Bipolar 2 From Inside and Out

Posts tagged ‘working at home’

What Is It With Showers Anyway?

Girl is choosing cosmetics in bathroomIt is fairly widely known that people with bipolar disorder and/or depression have trouble taking a daily shower. It’s not that we don’t know what’s involved in taking a shower, or why it would be good for us to do so, it’s simply that showering uses up a tremendous number of spoons.

Here’s what showering looks like according to Andrew Solomon, author of the now-classic The Noonday Demon:

I ran through the individual steps in my mind: You sit up, turn and put your feet on the floor, stand, walk to the bathroom, open the bathroom door, go to the edge of the tub…I divided it into fourteen steps as onerous as the Stations of the Cross.

I performed a similar exercise in one of my blog posts and here’s my version:

First I have to find a clean towel and a bar of soap, get undressed without seeing myself in the mirror, fiddle with the water temperature, wash and shampoo, dry off, find clean underwear, and that’s not even thinking about drying my hair and figuring out what I can wear! Oh, my God, I’ve used up all my spoons just thinking about it! I should just eat Cocoa Puffs and go back to bed.

Now let me say, first of all, that I don’t really like showers. I grew up taking baths and have never enjoyed the sensation of water spraying in my face. But with my bad back and bad knees, getting up from sitting in a bathtub is nearly impossible these days. (Please don’t ask me why anyone would want to sit in dirty water. Everyone says that when I say I prefer baths. I have a nice long soak, steeping in the clean water like a big teabag, and only then wash up and get right out. Used to, I mean.)

To most people, showering is a single act that requires the expenditure of a single spoon. Take a shower; that’s it. But for those of us with invisible illnesses, each separate step may require its own spoon. Take something as simple as finding a towel, for instance. Go to the linen closet, grab a towel and voilà! Only a fraction of a spoon, if that.

But surely you don’t think I have had the spoons to fold and put away my laundry. It is all there in a jumble on top of the dryer. (Who needs a wrinkle-free towel anyway?) I have to root around to find one, and maybe twice if a cat has thrown up on the first one I pick. (They love sitting on clean laundry.)

If I have to go to a business meeting I force myself to use some of those spoons showering and getting dressed and acting respectable. But I will pay for it later, collapsing after the meeting in need of a mega-nap.

Now here’s a little secret I’ll tell you. Most people believe you gain spoons by going out of the house – walking in the fresh air, meeting friends for lunch, shopping, going for a drive (does anyone do that anymore?). But the fact is that, according to Spoon Theory, you get a certain number of spoons every day when you wake up. You cannot gain, buy, beg, borrow, or steal any more spoons, not even by breathing fresh air. You can only spend them.

Given the mathematics of spoons, I don’t spend a single one that I don’t absolutely have to. Not going out? No shower. Have to go out for a loaf of bread or a drive-through meal? Wash up in the sink. If I need a shower between outings, my husband reminds me and facilitates by, for example, rummaging on the dryer for a clean towel and clean clothes or a clean nightshirt.

I need those spoons for doing my work at home in my smelly pajamas more than I do for the ordeal of showering.

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What Bipolar Disorder Has Cost Me

black backgroundWe lose a lot when we live with bipolar disorder – function, memory, friends, and even family.

But we also lose something more tangible – money. Or at least I did, and I know that a number of others have experienced this as well. Here’s how it went for me.

Work. I quit my full-time office job (possibly in a fit of hypomania). I had a new boss and had told her about my disorder. Her only question was, “What will that mean?” My answer was, “Sometimes I’ll have good days and sometimes I’ll have bad days.” (It caught me by surprise, so I didn’t have a more coherent or accurate answer.) Immediately after that, I began receiving bad evaluations, which I never had before. Was my performance really declining? It probably was, as I was heading into a major depressive episode.

But I wasn’t out of work quite yet. For a while I worked freelance, and pretty successfully. Then my brain broke, and there I was – unemployed. I had savings in a 401K, and we ran through all of that. Then my husband had a depressive episode and we ran through his 401K as well. And the money we got from refinancing our house.

Disability. Sometime in that stretch of time, my husband realized that our money was going to run out. He asked me to file for disability. Many of you know that story. I was denied. I got a disability lawyer. By this time – years later – I was able to work freelance again a bit, and my lawyer told me shortly before my appeal hearing was scheduled that the hearing officer’s head would explode when he learned what my hourly rate was.

Never mind that I could work only a few hours a week – maybe five, in a good week.

Insurance. Then there was insurance. As a freelancer, of course, I didn’t have any. My husband’s good county job had covered us, until he became unemployed too. I’m sure a lot of you know that story as well. No insurance. Huge pharmacy bills, and psychiatrist and psychotherapist, and doctor visits and the odd trip to Urgent Care.

Meds. Then my doctor put me on a new drug which cost $800 a month. I got a couple of months free from the drug company – just enough to discover that it really worked for me and I didn’t want to give it up.

Then, with remarkable timing, the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) came along and we were able to get insurance again. It wasn’t really affordable, though, costing only slightly less per month than the new drug. But it covered all our other prescriptions, too, so we came out a little ahead.

Budget. Since then, that’s the way it’s been going – month to month and disaster to disaster. My work is irregular and I never know how much I’ll get in any given month. My husband’s pay is steady, but meager – a little above minimum wage. We have managed to make our mortgage payments and keep the house, which my husband doubted we’d be able to do when I couldn’t work. I know in that respect, we’re way luckier than many families struggling with bipolar disorder.

Our latest disaster came this week, when our only remaining partially working vehicle (no reverse gear) blew out second gear as well. The money we had borrowed and put aside for major dental work that the insurance wouldn’t cover disappeared with a poof – and still wasn’t enough. We had to borrow more from an already fed-up relative. I don’t blame her. She never expected to have to keep bailing out her grown son and his wife when she herself was past retirement age.

Our Future. I don’t see anything changing. My mental disorder is under much better control, but I know I’ll never be able to work in a full-time 9–5 job again. Job opportunities are few for people our age anyway, despite anti-age-discrimination laws. And I’ve never tried applying for a job where I must ask for accommodations to offset my illness, but I’m sure employers find lots of reasons not to hire people who need those. Again, despite the laws.

So why am I telling you all this? Am I just whining and feeling sorry for myself? Well, yes, I am, but that’s not the point, really. Bipolar disorder takes a brutal toll on our emotional lives, our families, our relationships, and more. It can also put us on the brink of poverty, or in our case, one paycheck and one more disaster away from desperate straits. I know that there are bipolar sufferers, including some of my friends, in much worse straits.

It’s stressful.

And we all know how stress affects a person with bipolar disorder.

Badly.

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How Depression Sneaks Up

I had a blog post all written and ready to go. It was about my fluctuating moods and my writing, and how they affected each other. Some of what I wrote is still true. The depression I suffered during my early years and the exceedingly depressive poetry I wrote during that time allowed me to learn something about how poetry works and something more about how depression works.

I wrote about how hypomania affects my writing, and that is still true. Hypomania pushes me to do my writing, even when I don’t feel like it. In fact, at times it pushes me into doing more writing than I can probably handle. Case in point: This week I wrote three samples for a work-for-hire outfit when I should have been writing or at least outlining my WIP (Work In Progress), a sequel to the mystery I have already written and have been sending around to agents.

And last night, that’s where I hit the wall. I figured out that I have sent out about 180 or so query letters and gotten only the most minimal results – rejections that said I had an interesting premise that was not right for them. Most, though, have received plain rejections or the dreaded “no response means no.” I am now second-guessing myself and everything about the manuscript.

Last night, the depression caved in on me. I spent the night in bed, not sleeping except for nightmares, and not wanting to get up in the morning.

Because my identity is invested in being a writer, though, I did get up (late), sent a few more queries, and got to work on rewriting my blog posts, which I had determined were wretched. In the blog post that I abandoned, I had pontificated about how keeping a schedule kept me going with all the writing projects and various other work I do. 

I had also crowed about my relative stability and how that was helping me keep that schedule, which was supposed to be keeping depression at bay. I found out that I lied. The fact that I have maintained functionality for some time did absolutely nothing to prevent the depression that hit me.

Admittedly, this is probably a reactive depression, with my lack of success being the trigger. The thing is, it’s awfully difficult to tell apart from endogenous depression. In fact, I have known the first to melt into the second. At first you have a clear cause that would depress anyone, then you find it clinging to you long after what would seem to be reasonable. (This is subjective, of course. What is the “right” length of time to be depressed over 180 rejections?)

What’s left? Self-care, of course. Trying to sleep if I can, and squeezing in a nap if possible. Eat something, even if it’s only some guacamole and chips or a bowl of soup. Take my meds religiously. Try to cling to that schedule even when I don’t want to.

But the truth is, I’m running out of agents to submit to. I’m running out of energy to try. And I’m running out of the frame of mind to keep me functional. I’ll be okay, I know, but it may be a long, hard climb. 

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Time Flies When You’re Bipolar

Finding stability is difficult when you have bipolar disorder. The days seem to melt into one another, either life in dense fog or life on a tightrope. You can’t remember whether you’ve eaten that day or showered that week or when you need to pay that phone bill.

And forget those lists of self-care things you should do. Contemplating even one (“go for a walk outside”) leaves me feeling defeated. It involves too many steps – getting out of bed, finding clothes, getting dressed, and then the actual walking. Most of the self-care lists contain things that are next to impossible for a truly depressed person to do (wash one dish), or too mundane to engage a manic person’s psyche (nap, complete one craft project).

For myself, I get lost in the week, since I usually measure time by weeks. What was I going to do on Thursday? Isn’t there a call I need to make this week? Do I need more groceries this week? I can also get lost in the month sometimes – Is it time to water my plant? Do a breast self-check? Pay a bill? Most of these I can handle with small nudges. Water the plant on the first day of the month. Pay a bill when I get an email or call about it.

When I worked in an office or a restaurant, there were ways to measure days. Casual Fridays were a dead give-away, for instance. But there were no weekly group meetings or, in the case of the restaurant, even specific chores or a consistent schedule for each week. I used to be able to pinpoint Thursdays because it was chicken-n-dumplings day at the Hasty Tasty.

But since COVID I no longer go out to work or to the Hasty Tasty or get dressed for work (I work in pajamas at my desk). I can sometimes tell time by my husband’s days off – Thursday and Sunday – but even that gets confusing, since I measure by when he goes into work (Wednesday, for example, and Saturday evenings) and he counts by when he gets off (Friday and Monday mornings). “Thursday into Friday” or “Sunday into Monday” is too much for my poor glitchy brain to handle.

I have better luck when I measure by my own work. I have off Thursdays and the weekend. Sometimes there is no work on a particular day, and sometimes I take on extra work on Thursdays or over the weekend, so it’s not completely reliable.

I do try to stick to a schedule when it comes to my writing, though. By Tuesday, I try to have an idea for my blogs. Wednesday I firm it up or do research, if needed. Thursday, I write a draft, since I don’t have my regular job to do. Fridays I tweak the draft. Saturdays I proofread and add tags. Sundays I publish. Mondays I check to see how well my blogs have done. Since my novel is finished, I have added doing three queries a day, first thing in the morning. And when I don’t have regular work, I try to either do research for my next novel, or write scenes that I know have to go in it somewhere, though not in order, since I don’t have an outline firmed up.

I suppose self-care encompasses going to bed. I usually get in bed by 9:00 or 10:00 and read to unwind (I know that this is not recommended, but it’s an essential part of my daily cool-down, whatever the day of the week it is). After I start to get sleepy, I take my nighttime pills and read a little more until they kick in. I usually just awake naturally, unless I have a work assignment that’s due early in the morning. Then I set an alarm.

These are the techniques I use to keep grounded in my days and weeks. When something unexpected happens, such as my husband’s days off being switched, I get back into the trap of not really knowing what day it is.

But as for self-care, I don’t schedule a massage or take up yoga or call a friend (I keep in touch on social media). It’s all I can do to get through a week at a time and be grateful for that.

 

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Workplace Adjustments I Would Like to Have Had

by Chinnapong / adobestock.com

I missed out on the heyday of the ADA. People didn’t become as conscious of accommodating people with disabilities until much later. And even then, the most common accommodation was wheelchair ramps. But there are some workplace adjustments or accommodations I wish I had available to me, back when I worked in an office.

According to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), persons with disabilities are entitled to accommodations to make it possible for them to work. Most of us think about certain kinds of lighting, closed captions, or specialized chairs. But what about when you have an invisible disability?

The ADA definition of a disability is one that impairs an individual’s ability to – among other “major life activities” – learn, read, concentrate, think, communicate, and work. Certainly, a number of psychological or psychiatric conditions qualify as producing trouble in these areas. In my case, my bipolar disorder made it difficult to do many of those in your standard office work environment.

But would the ADA have made accommodations available to me? The ADA does include some mental illnesses in its list of disabilities. Examples of mental disabilities commonly considered under the ADA are:

  • Major depressive disorder
  • Bipolar disorder
  • Post-traumatic stress disorder
  • Obsessive-compulsive disorder
  • Schizophrenia

Examples of accommodations or work adjustments for those with psychological disabilities include, among others:

  • Flexible Workplace – Telecommuting and/or working from home.
  • Scheduling – Part-time work hours, job sharing, adjustments in the start or end of work hours, compensation time and/or “make up” of missed time.
  • Leave – Sick leave for reasons related to mental health, flexible use of vacation time, additional unpaid or administrative leave for treatment or recovery, leaves of absence and/or use of occasional leave (a few hours at a time) for therapy and other related appointments.
  • Breaks – Breaks according to individual needs rather than a fixed schedule, more frequent breaks and/or greater flexibility in scheduling breaks, provision of backup coverage during breaks, and telephone breaks during work hours to call professionals and others needed for support.

Of course, in order to receive accommodations or adjustments, it’s necessary to reveal to someone – at least your boss or maybe the HR department – that you have a psychological or psychiatric disorder.

My own experience of needing accommodations at work was not great. In the job I held the longest, I only mentioned my depression (as it was then diagnosed), to my immediate supervisor. He was sympathetic, but the work environment was not exactly conducive to my needs.

One of the things that I could have used in dealing with the anxiety that went along with my depression was privacy. At first, that was not even possible, since my entire department was located in a cube farm, where no one had any real privacy. Even the fact that I was an editor and needed to concentrate on my work did not win me a private space.

Later, when we moved to an office that had actual offices, I snagged one with a door. The only problem was that I was not allowed to close the door, or at least looked askance at when I did.

An ideal situation for me (aside from being allowed to close my door) would have been permission to work from home. There was one person at this office who had this privilege, but it was never considered for me. Admittedly, this was very much pre-pandemic, but most of my work was done on a computer, and I had one at home that was compatible with the office computers. It wouldn’t even have been necessary for the company to supply me with one.

Another accommodation that would have helped lots would have been a hotel room to myself at business conventions, which would have allowed me time and space to decompress after a long day of being “on,” meeting and greeting, and being sociable and respectable. Unfortunately, that was a privilege reserved for the men. (As I understood it, the salesmen were booked into double rooms as well, but winked at when they rebooked them into singles.) This may have nominally been due to my sex rather than my mental condition, but not having a solitary retreat from the clamor of a convention definitely had a deleterious effect.

After 17 years at that job, I was let go, most likely because I was considered “unreliable.” At the next office where I landed, I had a boss who understood bipolar disorder (as I was then diagnosed) and who was satisfied with my work.  Never a bad evaluation – until that boss left. “I’m going to miss you,” I said. “I know you will,” she replied.

I realized what she meant when I revealed to my new boss that  I had bipolar disorder. “What does that mean?” she asked. Taken aback, the only reply I could think of was, “Sometimes I have good days and sometimes I have bad days.”  It wasn’t a great description of my condition and set me up for problems. After one year of my mother’s health and my psychiatrist appointments requiring me to miss work, and my missing work in winter owing to living at the bottom of a snowy, icy hill, I received my first bad evaluation. Nothing about my performance had actually changed since my work with the first boss. I could have easily worked from home and occasionally was permitted to, but my work was dubbed sub-par once I did.

(Not that it’s a big thing, but I would also have appreciated being able to take a “brain break” such as doing a crossword puzzle, instead of a cigarette break, since I don’t smoke. And not being asked work questions when I was on the toilet.)

After that, I went freelance, worked at home nearly all the time, and was only required to attend a meeting at an office once or twice a year. I have worked that way since and it suits me. It’s only now that I’ve become my own boss that I’ve been able to get what I really need when it comes to work.

 

References

https://www.eeoc.gov/statutes/americans-disabilities-act-amendments-act-2008#:~:text=The%20Act%20emphasizes%20that%20the,shall%20not%20require%20extensive%20analysis.

https://www.sfglife.com/blog/top-10-causes-disabilities-us-and-why-you-need-disability-insurance/

https://adata.org/factsheet/health

https://www.dol.gov/agencies/odep/program-areas/mental-health/maximizing-productivity-accommodations-for-employees-with-psychiatric-disabilities

https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/tools-and-samples/hr-qa/pages/cms_011495.aspx

https://www.ada.gov/pubs/adastatute08.htm#12102

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Mental Health

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The Big Disruption

alphaspirit/adobestock.com

I don’t know if I’ll be able to make a blog post next week unless I can write an extra one this week and save it. Next week at this time we’ll be moving from the three-bedroom house we’re currently living in to a one-bedroom apartment, where we expect to stay for three months at the maximum.

The circumstances that led to this situation are complex and the whole process has been feeding into my triggers and issues. No, bipolar disorder won’t stay on hold for even two weeks so we can get this accomplished.

Overthinking. First and perhaps foremost, I hate cleaning, packing, and moving, especially when there’s a time limit on them. I even hate packing for vacations. (I’m okay once the vacation has started. It’s just the lead-up to it that gets me.) When I pack, I always overthink and almost always overpack, as if I’m planning for the Normandy invasion. This is exhausting.

Anxiety. I often have anxiety dreams about packing and moving, usually having to do with moving into or out of a dorm at college. This was indeed a stressor for me, as I lived someplace different every year and went home over the summer. Apparently, it has never quite left my psyche. This set of moves will be unpleasantly like those – a massive, frantic rush at the beginning of summer and another set of the same, though one hopes not as frantic, at the beginning of fall.

Uncertainty. What happened to us is that our house was destroyed by a tornado a year ago. Since that time, we have been living in a house provided for us by the insurance company. Now, however, they’ve put us up here as long as they care to and our former house isn’t completely rebuilt and ready for re-occupancy yet. We’ve had just over a month to make alternative arrangements. Combine that with trying to get a three-month lease, and a one-bedroom was all we could find. (We call it “The Shack.”)

Belonging. I’ve had a hard time bonding with places where I’ve lived – they’ve never truly felt like home to me – and I hope that the rebuilt house, which we are completely furnishing, will have that feel of “mine.” But The Shack will feel the least like home since any I’ve lived in since college. Even my study, where I do my writing, will be a utility room with a table and chair rather than a desk. Nor will we have much in the way of furnishings. A bed, a television, two chairs, boxes for bedside tables, and not much else. The rest is in storage or not to be delivered until permanent move-in.

Immobilization. It is the one-year anniversary of the tornado and we will be swept up in a virtual tornado of packing and moving. I have already noticed tornado dreams and severe storm-related anxiety as the date approaches. I anticipate being virtually immobilized just when I need to be most productive and proactive. It already feels overwhelming.

Isolation. And no, there is no one around who can help us move. It’s just me and my husband, with maybe a little help from U-Haul and Two Men and a Truck. My husband suffers from depression, and between that and my bipolar disorder, we’ve been isolating so much that even with pizza and beer we couldn’t pull together a work gang.

We’ll get through, I know. And we’ll get through living in The Shack until it’s time to go home at last. I just wish I could see a clear path between now and then.

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Did Bipolar Disorder Lose Me Jobs?

I lost two jobs, one that I had held for 17 years, because of my bipolar disorder. I only realized this comparatively recently. In both cases, I readily admit that my work had gone downhill, but at the time (at least for the first job), it never occurred to me that bipolar disorder was the reason for my dismissal.

I was working at a publishing company as an editor, having worked my way up from editorial assistant. I had been the editor of two different magazines, assistant editor for a couple of others, and writer and proofreader for them all. (It was a very small company.)

As time went on, though, I became less and less reliable. I edited my magazines, but I had trouble dealing with people. I had particular trouble with an art director who didn’t like my cover choices (despite the fact that several of them had won awards), humiliated me in a staff meeting because of it, and reminded everyone about it later. She was toxic, sure, but I was unable to deal with the situation or even stand up for myself.

There were other humiliations that I tolerated because I didn’t have the wherewithal to quit. When, during the financial crisis, salaries were cut by 20%, mine was cut by 40%, which to me meant that I was twice as useless as, say, a salesperson.

I stayed, but I isolated myself. My office had a door and I used it, the only person in the company to do so. I knew that people thought this was odd behavior, but by that point, I didn’t care. I was let go with no explanation given.

Yes, the company was a toxic environment and no, I didn’t deal with it well. But the situations I put up with exacerbated my bipolar disorder until I was headed for the crash. When I was on the upswing I was able to do my assignments and, I like to think, do them well. But when things went bad, I was prey to the voices that told me I was no good. Losing the job proved that to me.

The next job I went to was editing textbooks. My supervisor knew me and knew that I had bipolar disorder. The fact that she understood helped me keep on an even keel for a while. I developed little techniques to stave off difficulties. But some of my coping mechanisms were unacceptable. (Apparently, it’s okay to have a cigarette break but not a crossword puzzle break.)

Then my supervisor left. I said to her, “I’m going to miss you,” and she replied, “I know.” Prophetic words. I was open with my new supervisor about having bipolar disorder and was quite taken aback when she asked, “What does that mean?” Unprepared to give a proper explanation, I blinked and replied simply, “It means I’ll have good days and bad days.”

From that point on, my performance and their satisfaction with me fell, until I received a bad review, the first one I had ever had. Before the six-month probation period was up, I left of my own accord, determined to make it as a freelancer.

There were personal circumstances at the time, including my disorder, that made me less capable. I became responsible for my mother’s health and finances. I could easily miss half a day of work just getting her to her various appointments. That no doubt affected many of my job functions, particularly my attendance and my ability to concentrate. My major breakdown began not long after I left that job.

The thing is, in 2008, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) added bipolar disorder as a covered condition. Employers were (and as of this writing still are) required to provide “reasonable accommodations” to affected individuals. Examples of reasonable accommodations include job restructuring, part-time or modified work schedules, and “a change or adjustment to a job or work environment.”

To receive accommodations under the ADA, an employee must disclose their bipolar disorder (which I did, at least at the second job) and request accommodations (which I didn’t do, other than offering to work from home).

The EEOC (2009) has a publication called “Psychiatric Disabilities and the ADA,” which is available online at http://www.eeoc.gov/policy/docs/psych.html. Among their recommendations to help a bipolar employee continue to function in the work environment – maintain stamina and concentration; stay organized and meet deadlines; work with supervisors; and handle stress, emotions, and attendance issues – are these:

  • Allow flexible scheduling
  • Allow for time off for counseling
  • Allow work from home during part of the day or week
  • Provide space enclosures or private office
  • Allow telephone calls during work hours to doctors and others for needed support
  • Provide flexible leave for health problems
  • Allow the employee to make up time missed
  • Maintain open channels of communications between the employee and the new and old supervisor in order to ensure an effective transition

I know there are those who would consider such accommodations “coddling.” And I wouldn’t have needed them all, or all of them at the same time. But even an understanding of my closed door and my need to work at home would have helped.

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I Hate My Job, But I Don’t Hate My Life

The other day I found myself thinking, “I hate my job. I hate my life.” But then I stopped. The truth was that I do hate my job, but I don’t hate my life.

There have been times when the two thoughts absolutely went together. I well remember getting up in the morning and thinking, “Now I have to go to the bad place where they make me unhappy.” Unfortunately, the thought would color my whole day. Instead of unwinding after a rotten day – or a whole series of them – I brooded about what came before and dreaded what would come the next day. I was caught in a loop of bad thoughts and they wouldn’t let me go, or enjoy, or relax. My life seemed to stretch out into an unending series of more of the same.

Of course, that was when I was deep in bipolar depression, improperly medicated, and unaware of self-care. Oh, the job was indeed pretty terrible. I was an editor, a writer, and a proofreader, tasks and occupations I normally enjoy. There’s something wonderful about taking something mediocre and making it good, or even taking something bad and making it better. Once or twice I even got compliments on the job I was doing.

But at that time, when I hated it, the job was a misery. A reorganization had put the editorial department under the marketing department, which had been true in fact for a long time but was now formally acknowledged, with a resulting new chain of command. Anything I wrote was essentially a puff piece for some advertiser. Three senior editors were fighting over my time and attention, each determined that I should work on their project first and foremost.

I wasn’t quite ready for a major breakdown, but I was close. I hated both my job and my life.

Now I have a tedious and basically unfulfilling job. I transcribe audios of boring business meetings and lawyer consultations, relieved only by the occasional podcast. On top of that, I’m a really crappy typist, so it takes me hours to do a job that others could zoom through. Add in foreign accents and mumblers, and you get a job that brings me no joy, but only a modest paycheck.

But for some reason it also suits me. I work four days a week, at home in my pajamas. No one is looking over my shoulder. If I make my deadlines (and I do), I can expect fairly steady work, except during the holiday season. I earn enough to supplement my social security without going over their limit on extra income.

I also have medications that stabilize me and a much better knowledge of self-care. Working at home for only one boss is part of that. So is taking meal breaks whenever I want them and spending that time with my husband. Eating nutritious meals. Letting myself say, “I hate it! I hate it!” after a particularly trying assignment. Reading a book before I go to bed. Snuggling with the kitties. Allowing all these things to seep beneath my skin and feed my soul.

I don’t belong to the regular-massage-and-decadent-chocolates school of self-care. Maybe I’m a simple soul, but I prefer the everyday comforts that make my life not a misery and help me appreciate what I can of my situation. Not that I’ve got anything against either massages or chocolate. But to me, they are special indulgences rather than a part of my daily self-care.

In the end, medication and self-care are what keep me going, hating my job, but not my life.

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The Perils of Working Full-Time Again

Working full-time is a bitch. Working full-time while mentally ill is even worse.

I work as a writer and editor, but lately I’ve been working mostly as a transcriptionist. Dan works as a clerk in a big box store and grocery. Neither one of us makes very much money at this.

Both of us used to work in more professional settings. Neither one of us is able to now. Working at home in my jammies suits me fine. I don’t know that I’m capable now of dressing up like a competent businesswoman and going to an office where it’s all people-y and I have to be professional and appropriate for eight hours straight. My husband suffered serious burn-out and depression and can no longer handle a managerial position.

The freelance lifestyle has been a godsend for me. Mostly, when bipolar depression hit, I could declare myself a “mental health day” and not work. Most of my deadlines used to be flexible enough to accommodate an iffy schedule. Now not so much.

The transcription job changed from part-time to full-time when the financial crunch crunched. It involves listening to the audio of assorted business meetings, podcasts, and the like and typing them. And there are definitely deadlines. Often very tight ones, but always very specific. I can’t get away with saying, “I’ll have this for you Monday, or Tuesday at the latest.” In fact, I have to take the tightest deadlines I can get because they pay better. I’ve been taking extra work on my days off, too, just for the extra bit of money. But it’s wearing me down, mentally and emotionally. (Sitting at a desk all day isn’t doing wonders for my back either.)

So here I am, dealing with many of the difficulties of full-time work – setting an alarm to wake me up, working when I don’t feel well enough, not being able to take breaks when I need them, fighting the stress of tight deadlines. I am fortunate, and I know it, to be able to work at all, what with the bipolar and the anxiety. I shouldn’t complain. But the freelance market is tight these days and transcription is almost all I can get. It’s leaving me feeling battered and afraid. The work is said to slow down drastically between Christmas and New Year. But the bills don’t, of course.

Dan’s work is less mentally stressful but more physically challenging. Working third shift requires him to sleep most of the next day just to recover and his depression is kicking in as well. His brush with mortality and enforced inactivity depressed him further. Plus, he has to deal with me and my mood swings, from resigned numbness to hypomanic panics. We’ve often said that when both of us are emotionally afflicted at the same time, things get pretty ugly. Neither one of us can truly be there for the other, or only in small bursts.

But until or unless our circumstances ease up, here we are – fighting our way through full-time work and part-time mental function. I just keep pounding these keys and he just keeps stocking those shelves. There’s no time off for bipolar and depression.

 

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Mental Health

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The Golden Glow and the Spoons

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Hypomania is as insidious as it is enjoyable.

I remember when I quit my 9–5 office job to go freelance. I remember when I made the decision. I had gotten my first bad review, ever, shortly after disclosing my bipolar disorder to my new boss.

I remember driving around shortly thereafter, running errands in the middle of the day. I felt the warm, golden glow that goes with either happiness or hypomania. I could wake when I pleased and work when I pleased. I could run those errands when I wanted. I could take my mother to her doctor’s appointments whenever I needed to. I could make and go to my own appointments as necessary.

Best of all, I felt as though I had enough spoons to do all this. I was able to keep up with the work and the errands and the appointments and, hey, if I got tired I could take a nap in the middle of the day.

But.

Eventually the glow wore off and the spoons ran out. Hypomania dumped me back into the depression I was oh-so-familiar with. I had more work to do and less energy to do it. My mother’s problems increased and I had to take over her finances as well as my own. I was teetering on the edge of a major depression, and then I fell off that cliff.

Anymore I don’t trust hypomania. First of all, I can’t distinguish it from actual happiness, competence, or satisfaction. I always question its sincerity and watch out of the corner of my eye for the coming crash. In other words, when I’m happy I can’t even enjoy happiness without reservation.

One way I keep track of my hypomania is by being aware of the number of spoons I have. If I’m flying on a hypomanic cloud, I feel replete with spoons. It never occurs to me that I will run out. When I’m experiencing garden-variety happiness, I still suffer at some point from lack of spoons. No matter how many pleasing things are scheduled for the day, I know deep inside that I cannot simply dive into all that bounty. My joy is measured out, as the poet said, in coffee spoons or in this case metaphoric spoons which I always visualize as small white plastic ones.

Stability for me does not mean that I can ignore my supply of spoons, either. I may be on an even keel, able to do most of what I want, but inevitably the spoon depletion hits, sooner or later. There is simply no more that I can do, much as I want to. And if I force myself past that point, I will surely pay for it in exhaustion, irritability, or isolation.

Spoons, therefore, run my life. If I am too happy, I have to watch for incipient spoon depletion.  If I am level, I know that I must still keep track of the spoons I use. And if I am low, my spoons can disappear altogether, to the familiar point of not being able to get out of bed.

I think the trap of hypomania is the worst of all. On a high like that I can lose track of my spoons – even forget that they are necessary. Fortunately, I don’t get the full-blown version of mania. I fear I would squander spoons recklessly, leaving me a terrible absence of any.

Spoons are a useful way to explain the energy demands of chronic and/or mental illnesses. My husband and I speak spoonie shorthand. But I wish I could experience that golden glow, that haze of happiness, that feeling of floating, without having to keep one eye on the spoon-meter.

 

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Mental Health

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