Setting limits

March 31, 2009. It's a deadline, it's a goal.

At some point in my business career, a supervisor told me that when you can't see the end of something, set a date and create an end. Even if the situation doesn't get resolved, you will know what to do to save your sanity if you have a decision date.

When I was going through the seriously unpleasant process of becoming egregiously bipolar, I thought I wouldn't survive it. There was no way to know what treatment would work or when it would kick in. I set a completion date. I said I would continue for one year and if I didn't see significant progress at that point, I would stop treatment and stop living. It gave me some comfort to know I didn't have to keep trying if there was no progress, and by setting a horizon, there was a tangible end to what I was going through.

March 31, 2009. I will sever my association with the nonprofit I helped to found and worked very hard to establish and grow. The project is doing pretty well, but the stress of running it is, apparently, very bad for my health. There is enough time between then and now to get my responsibilities transferred, along with all of the files and other materials currently in my possession. I cry about this on an almost daily basis. It is painful for me to give away something that is so precious to me.

June 30, 2009. Everything related to the pain seeping through my body will stop. As it was with BP, if the medical minds working on my case haven't figured it all out by then, I need to move on and accept that I will feel this way for the rest of my life, just as I have since I was in my late twenties. Treatment is expensive and mostly a trial-and-error affair. I already have a certain progression of nerve damage--most likely permanent--so it's not like I've dodged a bullet up til now.

On June 30, it will be 13 months since I started treatment. It will be the last day of a new health insurance deductible year. Spending my money on this problem hasn't solved anything, so if there is no relief at the end of June, I choose to focus my spending elsewhere, such as a vacation or new furniture.

Let freedom ring.