Thanks for this great comment. I like to read about the lives of others with bipolar disorder. It reminds me that we are all similar… because it’s an illness.

Also, it’s great that even when you’re depressed at work- you plow through the paperwork- that means you go home with a feeling of accomplishment!

Julie

As to your question about working while experiencing mania I have had a lot of experience with this situation. I work at a Crisis Stabilization Unit and I am a group facilitator which means I am “on stage” so to speak a lot of the time as I do mainly educational groups about psychological topics pertinent to the Consumer/client/peers’ recovery.

When I am manic and expansive I fly through the presentations with a great deal of energy and excitement and am usually appaluded by the peers and the techs and other staff listening. Of course I get a rush from this and my day is set as I breeze through my evaluations and other paperwork. I share a very tiny office with one of the insurance specialists and she is very understanding of my moods and my energy as she was once a counselor with the agency and is also a very astute and kind person.

At the other end of the spectrum and we all know that we get there no matter what we do, I have to drag myself through the groups and there is rarely any applause or positive comments from anyone. I feel like I am out there all by myself like a comic on a bad night with a hard crowd.

When I slink into the office my coworker is usually too busy with her work to take much time to talk and I just plunge into the paperwork. I sometimes find myself actually falling asleep for a while out of boredom and frustration and extreme tiredness. I trudge through the rest of the day and usually get out of work late on these days.

I am lucky that now I have an excellent therapist and am getting on track with my life and I have decided that it is time for a career change.

I have been dabling with writing for quite some time now and I am going to use my SSDI check and my partial retirement check from the state to help support myself while I go back to school, especially if I am awarded the Reintegration Scholarship and concentrate on my writing and my storytelling.

I went through a recent med change and I am much more in control at the moment and I hope to kick the constant rapid cycling and be a more ‘normal’ stable and fufilled person.

Life with Bipolar Disorder is challenging and it can be very rewarding and fulfilling. I have a great social network and two grown children who are both married, my beautiful daughter, Dana, just this past month (August) and I have a great deal to live for.

Just today a friend came by after church and we talked about common interest and our illnesses and reminised a bit about the past when we were NAMI IN OUR OWN VOICE Presenters togeter and did a lot of other things together in the mental health advocacy field.

I stand stronger every day looking to the future with hope, excitement and anticipation.

TheBipolarOne
dsh

I can sympathize about the mania at work. My mania doesn’t ebb and flow with my cycle it just flows most of the time. I feel so fortunate to work in a situation where I have my own office because I can more easily do my calming routines and I don’t have to have my “face on” full-time. Working with mania I have found particularly challenging as I work with many men and I tend to become hypersexual. That private office has been a godsend for being able to talk candidly to my therapist and keep me out of trouble. Good luck to all that are dealing with this issue.
P.S. I don’t deal with the ebb and flow of menstrual cycles because I have an IUD that makes it so I don’t have one. This is a great side effect of a necessary choice since I had a “surprise baby” from not taking my meds.