Work and Bipolar Disorder. ARGGGGG…….
I am out of my depression, but my work issues remain. Who the heck has panic attacks from looking at email? This illness is DUMB. We can’t explain it in regular terms.
The only way I can deal with what happens to me is to see it in the context of bipolar disorder. For example, being able to coach for hours with no problems regarding life and death situations and then not being able to open an email because I can’t breathe is about mental illness. It’s not about the regular world.
In the regular world this is bizarre- it makes no sense.
But if I remember that I have a very severe mental illness that affects my life in almost every moment, it makes sense that I will struggle the way I do around the administrative side of my work.
It’s my life goal to figure out my working dilemma. I love to work. I love writing and coaching and don’t want this illness to stop me from doing what I love.
The fact that the quality of my work is not affected by bipolar disorder, but that my ability to sit down and do the work is greatly affected is a nut I’m going to CRACK.
Julie
Crack it, girl! Then tell us how to do so!
I hear your dilemma. You love most of your work, but some tasks associated with it are hard to get to.
My bipolar theory is this: we who live with bipolar sometimes get way more done than a lot of the rest of the world, if we are in the right frame of mind (or the wrong frame of mind? I’m never totally sure).
And if we are doing a task we love, the manic kicks in (especially if we are rapid cyclers)and we can keep going and going like an ever ready battery.
But that is the problem, we can only keep going on that creative endeavour that gets our juices going, but other tasks? Well there is just no energy left for those.
“In the context of bipolar” as you say, maybe it is not the email that is making it hard to breath but your emotional exhaustion from doing the other stuff that you love?
I am absolutely no therapist, but I know bipolar.
Wendy Love
Just a thought….
I have always thought I was a terrible procrastinator, at work and at home, and I blamed myself and believed I was “bad.” Maybe I’m not bad, just bipolar. I get filled with anxiety about a project to do or emails to read. Or at home, bills to pay (yikes!) or chores to do. I will try to give myself more of a break, realizing I have a disorder and that I’m constantly working to overcome its symptoms.