Absenteeism from work

[zsadia]

Hello everyone,

I wanted to ask the larger community how you deal with not having to miss work in a full-time job? I was diagnosed with BP 1 back in early 2010 and since then I have had the habit of using up all my sick days even if I promise myself beginning of each year not to take a "mental health" day as I justify it to myself. This can happen even after a long restful vacation where the day before going to work, I do everything to prepare myself for the next day, prepare my lunch and breakfast, making sure I get enough sleep, you name it but my mind still overpowers me the next morning and I find myself unable to budge and no matter how much positive feedback I try to provide myself to get out of bed and get ready, it all fails. I find myself sending a note to my co-workers about taking a sick day. Luckily I work at a large enough company to where this lack of productivity here and there can go unnoticed but about a month and a half ago, I accepted a lead position on my old team. That entails a lot of responsibility and of course added stress of delegating responsibilities, managing the work statement, keeping my boss out of trouble, working long hours including most weekends (full-time on Sat and so far I've worked on 2 Sundays), showing up to work on time, maintaining a positive attitude and being sharp and focused.
You can say that perhaps with someone with my condition it wasn't such a wise decision to accept the lead position and that I would've been better off just keeping a minimal responsibility, standard work type of job. However, I thought that keeping myself super busy and having a sense of accomplishment at the end of the day might do me some good. So far it has been going OK, my manager seems fairly happy with my performance and maybe I'm reading too much into it this being a sick day following a vacation I took this past Tues-Sat. I have also made an appt. with a therapist 2 weeks from now to discuss this problem and to help me out. Flexing my time, i.e. going on a 9x80 schedule or working virtually some days a week is not possible with the nature of my job and company policies for my organization. Also, I have to stay in this position and on my team for at least 1 year before I can even think of switching to a different team/position per HR policy at work. Honestly, seeing how much I have moved around in the past to find work that WILL keep me somewhat interested, I do want to stick it out on this team for my own stability's sake, although I'm highly concerned with the stress level and work load going up in the next couple of months due to the project schedule I'm working on and I don't see it lessening until end of this year either.

I was curious though if for those of you who are currently taking Clonazepam (generic form of Klonopin) for bipolar anxiety, if it's still tough convincing yourself to show up to work? I take it every night (0.5 mg) to fall asleep as I cannot go to bed naturally at all anymore. One doc did suggest taking half a pill on mornings where I find it hard getting to work. Unfortunately I don't accrue that much sick time either at my company and being a fairly new employee (5 yrs this mid-June) my vacation accrual rate is also very low. Other than 4 long weekends/year, I don't get the other long weekends either as the union negotiated to combine them with our Christmas break end of the year. Since my folks live don't live in the US, i usually try to save up all my vacation to visit them during my Christmas break. The 4 days I took off this week was an exception I made for myself as all the overtime was draining me both physically and mentally.
I don't want to discuss my mental health problem with my boss as I have been advised by my PDoc against that since it won't benefit me at my current company. I hate the guilt that follows by not being able to show up to work and feeling that I am under-performing as compared to the other leads or my co-workers. At the same time I am terrified by how and for how long I am going to keep up a normal appearance in front of everyone and manage the work load, stress, and looming anxiety that is only felt by my brain and body. Giving myself incentives like being able to spend time with my b/f on Sat evenings or doing something fun on a Sunday still doesn't help. Despite taking Clonazepam every night and having a couple of productive weeks at work, I just never know when that day is going to hit me when no matter what I do or tell myself, I will have to call in sick. at times I've had to use up vacation because I've already used up all my sick days.

Any help/suggestions will be greatly appreciated as I feel that doctors rely heavily on use of medication but obviously it doesn't always help and comes with its own set of side effects.

[zsadia]

But doesn't taking .5mg of Klonopin make you drowsy? I don't think I'll be able to function on my job if I took it in the morning or the afternoon. My job requires high level of concentration and being half-awake on that med just won't work.  understand it will probably get rid of the anxiety and the "I really want to call in sick" feeling but even when i cut the .5 mg in half and started using it in the morning off a shrink's advice, I felt pretty groggy so I stopped using it other than before bedtime.

[dontpanic]

I take Klonopin .5mg 3 times a day. It really helps ease my anxiety in the morning. Before I started taking Klonopin, I usually had repetitive thoughts of "I don't want to go to work" in the morning and would then impulsively call out... not good. Taking it in the morning helps relax me and ease the repetitive thoughts and I take it in the afternoon to help with my social anxiety. I take .5mg in the evening about an hour before I take 5mg of Ambien to sleep (if I don't take the Klonopin, I'll fight the Ambien until I pass out.) Basically, I always have a little bit of Klonopin in my system but the benefits have really outweighed the negatives- I'm a very wound up/anxious person in general. If I don't feel like I need the afternoon dose, I don't take it... but without that small morning dose, I'm essentially agoraphobic.

[zsadia]

Dear member,

Thanks for responding, it helps. Tomorrow it will be a real challenge but I cannot afford to miss another day at work, it only adds on 2 times more work, more stress and you know the rest. I just don't understand i?? other than the grogginess for taking half an extra pill to make sure I sleep well and am well-rested, I just couldn't get why my brain totally refused to go to a place where I have worked for years among the co-workers who are nice average folks and on top don't know anything about my illness. I can only hope that tonight a miracle happens and tomorrow morning when I wake up, I am able to get ready and as you say once I am work things don't go as bad as I am picturing them to at the moment,

Wish me luck and thanks again for replying.