Recently I have gained a great deal of confidence in my abilities to do my job. I believe I am having some manic symptoms without having full blown mania. Or is it possible that as I age I am gaining a new found sense of self worth? This is the question I put to my psychiatrist. He decided to raise my dose of Olanzapine after our discussion.

He did ask me what I thought. I told him I’d be willing to stay the course and just watch it closely with my husband. But I didn’t tell my husband that I impulsively bought a $200 teacher kit. I have had my eye on it for months, and it’s something the school district would provide if I would ask for it. The issue is the waiting. Who wants to wait. What if that impatience is just my personality and not the bipolar? I find it so difficult to parse out.

I proposed to the classroom teacher that I take the job of being a student’s one on one aide. I have this new found confidence that I can handle a student who has already injured two teachers in the past. I tell myself I work with him so well that I will be ok. Things are going really well so far in summer school, so I signed myself up for continuing with the student into the school year. I am filled with excitement for the challenge. I am reading all I can, preparing materials, and my thoughts are swirling with ways to help him. This confidence is so far from what I have written just recently about my area of growth in my job being discipline. I can see this is the exact opposite of how I was feeling such a short while ago that I most likely am ramping up to mania. When I read what I just wrote, it certainly sounds like it!

Yet I recall two teachers telling me they have confidence in my ability to do this, and they gave me glowing recommendations when the teacher I work for asked. If it is mania, I am on a new dosage of medication, so that is great. I will probably be sad when the confidence wanes. If it’s confidence, I will carry on; either way I will nurture a healthy dose of confidence with every breath I take.