A PSA

It being National Mental Health Awareness Week, as a public service I am sharing with you some Bipolar moments and how the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) may be your friend.  I bring this up because some of my recent insubordinate and unprofessional behaviors are a direct result of being bipolar, e.g., inflated self-esteem and a sense of grandiosity and also excessive involvement in activities that are high risk with a high level for painful consequences. That kind of mindset can lead to some of my recent misdeeds.  Not that it is an excuse for my behavior, but it goes a long way in explicating the obvious.  On the other hand, one positive outcome of mania is an  increase in goal directed activity.  I have been a little on the manic side of late and usually am at work.  Some of the depressed symptoms include feelings of worthlessness and guilt.  Lordy, I feel that some of the time even when I am not depressed.

Here comes the PSA (yes, a public service announcement)...while the ADA does not contain a list of health problems that constitutes a disability, the general definition of a disability is that a person has a disability if she/he has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities.  I have worked through it all, not thinking that some accommodations could have been made to make my work life less filled with uncertainty...given the inherent nature of bipolar disorder will almost always be found to substantially limit the major life activity of brain function (EEOC regulations 2011).

Now knowing this I sent an article ahead to our HR maven and she missed my point.  I was not asking for accommodations, but rather a degree of understanding for my psychiatric condition.  But since she brought it up...I think I will go to the University's Resource Center for Persons with Disabilities (RCPD) and see if I can be designated as having a covered state under the ADA.  If they can make that determination, and I think they can and will, I should be entitled to some considerations and and accommodations. e.g., allowing longer or more frequent breaks and provide for a self paced work flow.  Also, a reduction in distractions in the work area (And I didn't have to be the one that moved...2.0 was shuffled off to Buffalo yesterday so that is one accommodation that has been made).  In terms of supervisors there needs to be developed written work agreements including the agreed upon accommodations, clear expectations of responsibilities and also allowing for open communication with managers and supervisors and finally to allow for telephone calls to be made to health providers during working hours for support.  Why, hell yes!!!  I am going to RCPD and get me some accommodations; I loves me some good accommodations.

With 2.0 the situation was coming to a head.  I was thought a bully...but some of that is from the bipolar or the Silver Linings Playbook.   Management has know since 1990 that I am bipolar.  There are things in my personnel file that speak to this.  And while I didn't get what I took to be a written reprimand for my behavior of the last few weeks, especially over the cologne issue, I don't know for certain that the written summary of a meeting with my supervisor didn't make it into my personnel file.  I will need to check that.  But there should be enough of a record of my psychiatric state already in my HR file.  RCPD here I come.  I admit I was out of line, but the situation with 2.0 was deteriorating quickly.  Maybe I was possessed of a sense of self importance when I wrote a less than professional letter to the three people who sit near me regards the cologne issue.  It was over the top.  Still, with an understanding of what it means to be bipolar the chips may still have fallen but so too would the scales from their eyes regards what it means to have a mental disability.  I am not trying to excuse my behavior but rather trying to explicate it.  I am a ticking clock waiting for the alarm to go off.   I do act out, I do shoot from the lip.  And that, my friends, is what it means to be bipolar.  It also means I have long periods when I am depressed or anxious (Aren't we all, you say) that I can't function at my usual high level and just withdraw into myself.  I may not talk for weeks, and yet when the mania hits I prattle on like a child on speed.  All this is my gestalt.

So, back to 2.0...she has been moved.  If I was the bad one in the situation so be it.  But between the cologne, the shoddy work (I have very high and explicit standards when it comes to work (more mania), the food at the desk, the phone calls to her "wovey, dovey..." were all serving to make me less focused on my work and more focused on her distractions.  Management tried their best to make her understand the nature of our workplace and how we are packed like sardines in our cubes and we must be considerate of others, but all that fell on the deaf ears of 2.0.

So it is a new day and the seating chart has changed.  I am a bully...oh. well.

Here for your edification is the link I sent to my manager and the head of HR for the library:

Bipolar and the ADA