Hello everyone. It's been a couple of months since my last communication on here.
It took a poke in the ribs from @BlueBells to get me to finally pull myself together and write a post. Hiya Blue!!! [Waves cheerily] Hope you're well...
Thanks to everyone who has taken the time and energy to write on this thread. It means a lot to me that people can have a place to write their words and hopefully soothe their souls.
So... time for a little bit of an update, which also kind of requires a bit of a downdate (is that what you call a bit of history to backfill information? Hahaha...)
Anyhoos, here goes...
In June 2011, my world fell apart. I had been suffering from undiagnosed bipolar for years, and was fairly deep into a nearly 2-year long depression that saw me barely functioning. I was able to hide it from everyone, because I was self employed. I had no job to lose, as I was my own boss... hahaha...
After several years of trying to have children, my wife decided that I had missed one too many doctors' appointments, and I wasn't taking our future happiness or our relationship seriously enough. She walked.
The bottom of the bottomless pit I was in fell apart, and I went into freefall.
The good bit is that the failed marriage was just what I needed to finally kick me into action. I sought help from a GP and then a psychologist, who diagnosed me with depression. It would be a year or so before a correct diagnosis of bipolar was arrived at, but that is so often the case.
It was a steep learning curve for me. I threw myself into my research with gusto, learning all that I could about depression, bipolar, and how they specifically applied to me and my life. The online forum BlueBoard (now defunct) was instrumental in this, as I interacted with fellow travellers along the mental health path. We supported each other. We learned from each other. We cried, we laughed, we railed at the firmament, and we grew together.
It has been nearly 6 years since my major breakdown in 2011. In that time, I have been working on healing myself and building up my resilience, and learning all that I can about myself. During this time, I have only worked for a week here or a week there, picking up odd shifts of bar work and the occasional week or two of technical writing (I write user manuals and design specifications and stuff for a living).
I had correctly identified that the stress of being an electrical engineer, combined with long hours and irregular sleep, was a very strong trigger for my hypomania. I would work huge hours, and my hypomania would keep kicking in with the energy that I needed to get the job done. Oh how the bosses loved me. Often, I would keep going like this for upwards of 2 years at a time.
The flip side of the coin was when my brain ran out of go-go juice, and I would fall into a profound depression, often for 6 months or longer. Then I would go AWOL from work, and those bosses who used to love me now thought I was an unreliable a-hole.
That was the pattern of my 20 years of working life... 2 years go-go-go, 6 months no-no-no...
The collateral damage was huge, both in my own life and in the lives of my loved ones around me. Ignorance is anything but bliss, that I can assure you all...
So, back to the nearly 6 years of putting Humpty Dumpty back together again...
Needless to say that I was very hesitant to get back to full time work. Would the pattern of a lifetime reassert itself and repeat? Even with the knowledge that I had amassed, would I be able to work at the same level as before? Did I have the resillience necessary? Would I ever be more than a weary shadow of my former self?
My confidence was low. Truth be told, I thought myself just about unemployable. I had spent a year on Newstart, getting kicked in the beans by a system that gives less than a crap about you. I got shuffled from Employment Service Provider to provider, finally getting in with a Disability Service Provider. Still I was unemployed, and getting triggered ever more by Centrelink and their stupid hoops that need to be jumped through...
So, I dropped out. I went back to what I had done for all the other times in my life when I was down and out - I funded my own breakdowns. Luckily, working one's butt off in a professional career pays pretty well when the times are good, so I was fortunate enough to have just enough money in the bank to not have to rely on unemployment benefits and the stresses and pressures of a heartless system that thinks you are a liar and a welfare cheat when you come to them with an invisible disorder like bipolar or depression...
So, in a nutshell, that's been my last 6 years.
Until this month just gone. I finally felt ready to put myself out there again, and the professional services economy has finally recovered from the global financial crisis enough so that there was some work out there for me. I got in touch with a bunch of old work colleagues, and one of them came through for me.
I've now got a 6 month contract through my little consulting business, providing technical writing services to a big company. Alas, it's 800 km from where I live, but hey, you gotta do what you gotta do...
One month in, and I am coping reasonably well. I can feel the hypomania tugging at me, wanting me to fly, to soar, to tap off this planet and laugh at gravity and dance with the stars...
But... I am holding it together. I am aware of my self. I am aware of my triggers. I can feel the early warning signals and react in time to keep it all under control.
My sleep is all over the place. That is one of the worst triggers for bipolar. So far so good, though.
And I put my first monthly invoice in today. That felt good. To be actually working again. Full time.
The 6 years of hard work have paid off. Now I just have to last another 5 months of full time work without going bonkers... hahaha...
Hugs and happy vibes beaming to you all...
