Yes, I'm high functioning. I'm technically an executive, but I'm not treated that way. I'm having some difficulty accepting my new role (I've been in the job a year).

I went without medication for many years. I had a manic event triggered by phen/gen diet pills, and I was so humiliated, I quit that job. When I recovered from the humiliation, I asked for my job back, but they had hired someone else.

Nothing else happened for over 20 years, nothing obvious (people don't recognize hypomania, and I "act" through depression. This next time when I went manic, it was st a company that was about to go out of business anyway. I was laid off in the next round, which was no surprise. That manic event was unexpectedly set off by insomnia from propanolol.

I had a hypomanic event triggered by gabapentin start up, but the gabapentin no longer makes me energetic. Now it relaxes me. Maybe that time was a coincidence.

I can't take any more chances. I'm taking lithium, and so far no side effects, like everything else. I really don't know where I would work if I lose this job. I've climbed too high now; it would be unlikely that I would be able to get something else. There are hardly any jobs in my area in my industry. We moved here for my late husband's job.

Anyway, they don't suspect anything where I work, but they have noticed my mouth a bit when hypomanic and they notice my anxiety. I am pulling out of a depression right now. A lot of wishing I could die was happening, not that I felt like doing anything about it.

So, I started with a therapist to help me cope.

I'm hanging in there. I was in my early 30s when this all started. In in my early 50s now.