money, but so it goes (as Kurt Vonnegut Jr. wrote).

Besides, as a mentally ill person living in society that abhors a schizophrenic, I am quite used to faking civility, friendliness, and conformity to others around me. This will be just another 2 years of lying, deception, and method acting. The only difference is, I won't be alone, as I hear the faculty is equally versed in subterfuge.

Maybe it's the pot of coffee I just had but I feel happy.

I'm about to start a new semester at the University, this time taking Chinese 1B and Arabic 1B, several linguistics classes, and a dance class. I am looking forward to working on hitting my Mandarin tones properly.

I went by campus to pick up my textbooks. The department of rehabilitation is sponsoring me through my education now, so they paid for the cost of my books. DOR (department of rehab) works with disabled people in trying to get the physically and mentally disabled people into jobs. I actually just wanted a part-time job to help me get by as I went through my last year of college, but my DOR counselor said they could sponsor my time at the University and help me with work afterward. So now I don't work but I do carry a full load every semester in terms of units. I get a meager sum of grant money that I get to keep each semester, something I am still learning to budget in order to save money for the possibility of graduate school.

Without DOR I think I would feel less pressure to succeed in school. I need this pressure, as it helps me study harder and for longer periods of time. I feel like I need to prove my worth to the department, so I work harder. Despite the irritation I experience whenever I have to sit still for longer than 20 minutes, I enjoy studying. It makes me feel like I'm exercising my brain and that I'm being productive to society by learning new languages.

Despite a painful semester that included the death of my grandfather, the closest thing I've ever had to a father, I still got by my semester with a 3.0 GPA. While this was not my best semester, I passed and it's over with and I can focus on a new term. My cumulative GPA is still enough to get me into the graduate program at my University and I am looking forward to the challenge of graduate school.

What I'm not looking forward to is asking for letters of recommendation. For anybody, asking a professor for a letter of recommendation can be daunting. For myself, being the nervous, self-doubting schizo-affective person I am, this is proving to be a very high hurdle. I struggle with feeling equal to others. Though I have written extensively about how schizophrenics are equal to everybody else, in my daily life I am plagued by anxiety about how I am perceived by others. As I have had breaks from reality in the past, I have become habituated to using the reactions of people around me to judge how well I am doing in my cognition and behavior. I have become highly sensitive to the slightest upturned nose or the smallest frown because these have previously been signals I used to indicate that my own speech or facial expressions were causing discomfort in the people around me. What at one point was a means of self-monitoring is now a habit I have. I used to have to watch my speech for word salads (word salad = a nonsensical combination of words that schizophrenics tend to produce while floridly psychotic), inappropriate paranoid statements, and random giggling fits. Now, I watch my speech to make sure I conform to the social situation and to make sure I don't disclose to much about myself. I can be quite obsessive about self-monitoring.

While self-monitoring is a good way to ward off symptoms and to re-integrate myself back into society, it is also very easy to become highly self-critical. I always think I've said something horribly wrong or inappropriate when there's no reason to believe this. For example, sometimes I get excited about a subject and I go up to the professor after class to ask a question about a topic. Then, realizing I've just put myself on center stage with a highly intelligent expert in his field, I get nervous, start fiddling with my clothes, stuttering all the while, and I usually end up leaving feeling like a fool, or worse, like a charlatan pretending to be sane when everybody else knows I'm nuts. This is what is called transparency. I feel like I am transparent; that my entire identity is visible to others. It's common in schizophrenics. Even if a professor does suspect I'm mentally ill, the law states that s/he is not allowed to discriminate against me due to biological conditions. Still, this fact doesn't stop me from feeling like an idiot on occasion.

Being highly sensitive to my social and academic mistakes makes me wonder if anybody would vouch for me at all! Of course, linguistics isn't rocket science or brain surgery---nobody's life hangs in the balance, but I still doubt myself and my reputation in academia enough to make asking a professor for a letter of recommendation a looming tidal wave of dread and anxiety.

But it must be done. Wish me luck!
Thanks for reading.

Finals Week on Campus

Some people go to a confessional booth to see a priest. I am not that religious. Instead, I come to cyberspace to spit out my secrets, hoping somebody somewhere will absolve me.

My mother would be so ashamed of me, keeping my life open like some kind of tart.

I should really be studying for finals right now. I will, I'm not that lazy. I've just written about 30 pages of research for my undergrad classes and I feel like I should take a breather, just until 9 tonight.

I have nothing dramatic to say, I quit with the melodrama last summer when I broke up with an insensitive male lover. Instead, I am going to talk about my life goals. Why? I dunno. If you're looking for something more daring, please read "Confessions of a Closet Schizophrenic" or "Confessions of a Closet Bisexual" that I wrote a few months back.

I completed all but one of my lower and upper division general education classes already. Next semester I have 2 linguistics classes, 2 foreign language classes, and 1 theory of dance class that fulfills the last of my general education requirements. Then I graduate. What I do after I graduate is unknown, as the job prospects are limited for somebody who only has a B.A. This economy isn't ideal, to say the least.

Saturday I am going to the campus library to study for hours. My friend will hopefully join me so we can rent one of those rooms with a whiteboard. Sunday I am going to the library to study. Monday I am going early so I can go to the library and study. Then I take my phonology final. Then I go back to studying a foreign language, a class which was going well until my grandfather died right before Thanksgiving. I have to memorize 20 sentences worth of dialogue, including spelling, in a non-romance language. After this, I should only have my Chinese final to prepare for.


There's this yahoo gossip column about some female student who went berserk in the library at another CSU (or was it UC?). She snapped over the loudness of somebody's breathing and started hollering all over the place. Man, I am glad I tend to isolate when I get stressed out or there might be some kind of viral video of me curling up in fetal position under a desk  in the library, muttering poorly enunciated Chinese words to no one.

Finals week sucks.

One student in my French 2B class last semester told me she had a breakdown every semester. She showed up for our project red-eyed and still puffy from sobbing. "I've been on a crying jag for a few hours," she admitted. She was in the graduate program for music. I gently asked her if she might consider an anti-depressant but she laughed me off. She's out there somewhere, having another nervous breakdown. I guess this is me having my break down.

When I have breakdowns I stuff them down by eating too much. That's probably why I gained the weight back I lost taking that martial arts class. I was 159 about 3 weeks ago, and now I'm 161. I tend to be an anxiety-eater. You know the type, the type that tries to be really pleasant and helpful to everyone but eats in binges until the stressful event passes. That was me last week. I didn't have enough Zoloft, my grandpa had just died, my grades were falling from A's to low B's, and it was about to be finals week. So I ate. I ate a hamburger from McDonalds---and I'm a vegetarian! I ate 230 calories worth of salty french fries with that stupid hamburger. In the middle of the night I went foraging for rice cakes. Yes, those are only like 50 calories for 2, but I ate like 6 or 8!

Today I tried to control my caloric intake by avoiding eating with my family and instead munching on 3 pieces of sushi for lunch. Then I saw my therapist, who gently goaded me to accept my life as it is now. She said it's okay to overeat on occasion, so long as it's only during finals week. But last finals week I ballooned up to 190 pounds and it took me from April to September to climb down to 160 pounds.

I feel that food is like the only thing keeping me from curling into a ball in bed and refusing to take my finals. Well, that and coffee....lots and lots of coffee. Like 8 cups of coffee a day. Therapist also said to cut back on the coffee. If only I could! It tastes so good with splenda and some half and half. Yes, I know, half and half won't help me lose weight, but I need my caffeine fix so I just delete a snack for the day and pour in some creamer without remorse.

Tonight I am going to write a list of all the Chinese characters we have learned over the semester and begin to copy them over and over and over again. Plus, I will read through the chapters in my phonology book. Then I will take an anti-anxiety drug and go to sleep. Ah, the pleasure of psychotropic medications. It's funny, people who are medicated get this rap for being unstable, but if anything we are so medicated we're the most stable in the room! Where one person starts yelling about people breathing too loud, I just take my medication early and nap away the stress. Is that healthy? Oh who cares, this is a Prozac Nation anyways (read the book, too!).

My love/hate affair with Academia

I spent 4 months cultivating my grades to an A- average. I am carrying 16 units, over full-time, of upper-division courses. I tended to my homework and to my academics like a gardener tends to her roses and sunflowers. Everyday, homework, studies.

In one to two weeks my months of hard work has been undone. My grandfather was the closest thing I had to a father my whole life. He died right before Thanksgiving and since that time I have had a hard time concentrating and doing well in my classes. I bombed a quiz. I bombed the first draft of a paper. One would assume that since my grades were in the 90th percentile, I'd be alright. But no, weighted grades means that my top grades plummeted to a low B in one class, a C in 2 others. That academia is built this way; allowing a student who maintained an A for four months, only to take it away in a heartbeat, is a damn shame.

Then there's all the other issues. Students disregard my work because they think I'm getting it "easy" because I'm a minority. Just the other day, a student complained about his 78% score on his homework by saying that a fellow who happens to be Indonesian got an 86% on his homework that was "identical" and that the professor must be a reverse racist.
 That's funny, considering the professor is a White guy who made a racist remark himself about how Mexicans are "dishwashers." Being a Mexican myself (or Chicana, since I was born here in California), this stung. You're hated either way; either you're a lowly dishwasher or you're getting it easy because of your race.

Recently a professor falsely accused me of cheating, allegedly because she though a scribble on my answer sheet was a cheat sheet (it was just the exam question written on my paper so I wouldn't have to keep glancing up at the whiteboard). My thought, however, is that her action was far more nefarious. It was as if she were searching for a reason to destroy my academic potential---the only brown skinned girl in the class, of course, I had to have been cheating, right? Or maybe it was my tattoos that made her peg me as a deviant type. Whatever her motivation, I gritted my teeth and explained myself. I was polite even though I had been totally humiliated in front of my peers! She later sent out a mass email to our class apologizing for her behavior, but it was far, far too late.

These examples are just the tip of the ice burg when it comes to the ugly side of academia. Professors yell about how all their students are cheating, all of their students are being allowed in due to affirmative action, blah blah blah. Well, this is my side of the coin: my grades are better than the others, that's why I'm in college, not because of a long-since banned affirmative action program. My grades are better than quite a few students even now that they've dropped due to my grieving state, even though I feel like crying every day because I miss the only man in my life who was reliably good to me. I deserve to be in academia. I'm not leaving. Ridiculously weighted grades, insulting students, false accusations, plummeting grades and all----I'm willing to take this all because I told my grandfather on his deathbed that I would complete college and get a job, that he wouldn't have to worry about me because I would be doing alright.

Confessions of a Closet Schizophrenic

I'm a returning University student, a senior with just 1 and a half semesters left to achieve a B.A. I made the dean's list last semester and I also got straight A's taking 13 units during the summer. I'm well-dressed, well-groomed, well-read, and well, crazy.

I'm a decent person with a clean legal record. Unless you count my 5150's where the police came to the house to capture the girl who was cowering in a corner, afraid of assassins barging in at 3 in the morning. Even then, in the midst of my mental illness, I wasn't a threat to other people. Myself, perhaps, but not you, not my family, not anybody else. Like a parasite, the schizophrenia preys on its host until its host is but a shell of her former self.

But that was 2 years ago. I've been in recovery through medication and cognitive behavioral therapy for about that long and I haven't had an episode since. I have a long-term care provider, a counselor at a state disability program, and good grades despite recent deaths in the family. I'm what a professional would call "stable."

But in the long run, what chances do I have of living a successful life? Can I expect real employment after I graduate, or will my future be an endless series of single job interviews with unsympathetic employers wearily eying their health insurance packets? This problem isn't mine, it's yours. If I can't find work I'll go seek state disability. That's tax payer money. I'd RATHER work. I CAN work. I CAN critically think. I CAN be productive. I CAN maintain high levels of stress with appropriate coping skills. Does this really matter as soon as I drop the S-word (schizo-affective disorder) with somebody?

According to the Americans with Disabilities Act, I am guaranteed equality under the federal government and in all aspects of employment, education, and social treatment. But this area is an area where a lot of people break the law and get away with it. Many people discriminate against persons with a mental diagnosis. They fear them. They hate them. They mock them. They ostracize them. I'm not talking about the thug at the end of the block. I'm talking about people in high positions. Employers, CEO's, supervisors, professors, publishers, agents, and many, many corporations.

To a corporation the mental diagnosed are just unnecessary burdens. We "drain" their health care resources. We "slow down" their productivity. We "can't get along" with other coworkers.

They apparently never got the news that Pulitzer Prize winner Sylvia Plath was mad, or that Nobel Prize winner John Nash was a schizophrenic. Indeed, many talented people can have a diagnosis while being productive.

But back to the title of this post: I'm a closet schizophrenic. I tried one semester of partially disclosing my medical needs to my professors. I am under the Students with Disabilities Services program and as part of it, we may choose to hand out letters requesting specific accommodations. Mine was infrequent absences due to doctor's appointments. I got 2 letters out to 2 different professors. They were both kind. However, when it came to handing the letters out to my major's professors, I chickened out. I couldn't face them knowing they knew there was something behind my shy demeanor.

I had turned in a scholarship application and applied as a disabled student. I submitted physician's proof of this. I wrote honestly about having an average GPA because a lot of my college time coincided with periods where I couldn't get treatment, be it because the county refused to treat me or because I was in denial of my illness. I was clear, honest, sincere. I was then soundly rejected. I didn't even receive a hundred dollar scholarship. Nothing. I had a sufficient GPA to transfer to a major University despite being chronically disabled, but I wasn't deemed worthy of a hundred dollar scholarship. Maybe I'm being bitter, but why would they ask if you're disabled if they are not going to take that fact into consideration?

This time around, when I apply for grad school, I might not disclose that I'm mentally disabled. I might pretend to just be a lazy pothead who didn't take school seriously the first couple of years. Maybe they'd be more sympathetic if I just sugar-coated my entire existence.

When friends ask why I'm going to the doctor, even close friends I trust dearly, I still say, "check-up." Maybe I should start saying I have a chronic heart condition. Maybe then I'd be accepted as "an acceptable disabled person" and not a "risk" or an unwanted type of person.

I'm perfectly willing to work my ass off at a job with high stress. I'm willing to continue my treatment program. I'm willing to be open to criticism and new ideas. The question is: are the rest of you willing to accept me as a disabled worker?