[Anneinside]

I just found out that employers with 15 or less employees are exempt from ADA protections. They CAN fire you if your bipolar causes problems and they don't have to give accommodations.

[SmokeyPoole2012]

My last employer made up a story saying I stole from him. Hard enough trying to 'get along' without people finding new ways of making it difficult.

[bipolarmedstudent]

I don't think I would ever tell an employer that I have a mental illness.

[bowhunt72]

"I don't think I would ever tell an employer that I have a mental illness."

I didn't have a choice. I was ordered to undergo a psychological evaluation by a psychologist of the city's choice. Keep in mind that this was with a fire department, organized on paramilitary lines. Officers above me gave orders, I obeyed. Period. Nobody wanted anything to do with a suicidal bipolar firefighter. That evaluation ended my career.

[cocoabeans]

Why didn't you lie? Or was this before all the psychoeducation that let you know what to omit, underplay and simply lie about? Despite popular fiction, it is easy enough to trick the average psychologist.

Protection against discrimination based on a disability doesn't protect against the 1000000000 things employers can easily make up as long as they get their timing right.

Bipolar disorder in the workplace means learning how to cover it up effectively and if you do say something, put it in such a way that it isn't that big of a deal, you're properly medicated and have the occassional off day like anyone else but you get to be more extreme and use bipolar as a blanket excuse. Woohoo!

[bipolarmedstudent]

Originally Posted by bowhunt72

"I don't think I would ever tell an employer that I have a mental illness."

I didn't have a choice. I was ordered to undergo a psychological evaluation by a psychologist of the city's choice. Keep in mind that this was with a fire department, organized on paramilitary lines. Officers above me gave orders, I obeyed. Period. Nobody wanted anything to do with a suicidal bipolar firefighter. That evaluation ended my career.

Why didn't you 'fake' being okay?

Thankfully in my line of work I'll never be subjected to a psych eval like that.

[JsterJ]

I can understand why you can "fake" being okay. Your job is important to you and if you feel you have your condition under control (whether medicated or not), why should having a disorder affect your ability to be employed doing something you love or feel is important?

On the other hand, some people can't move past the feeling of dishonest when you "lie" like that. If your job can't accept you the way you are, why should you be there and why should you lie about the way you are?

It's a tough call to make, and honest, I feel like neither decision is wrong.

[bowhunt72]

There wasn't any point lying on the evaluation or faking my answers. The reason I was ordered to take the evaluation was my symptoms were becoming all too obvious and interfering with my work. My sleep disturbances were making it difficult for me to wake up for night runs and fatigue made it hard to function during the day. My anxiety started causing me problems going into fires. I wasn't scared of being burned or injured, I've been in way too many fires for that, but I was constantly thinking "I hope I don't screw this up and get somebody hurt or killed". The one that really finished me was freezing up and having a panic attack during a confined space exercise with officers watching me. Don't want to go into gory details here, but my PTSD was haunting me with images of people I'd seen missing one side of their head or dead for weeks. It was almost a relief to be ordered off active duty. I retired on a disability pension, and I've been struggling ever since.