Dear Anita,

Thank you for asking about me.

I am doing pretty well. I just taught a class, and I noticed that during both the prep and the teaching, my thoughts were more clear and my ability to speak was greater. I am still not where I used to be, and I have trouble focusing on what students are saying, but I am definitely seeing improvement in my cognitive abilities compared to a month ago.

One main thing has changed in that time period: I have hope now. My therapy is going well, I am journalling every day, I am speaking often to both my sister and my dad. Today when I was writing, I had a breakthrough. Just like I can visualize giving my inner child what she needs, I can also visualize my inner birthing mother and try to give her what she needs. I am hoping that working with my therapist I can do this and heal from some of the trauma surrounding my experience giving birth to my son.

I have had some setbacks too. I went two days without smoking cigarettes and then picked them back up again yesterday. I really want to stop, but I am struggling with it so much. I have started to tell myself over and over that I deserve a healthy body and to not feel like I am poisoning myself all day, but it hasn’t been enough. I am trying to have faith that as I start to feel better in other areas, dealing with all my various addictions will be a bit easier. I have more or less cut my alcohol consumption in half, though, so that’s progress. Eventually I’d like to reduce it by much more than that, but one step at a time.

I feel that I am making progress in a way I never have before. As I said to you earlier, I think that the depression attacking my cognition was really the only way to get my attention and force me to make real changes.

I am still waiting for MRI results. If there’s nothing catastrophic in them, I will hear from my doctor about the results on May 6 (if there is, I will hear earlier). It feels like a long ways away, but I am managing the uncertainty. The depression explanation is so much more likely than anything else. Unlikely things happen all the time, and I have had unlikely medical problems before. But the philosopher in me looks for the simplest explanation that explains the most about a phenomenon, and that’s that depression caused cognitive decline.

So things are going more or less well in a very weird and uncertain time.

Thanks again for checking in.

Ilyana