I've been in what I call the psychiatric closet for mode of my diagnosed history (nearly 20 years.) My supervisor knows, and is great. In recent weeks, though, I've dealt with both depression and hypomania and some possible rapid-cycling as well. Work had become just about intolerable.

I had a long, sort of wired talk with my boss, which has ended up with our strongly bending an unwritten corporate rule against working from home. (Only twice a week, two hours each day.) I'll get corresponding documentation from my doc next week; in the meantime, he gave me lamotrigine, which helped - I've evened out a lot.

The only problem is - now I feel kind of like a fraud. I told my cubemate I'd be coming in late twice a week (I claimed medical stress, which he didn't buy for a minute.) As I said I *am* feeling better. My supervisor is fine, but my department head hasn't said much to me in the two weeks since she heard (whatever my supervisor told her.)

I'm pretty sure I'm going to keep going with it although I'm not sure four hours a week will help much. There's a part of me that just wants to drop the whole idea and hope that I'm "just fine now, thanks." Still, if four hours a week was all I could negotiate, surely I should take it and run.

The problem with bipolar II is, sometime most of the "crazy" is internal, not visible to the outside world, so I look and feel, well, fraudulent. I know; it's not as difficult as trying to work through a manic episode. I'm lucky, in some ways.

But I'm also conflicted, and I welcome any thoughts you might have.