Bipolar and the Workplace

I often get asked the question “your kids are all at school now, why don’t you go back to work full time?” and it always leaves me floundering a bit for a socially acceptable explanation. It's hard to tell people that I struggle with a mental illness and while I haven’t had a major hospital requiring episode for nearly 2 years, the truth is I am scared to work full time, scared I will over commit and become unwell again. 

Every single time I have worked ‘full time’ hours, as in 9am-5pm  5 days per week, I have had an episode resulting in having to cut down hours. One or two full days a week seems to fit well for me, it gives me something productive to do and a social outlet but it doesn’t cause the stress build up that can trigger my illness.

“But lots of people with chronic depression work full time jobs.” 

Yes, yes they do. My hat goes off to them because I honestly don’t know how they do it. I have tried to work while depressed and had mixed results. If the depression at the time is relatively mild and not accompanied by anxiety, then I am able to plaster on a fake smile and make small talk in all the right places for 8 hours and then collapse into a heap afterwards. It exhausts me and gives me no energy reserves. My children and husband suffer because they have to deal with a wife and mother who can’t participate in family life, cries uncontrollably, yells too much and stays in bed all weekend.

When I am severely depressed most of my journey to work is spent convincing myself not to drive into oncoming traffic, work itself becomes pointless as I am unable to remember anything, concentrate or communicate effectively with colleagues, my inner dialogue chastises every thought and every thought’s, thought. I am useless, hopeless and I think about my pre constructed suicide plans at least 30 times per hour.

My anxiety spikes because I am aware of how completely awful my work performance has become and I become paranoid that I will be fired at any moment. The anxiety causes my hands and legs shake until I can no longer use a keyboard or construct a basic sentence, I am terrified somebody will realise I am not ‘ok’ and if someone actually asks how I am I am likely to burst into tears.

I literally attempted suicide in the car park outside an office building I worked in once because I couldn’t face going up there again.

“But what about hypomania, that makes you super productive, right?”

Ha! Yes, and no. Mild hypomania can be wonderful, everything seems crystal clear as though you have cleaned a dirty window or put on glasses for the first time. Your energy levels are up, you are exercising more, dressing for success, getting involved in more social events, and not needing as much sleep as usual to wake up refreshed. Work has suddenly become much easier, words and ideas flow in conversations and meetings, you enthusiastically take on more and more projects, everybody notices your excellent work ethic and bubbly attitude and are a sure thing for that next promotion.

The trouble with hypomania is it usually either fizzles out before you have finished all those new project submissions, or it increases in intensity. Intense hypomania is where everything becomes very, very fast. All those wonderful ideas are still coming only they are happening so quickly that the part of your brain that filters out the plausible from the outlandish takes a little holiday.

You are energetic and excited and EVERYONE needs to hear your AMAZING ideas so that they can be implemented as soon as possible! You are talking fast, really fast; your bosses boss whom you have approached directly to save valuable time and company resources, is having to get you to repeat yourself two or three times so she can understand your words.

To prove to your employer how your brilliant idea will best suit the company you have spent the last three nights at home awake until 5am on the computer researching patents, emailing CEOs in China and creating business plans, brochures and designing logo’s and buying websites.

Despite you feeling like a million dollars, at this point your family has probably realised that something isn’t right and are hopefully enacting some sort of pre organised action plan, if you are in therapy your therapist will have advised you not to go to work and sent you to a psychiatrist for a med review.

If you ignore this advice and carry on in your quest for glory, one of two things will happen. Either the intense hypomania stops dead in its tracks leaving you fatigued and in way over your head paving the way for a depressive episode or it escalates further into full blown mania.

Full blown mania at work isn’t fun anymore, you stop looking like a brilliant all be it slightly eccentric up and comer and start to look just plain crazy. You can’t remember the last time you had more than two hours sleep or ate something that wasn’t put directly into your hand. Your hair and make-up aren’t quite right anymore, you accidently wore your sneakers with your dress because you were too busy that morning writing long lists of famous people to pitch your life changing ideas to and got distracted.

Your mind is whirling so quickly that it can’t keep up with itself, ideas don’t even make sense to you anymore because they have all moshed together, hallucinations begin. You need to tell your boss that you have to go home, he says that’s fine so you head out to the car. Why are you still sitting at your desk? Didn’t you leave? Did you imagine that? Oh you are in your car. No its your desk? You can’t even tell what is real anymore.

You half come to your senses and realise you are in the sick room, your manager and team leader are both with you discussing whether or not to call an ambulance, the room is spinning. You try to talk, to explain, but the words come out too fast and too jumbled to make any sense. Someone comes to pick you up and all your colleagues stare at you in disbelief as you are escorted out of the office.

“But now that you are on a medication regime, you should be able to work full time like everyone else, shouldn’t you?”

Unfortunately, it’s not that cut and dry. Medications certainly save many people’s lives but they can often feel like a deal with the devil, you get to keep your sanity but not without serious side effects. Insomnia, fatigue, weight gain, tremors, cognitive and memory issues just to name a few; these can be quite disabling. Many people spend years trying to find a medication where the challenges of the side effects don’t outweigh the issues caused by the bipolar in the first place. 

“So how can we support people with bipolar in the work place?”

That plaster cast on your broken leg is a visible reminder that you are unable to run at the moment. Mental illness is invisible, it is understandably hard for people to remember that someone may be struggling when they don’t have a visual representation of illness to remind them all the time.

Having bipolar disorder does not make you a bad or lazy person, it doesn’t mean people need to tiptoe around you or fuss over you constantly either. While we don’t want to be singled out from our peers and colleagues we ask that you understand that living with this illness can be extremely challenging and working full time hours is simply not a viable option for many of us. 

What we do ask for:

• Increased awareness of our challenges and some of your time to listen and learn a little bit about our condition.

• Be willing to express concern if you feel our moods are intensifying but don’t assume every scowl or sad expression means we are about to have an episode. People with bipolar have normal feelings of happiness, frustration and sadness each day just like you do.

• Flexibility, we have doctor appointments, therapy appointments, specialist appointments that we must attend and these are often only available during work hours. We can become unwell suddenly and may require time off without warning at inopportune moments. We don’t mean to be difficult, but having one or two days off now can prevent several months off and severe productivity losses later on.

• Respect our privacy, if we want to tell colleagues about our condition or give you details about our recent visit to the psych ward we will, but otherwise we would appreciate you keeping these things on the down low.

• Patience, some of us might be taking several different medications that make us unable to function very well before 10am or after 3pm. Our memories might also be affected and we may require a little more prompting than other staff do.

So please understand, while you can’t see my mental illness, it is something that affects my life every single day. I enjoy working part time and challenging myself with new projects and my decision not to work full time has not been made because I am lazy or out for a free ride in life, but because it is the best one for myself and my family.

Putting On A Face

I didn’t wear make-up at all until I was 27. I tried to put some on when I was around 13 but it didn’t look right and made my skin itch, it was awfully expensive and my mum didn’t wear any, plus all my friends were boys so I couldn’t ask them for tips, lipstick and hiking through the bush or skateboarding just didn’t seem to go together.

My teenage love life consisted of “drunk or stoned at a party sex” rather than prettying myself up for dates, I was fat for much of high school and not desirable to anyone sober, then when I lost weight and school boys began to take notice of me I was too involved in my eating disorder and working on my latest out-there manic project to have time for much else.

The 30yr old boyfriend I had when I was 16 did take me out on dates, but he never mentioned my lack of make-up, I was vegan at the time and definitely against animal testing so he probably thought that was part of it, there weren’t as many cruelty free products available back then.

My husband has always told me that I am perfect just the way I am and I don’t need to wear “Clown Paint”, it’s not even him just being nice, he really doesn’t like the stuff at all, in fact he was sending out death stares to my 16yr old niece when she put a little bit of lip stick and eye shadow on my 7yr old daughter on Christmas day!

At age 27 I was hypomanic, motivated and keen to get a full time ‘real’ job, I had been working in a pet store since I was 14yrs old. I landed a position in the public service where pretty nails and make up was simply expected. Suddenly I found myself in the world of manicures, eyelash tinting, brow waxing and was wearing make up every week day, my hypomania was ramping up and so was my eating disorder. A wardrobe of size XS nice work clothes, having my hair styled and wearing make-up made me feel pretty for the first time in my life.

I remember thinking that if only I had worn make up and had my hair done in high school, maybe boys would have looked at me a whole lot differently. Suddenly wearing make up to work became wearing it every day if I was leaving the house, then everyday if I was likely to get a glance at my own reflection.

Skirts, heels and cosmetics had become my mask and I felt hideous without them.

On one occasion I was off work as my hypomania and anxiety were causing problems and Hubby had to give me a lift into town for a therapist appointment. I woke up late and didn’t have time to put my face on or straighten my hair. I was beside myself. I had a panic attack and literally cried the entire hour long journey into town, then I ended up taking hubbies car and going to a shop and spending over $150 on new cosmetics that I applied in the bathroom at the mall, $100 on a new outfit and then went to a hairdresser and got a $200 cut & colour. 

I had spent nearly $500 I couldn't afford just so I could go to the appointment looking “good” and prove that I wasn’t too manic to work.

Shortly after this incident my mania peaked and landed me in hospital, where I was absolutely horrified that I would not be able to use a flat iron, run on a treadmill or wear make-up, I recall that I kept apologising to the other inmates for being so ugly and telling them that I normally wasn’t THIS bad, I just needed my face on and my straightener, promise!

The depression that came after that long manic episode drained me of energy and caused me to gain around 15kg but I continued using make-up for quite a while purely as a front when I went to work, when I wore it people thought I was doing well, they thought I was ‘normal’. I ran into a colleague at the shop on the weekend once, I was wearing shabby jeans, a now too tight T shirt and a naked face.

He took a step back and said “Woah, I nearly didn’t recognise you, you know without all your make up on!” I just laughed and said “Yeah pretty scary huh!” but I was nearly dying inside, my fears were confirmed I was fat, ugly, stupid and too lazy to even make myself recognisable. The depression got worse and I stopped going to work, stopped leaving the house and stopped wearing make-up altogether. It didn’t matter anymore; I was a lost cause.

After my suicide attempt and subsequent two months in the psych ward I returned home and eventually opened up my cosmetics bag again, Hubby was unimpressed “what do you want to wear that crap for? You aren’t working and you were pretty much fine until you started wearing all that stuff” he would say. He seemed to think that my wearing of make-up was to blame for my mania rather than the other way around.

When I was stable I started working again part time I wore make up to work but it didn’t own me anymore. Depression hit again, milder this time but I decided to quit my job for good. We didn’t suit each other. I am now back in a part time position in the pet store that is a big part of my soul, animals and fake nails are impractical, I have a uniform so I don’t have to worry about what outfit to wear. I don’t feel judged by my colleagues or customers and I look forward to every shift. 

So now sometimes I wear cosmetics and sometimes I don’t, but even on the days I do choose to wear make-up I know I am no longer simply putting on a face.

Gainful Employment

So I'm kinda not working at my “proper adult” public service job anymore. I took unpaid leave from my position in a busy inbound call centre for the government welfare department around 3 months ago due to a depressive episode and just never went back again. They haven't officially sacked me and I haven't officially quit but we all know that it’s over.

The depressive episode that finally saw me leave was dark and suicidal in nature but not my worst by far. I think in the end the single thing that made it so hard to walk into that office everyday was the overwhelming anxiety I had developed.

Anxiety had never really affected me before, or if it did it would be over something major and specific and happened very, very rarely. This was different, an all consuming wave washed over me my throat would clench tight, I would get all shaky and dizzy and completely unable to think, concentrate or remember anything and even the mere thought of stepping foot in the office would trigger it.

The job itself was taxing, customers were often angry or upset already in difficult life situations before phoning in and then hit with wait times that were sometimes over an hour just to speak to one of us. There was a lot of pressure from management in relation to stats, time spent on the call, quality of the call, time adherence with meal breaks to be met down to the minute. Yes it was stressful but realistically before my first breakdown I used to cope fine, nothing at work had actually changed, there was no big incident that I could pinpoint, it was just me and my addled mind.

So after the first severe breakdown ending in a suicide attempt and 8week hospitalisation (more about that another day) I eventually went back to work but cut down my hours, I went from working 50 hour weeks to 10 hour weeks but the anxiety reached all time high and eventually, I hit a depressive episode too and simply couldn’t hack it at all anymore. I had lost all confidence in my ability to offer customers the correct advice, I could barely hold a conversation due to concentration and memory issues, I felt like a useless burdon so I walked away.

Before I had this job I had worked in retail, in a pet store to be precise, a job I had started in as a bubbly 15year old girl with a love of animals and the gift of the gab and that was where I had stayed for a good 14 years.

 Now I was feeling particularly lousy the other day and went into the pet store where I used to work to pick something up and had a chat to my old boss – they have been there for over 30 years! I told her all my working woes and commented how I missed the retail environment where the customers are happy and want to regale you with tales of what Fido did at the dog park that day.  We chatted a while and she made me feel better, she always does.

That night the phone rang, it was my old boss offering me a job, school hours a couple of days a week should I want it. I was over the moon! I accepted of course and now I start back on Monday. It feels right, sure pay is half that of the public service but it’s a job that I LOVE with perfect hours and it gets me out of the house – plus she knows me, knows my moods and is 100% supportive.

For the first time in a very, very long time I feel like I am doing something worthwhile that’s just for me and I am really excited, wish me luck!!

What sort of job do you do? Do you love it or hate it?