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.