The Struggles of Bipolar Recovery
Sorry for my absence...I have been recovering from my manic episode, which comes with its own personal and financial struggles. Throughout my recovery process, I was out of work for about six and a half weeks due to my unstable mental condition. At the point where I was able to return to work, my employer informed me that I was laid off, claiming that they got rid of my position. They were kind enough to let me get unemployment.
Now in the process of finding a job, and trying to keeping myself busy at home long enough not to fall into a deep depression. I feel that my depression is a teeter totter that could fall fast on the depressive side any moment. I find myself slipping into a more depressed state day by day. I notice that some of my symptoms are coming back, and my motivation toward working out and my physical health has been shot to hell. All I feel like doing is sitting at home, eating and looking for a job. Luckily enough my weight has been stable thus far.
In addition to the my joblessness and my waning depression, on New Year’s Day, also my birthday, my wife and I got into a serious head on car accident with two tree which ended up being up rooted. The car was totaled, which was good, but then we were faced this the daunting task of unexpectedly purchasing a new car, with only one income. Family once again stepped up to help us thought our struggle. I am completely grateful for the help, but at the same time I am completely tired of being a 32 year old that still needs help from parents to survive. I look at the people that I graduated high school with, and I feel that they are much further in their life that I am. They have Masters Degrees, working for great companies, and I find myself still in undergraduate school and looking for a job in which I can make enough money to take some pressure off out financial struggles.
I feel pressure from all around, even though everyone is supportive and understanding, I have this mythical feeling that they are disappointed in me for not being able to find a job yet, even though I have done everything in my power to search to find one. Even enlisting the help of my college’s career services, where I updated and perfected and rewrote my resume more that I can remember. I feel myself slipping, and I am doing everything in my power to stay firm!
As mentioned on previous posted, both my wife and I are bipolar, and I am noticing that our struggles and shortcomings are having a depressive effect on us both. Luckily enough we are financially able to make it, but barely. I feel that all this pressure is contingent on if I get a job or not. I feel the weight of my family on my shoulders and all I can do is wait. Wait for a call back for an interview, wait to find a job in which I can apply, wait to hear back from companies that I have interviewed with. My life consists of waiting, and for someone that is bipolar and is pretty much home bound at the time, I feel that it is a time bomb to the inevitable depressive breakdown.
