A week ago Friday, despite the heat and high humidity, I pushed myself to mow the lawn. It was supposed to rain all weekend, so I thought it was worth the painful toll to get the yard finished.

I was wrong.

The price was much higher than I expected. Though I had everything written for last Sunday’s newsletter, I was powerless to finish editing and formatting the content. So this week, I’m sharing what I had planned for last Sunday.

On Wednesday of last week, I virtually attended the annual health leaders convention of Health Union. I was excited to attend because I was a finalist for one of the Social Health Awards, but the program also had a lot of good information. (No, I didn’t win.)

I rarely think of myself as being a health leader. It was never my goal when I started writing online, but I guess I am.

By sharing my experiences with bipolar disorder, I’m hopefully helping to remove stigma, increase understanding, and help all of you feel less alone. But sharing your story is seldom easy, and neither is living with bipolar disorder. The conference reminded me how it’s important for you to read about both the good and bad times.

One of the health leaders featured during the web meeting shared how her journey started because she posted on Instagram the struggles she was facing with her illness. She wanted a place to express how frustrated she was, her fears, and her triumphs. She began posting as a way to help her cope.

Before long, people connected with her posts. There were others who also felt invisible, like doctors didn’t understand what they were going through, nor did their families and loved ones.

Those individuals needed to hear how awful things were for her so that they knew they weren’t alone.

Even though I’ve been writing online for years, I still struggle with sharing the painful parts of my life. I know it’s relevant for you to see those parts too, but some topics are still tough to talk about.

Sometimes when I’m vulnerable, it feels like weakness. I know it’s not true, and those are the posts readers love the most, but they are the hardest stories to write and edit.

Then a few days ago, a fellow Medium writer shared her story. Scared as she was, she opened up and posted her words online, and the story touched my heart.

Her story also reminded me why it matters that I share both my good times and the messy parts of my life.

Living with a mental illness is hard. You will have good days, but you will also have bad ones. It’s important to remember that a few bad days do not mean that everything is going to pieces. Things will usually improve again, though sometimes that will mean a medication change.

It’s okay to acknowledge the hard days. Find someone in your life you can trust and who will listen to you without being judgmental. Then tell them how awful you feel.

Share the worst feelings inside, including any weakness you feel or any self-loathing. Own your feelings, because often that’s the only way to move past them.

I’ll keep working at trying to do the same.

2024 Change Update

I’m making healthier choices, but it feels like I’m starting over from zero. The positive thing is I know my eating plan works as I was consistently losing weight earlier this year, so now I’m back to following the plan.

Featured Post

This week, I’m continuing the Surviving Bipolar Series with part 23. In this chapter, I talk about going back to work too soon after my diagnosis. You can read it below.

Scenes from My Yard

This little guy came to visit a few days ago. While I loved getting to see him, I stopped leaving food outside at night. Raccoons can be monsters, so I’m discouraging him from coming too close again.

Thank you for being part of the Speaking Bipolar community.

Until next time, keep fighting.

Scott Ninneman

Part 23: My Struggle With Bipolar Disorder and Work

Illustration of a confused man looking at piles of paper on a desk — I felt like I couldn’t think. | Image made by author with Canva AI.

Two months had passed since my bipolar diagnosis. I crossed 60-some days off the calendar since my time in the psychiatric hospital and everything that led up to it.

I should have felt peace. I now had a label to put on all the chaotic thoughts in my head.

Identifying your enemy is half the battle, right?

Yet, I was still running from the term.

I was 23 years old, a healthy young man, active, social, and always pursuing goals. There was no way I had an illness. I refused to believe it.

I gave myself time to adjust to my new reality. During those 2 months, my business collapsed, the curse of being self-employed with a mental illness. To survive, I lived from week to week by taking cash advances from my credit cards.

It was a horrible mistake, a financial mess that took me over a decade to recover from.

My friends were trusting me to be alone more often, but isolation is rarely a good thing. Sitting at home alone, the voices in my head were still too much, and I felt like I had no self worth.

I had to do something. When I heard one of the local factories was hiring for office jobs, I jumped in my car and applied.

Surviving Bipolar is a monthly series telling the story of the early days of my journey with bipolar disorder. Read it from the beginning here.

The first surprise

Even with my limited experience, the surly plant manager hired me. No one was more surprised than me. I was excited about being part of an office again. My last office environment was in Wisconsin, and I longed to work with people again.

Those first few days, I jumped out of bed hours early, eager to learn how to do my job and meet my fellow employees. Every day was a new adventure, every coworker a chance for a new friendship.

Then the hypomania wore off, and much quicker than I expected.

I went from jumping excitedly from bed two hours before dawn to crawling out of bed like a sloth. Hour-long showers slipped into picking up last night’s clothes off the floor to wear again. Perfectly gelled hair (ad) became a rat’s nest I only ran my fingers through. Sitting in the office parking lot 30 minutes before my shift turned into me flying into a spot and running to the punch clock a few minutes after my start time.

The second surprise

One morning, my eyes glazed over while I stared at a stack of yellow invoices on my desk, I realized I had no idea what I was doing. It felt like Dr. Frankenstein had secretly switched my brain during the night. Now I had the Abby Normal one, and it refused to function.

The letters and numbers on the carbon invoices were a mass of alien scribbles. Nothing made sense, and I couldn’t remember any of my training up to that point.

An hour must have passed, and all I did was sit there and stare at the top piece of paper. A memory returned about taking some number off of each invoice to put in a ledger, but I couldn’t remember which one. There were five black-covered ledger binders on my desk, but I was clueless as to why.

Feeling defeated, I eventually went to my manager and asked for help. Mr. Grumpy Pants (I never saw him smile once in the time I worked there) glared at me like I was an idiot.

“Just do what you were told,” he snapped at me. “And close the door on your way out.”

That was all the help I got. I went back to my desk, put a smile on my face, and shuffled papers from one side of my desk to the other and then back again.

At quitting time, I was the first one out the door, my head full of guilt for accomplishing nothing in 8 hours. Once home, I flopped onto my couch lifeless and couldn’t even think about eating.

“I can’t do this,” I mumbled to the back of my tan corduroy sofa, but no one was listening. So the next morning, I got up and did it again.

A break

A few days later, a rush order came in for the factory, so it was all hands on deck. Other than the receptionist and office manager, the rest of the office staff was ushered out into the factory and assigned some of the easier jobs.

My job was to count and package parts. It didn’t matter if they were bolts, screws, or washers. I spent my entire day counting things into groups of 10 or 20 and then put them in packages to be sealed and shipped.

Counting was a mindless activity, but I was thankful for the break. This was something I could do. No matter how fierce the storm raging in my mind, I could still count to 10. So I did it, over and over again.

It took us a week to get the rush order out the door. Then all of us office workers were back up in the crow’s nest, the office area above the factory floor.

Back at my desk, I hoped someone had magically slipped my brain back into my head. I grabbed the first stack of invoices and felt my stomach tighten as I realized they still made no sense.

This time, I went to one of my fellow employees and asked her to remind me what steps to take. She was a little more patient, but she too looked at me like I must be an imbecile.

“It’s just a matter of looking at these numbers,” she said, pointing to a column on one of the yellow papers. “Then you look at the comparison for each store and enter the sum of those two numbers in that store’s ledger.”

“Okay,” I said, but I still didn’t understand. I felt like the dog in The Far Side cartoon. I heard, “Blah, blah, blah, Ginger.” It was no help.

Illustration of a man and woman looking at a piece of paper together — I asked a coworker for help. | Image made by author with Canva AI.

The third surprise

Everyone felt like I should already know how to do my task, so I stopped asking questions. I lasted another two weeks, but my self-worth plummeted even further with each passing day.

“I have a job,” I tried to console myself, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep it. I couldn’t even do a simple task. How could I ever be a productive member of society again?

Every morning, I arrived at work a few minutes later. Getting out of bed took the strength of 100 men. My clothes were wrinkled and unwashed, my hair a frizzy mess, and I can only imagine how unpleasant I smelled. But it was the height of the popularity of Drakkar Noir cologne (ad), so I just sprayed a little extra every morning and went on my way.

I spent days sitting at my desk, staring at invoice copies and green ledger pages. I wondered if anyone knew I wasn’t really doing anything, but I didn’t care.

My internal chorus was chanting louder than ever,

You’re an idiot! the voices screamed. You don’t know how to do anything!

I was sure they were right. I endured the torture for two full weeks, and then suddenly one morning jumped up for my desk and stormed into my manager’s office.

Mr. Grumpy Pants was in the middle of a meeting with the office manager and company president and vice president. I didn’t care.

Everyone’s jaws hung open as I, a lowly employee, barged into the dark paneled office.

“I’m done,” I snarled at Mr. Grumpy Pants. “Here’s my badge.”

I threw my employee identification card across the room onto his desk. With everyone’s mouths still hanging open, I turned around and walked back out the door, slamming it behind me.

Then I left the building and never went back. I don’t think I ever even got my last paycheck.

Looking back

Now that decades have passed, I can see the problem. I went back to work too soon. I was far from stable, and expecting more of myself than I could do.

In my desperation to feel worthy, I pushed and pushed until I broke. Getting a job at that point in my life only could have had one eventuality. There was no chance I could succeed when my mind was still whirling in such chaos.

My doctor was still adjusting my medications almost every week, and each change made me feel even less stable. For me to throw something as complicated as a full-time job into the mix was like trying to stop a car using only your feet, Fred Flintstone style.

Finding and losing that job was a painful lesson, but one I’m glad I learned. There had to be a first job after my diagnosis, so if it hadn’t been there, my downfall would still have happened somewhere.

Sometimes you can’t work

Here’s the thing. There will be times with bipolar disorder that you can’t work. As much as you want to, it won’t be possible. I felt like I was trying to fly by only flapping my arms.

What sucks the most is that often there’s no help to get you through. I could have called my parents and sought help or moved in with friends, but I didn’t do either of those things. I was afraid of looking weak, so instead, I racked up huge amounts of debt on credit cards.

I’m thankful to be stable now, and have been able to work most of the last 20 years. Even so, the fear of everything falling apart again is with me every day. Every morning when the alarm goes off, I wonder if today is the day that I will fly into a rage and walk out of my job.

Is today the day that everything will stop making sense? Will today be the day that everyone figures out that I don’t know what I’m doing? And if I fall apart again, will I end up in the hospital or worse?

Those questions are the reality of bipolar disorder and terrify me every day. It makes little sense, especially since I have been stable for a long time. But that’s the thing with bipolar. The next collapse always feels just hours away. No matter how well things are going, a part of your mind expects everything to crash and burn.

Illustration of a smiling man typing on a computer keyboard — I want you to know the truth. | Image made by author with Canva AI.

The good and bad

While I try to keep most things in my writing positive, it’s vital for you to understand there are many negative parts of bipolar. You should have a complete picture, and know that if you’re having a rough time now, you’re not the only one. I’ve been there and know how horrifying it can feel.

Maybe as you’ve been reading my story, you’ve thought I had everything tied together in a neat little bow. Perhaps you think my life is full of rainbows and butterflies, but that’s not the truth. I still have the same fears you do, even though it’s been nearly 30 years since I found out I had bipolar disorder.

If you’re living with fear that everything will fall apart, then you’re perfectly normal. That fear will be a continual part of your life, but you can lessen it by the way you live.

I know I’m one of the lucky ones. I found a path to stability and can now work full time and have the life I want, but it was a lot of hard work to get here. Everyone’s journey is unique, and some never find a way to work again.

If you can’t work right now, that’s okay, too. Don’t pressure yourself to take on more than you should because it will only end in disaster. You may have to move in with family or friends until you feel stable again, but better days will come.

The key is to keep doing the right things. Work with a professional care team. Take your meds. Get enough rest, eat healthy meals, and exercise when you can.

The everyday tasks will help you find stability and make your chances of having another collapse much lower. Do the things you know help you remain stable, and you’re more likely to remain that way.

Until next time, keep fighting.

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