I’ve been unemployed for six months now. It was thankfully no fault of my own. My company decided that my division was no longer needed and a few members of my team and I were left for a few months after the announcement to dismantle and destroy what it took others 20 years to build. A very depressing situation in its own right.

I got the call on Monday that I was invited to give a presentation and an interview this coming week. What isn’t good is that I’ve been in a pretty bad episode now for a while that got bad enough that I went where we aren’t supposed to talk about. Luckily it was a weekend when that hit hard so I was constantly monitored and even agreed that if I still felt that way Monday I would agree to go to the hospital (a huge thing for me). I’m still not in great shape but came out a little last week when I decided to cook everything in the freezer. I was stopped from that by my wife and my overall energy level.

Yesterday, I sat down and did a solid 8 hours of work and cranked out 40 PowerPoint slides. I didn’t notice but when 3:30 hit, I hit an absolute wall. I was physically and intellectually finished. I barely acknowledged my daughter coming home from school and couldn’t do anything the rest of the night including make dinner and was seriously nauseated. Now I feel myself sliding backwards. My sleep, although always pretty bad, was especially bad last night. And I don’t feel like getting out of bed. If I get this job, how can I expect to operate if this becomes a new normal? My problem has always been manic. I always dealt with it by coming home and drinking to shut my brain off but I don’t do that anymore and it was not what I needed. At this point I’m not sure I can do it anymore. My pdoc has repeatedly told me that my job is very dangerous to my mental health and that if I wanted they would help me get on disability. I told them that the Grateful Dead song Cassidy, the first line of the second stanza says “what you are and what you’re meant to be” and I’ve lived those lyrics since I was 13.

Have I lost it? Can I ever expect to get back to where I was or do I need to come to terms with a new normal? I’ve always been able to fake being ok when I needed to however at a steep cost, but this cost was unexpectedly steep and if I start being around people again it’s going to be pretty obvious.