The life of an artist

I am starting over.
Starting over in how I look at my life and what thoughts and dreams I entertain.
This week after a conversation with my doctor I was in need of a paradigm shift.
Dreams I have carried around with me for years are needing to shift. No need to have big dreams to travel far and work in orphanages.
Change the way I am involved with hundreds of others in some crisis spot that needs to be rebuilt.
I imagine I won't be needing a dead-line driven, stressful graphic design job in some company.
I'm just not equipped physically or mentally to be able to carry out such pursuits. In my discussion with Dr. Vosloo I learned more about how my body handles stress a little differently than it's suppose to.
I would start to progress in my stamina and over all well-being and then after about a week - boom! I'd crash and feel like I was almost starting from my original point.
I have had varying degrees of problems because of Fibromyalgia/CFS for many years.
My doctor was suspicious that I had something quirky going on with my brain's ability to deactivate stress hormones. So he ordered a blood test that isn't common, but gave me a lot of information about myself.
It was a neurogenomic test which showed me I have one chromosome (COMT) that isn't up to snuff in modulating the neurotransmitter functions of dopamine and norepinephrine.
For me that means I need to more deliberately think through ways to not get upset or riled up. I'm beginning to catch myself in the act.
Apparently, I have superior mental performance (thank you, thank you) because of increased dopamine levels. The bad side of that is also an increased risk of nervousness, mood disturbances, excitability. THUS, thinking through ways to stay calm, sometimes almost forcing myself to relax.
Dopamine is a key brain neurotransmitter that helps modulate the nervous system. When deficient, Parkinson's disease, Bi-polar disorder, ADHD can be present.
My problem is the COMT chromosome is compromised and cannot not deactivate my stress hormones adequately. The really interesting fact is people like me with this compromised enzyme also have increased risk of Fibromyalgia and reduced pain threshold.
Nothing (except God's healing power) can change this. This is a permanent part of who I am. DR. Vosloo told me in his words, 'It's good you are religious because then you can tell yourself this is just the way it is." (We had a short discussion following his statement about my not actually being 'religious' and about his Calvinist church upbringing in South Africa...too much to say here, but really interesting.)
The biggest thing for me is to stay away from chronic stress...which led to my statement about changing my dream track.
Dr. Vosloo told me to take a month and just stay home as much as possible and mainly do things I enjoy doing. Relax.
That's why it came to me pretty quickly that I should think of myself as an artist more than ever before. This is what I enjoy most. This is the activity, the thought process that gives me most joy. It's where I like to put my mental stimulation.
I've been able to lose some frustration that was sitting on a shelf in the recesses of my mind. It was sitting there with those dreams of hard stress, hard labor dreams. I was able to take those shelves down without any guilt. A little sadness, but no guilt. It kind of felt like I did some mental housecleaning.
I am going to stick with practical, more predictable dreams of accomplishment. Finishing the painting I started, making some income from graphic design.
However, it's day by day for me.