[tigersassy]

Does anyone ever feel like they are being taken advantage of? I'm wondering if it isn't attributable to bipolar. I go through phases/cycles where I feel like I'm being taken advantage of by my employer. Last time I felt like this I quit without having another for sure job. I'm starting to feel like this again, but I don't want to quit. Can't afford it plus I really do like my job. I just wish I'd get acknowledgment for what I do.

Tig

[regretful]

As someone who recently left a job because of similar lack of acknowledgment/acceptance, stay with the job if you like it. When I left mine, it precipitated a depression, the likes of which I have not ever felt before in my life. I thought I could afford to leave and thought I'd have no trouble jumping into another...I couldn't have been more wrong...Since late September, I've been on a downhill slide that seems to have no end.

[FaithlessCat]

I have also been there a couple of times. I often wonder if its because we are more in tune to 'things' .... like being an empath is both a blessing and a curse because it means you can't ignore those little things other people don't even notice or care about.

Id love to learn to get over this as its making it impossible for me to make friends anymore

[outlaw sammy]

Originally Posted by FaithlessCat

I have also been there a couple of times. I often wonder if its because we are more in tune to 'things' .... like being an empath is both a blessing and a curse because it means you can't ignore those little things other people don't even notice or care about.

Id love to learn to get over this as its making it impossible for me to make friends anymore

I don't know if it's a bipolar symptom, but all my life, I've always been interested in things that no one else cares about. Just the other day, I asked this intelligent woman if she ever thought about the rate in which our municipal landfills (solid waste dumps) are filling up. You're probably thinking that that's a great pick-up line, but in the moment, that subject seemed important.

[tigersassy]

The saga continues. I should not have come into work today. Once again the expect me to change the things I do *** my job, but this is after they take away a key element. I hope my store manager doesn't work today and I can bite my tongue if she does. They expect me to be able to work 12 days in a row too. Grrrrrrrrrrrr.

Tig

[nowIgetit]

I'm really new to this so am not sure what to call the state I am in where that happens...I think it is mixed or manic...but I get this very notably at certain times. I feel like it's almost a form of paranoia? I get into "phases" where I feel like I am doing everything as far as taking care of the house and kid and my husband is doing nothing (this is actually never true) and sometimes even I start feeling like my friends/family are not only taking advantage of me but actually like "out to get me" in some way (like conspiring to take advantage of me or make my life difficult!) which is why I mention the word paranoia. This usually happens to me when I am very tearful/angry also which makes me think mixed though I am still in the very early stages of working with a pdoc and trying to figure this out, so not sure if that makes sense...anyway, you are not alone!

[shortandcute]

I often feel this way too. However, when my sister and BIL were my legal guardians, they really would try to provoke me into rages so that could "teach me a lesson" by punishing me for "having such a bad temper." That's how a lot of my family are---they like to pick fights. Plus, with my being bipolar anyway, that, I think, just made things worse.

[outlaw sammy]

I'm waiting to go into Protective Orders Court for a restraining order against a man who I took in for five months because he was homeless with no where else to go. He later called the police on me because I left him a note complaining about his bad behaviors. He tried to get me arrested! YES - PEOPLE ALWAYS TAKE ADVANTAGE OF ME. I'm a Christian and it goes with the territory.

[hamster-bamster]

Tiger,

Expecting you to work 12 days in a row is, objectively, taking advantage of you. You aren't imagining things. Do they ar least pay you for overtime? I don't know the labor law in Indiana, but in California your employer would get in trouble for exploiting you.

[tigersassy]

It wouldn't fall under overtime because of how our week falls at work Sat to fri. Whats going to happen is I'll be off sat and sun then work monday to the following thursday (off thursday and friday). Its 10 days. I'm thinking about getting my fmla more precise so they can't do this to me.

Tig

[LaborIntensive]

I was shocked to find this thread. Mainly because I am exactly of this mindset and emotions. Every place I go I lose jobs and often it is due to what I am told as "not fitting in" or they make up some crap about performance even when I am busting my hump and working harder than my co-workers. ALWAYS (I try to explain to my family or friends and they shrug it off, cause I am "crazy" to them) I will be in conversations that are just so mundane each day. Not be left out I will try to participate and often I am told I am "over thinking" a subject or "you don't know **** ,man" in response to valid topic discussion.

Your example of the landfill is an exact topic that came up about 8 years ago. I was with 3 guys I worked with and thy were going on and on about all the new **** they were going to buy with their bonus checks. I was then asked what about you, big plans for that cash?" I said "I need to get my car fixed up." Right away these guys go into a tizzy about how I need a new car, your car is a piece of ****, etc. I said "you know my dad had a huge mechanic shop just for oilfield equipment, trucks and heavy work equipment and that a few times we would go to these scrap metal places that were enormous. One day I asked the guy there how long humanity has recycled these things and he gave a brief explanation and I said "at least now we reclaim this stuff and not bury it." Then he started talking to me about the vast mountains of trash surrounding any major US city. The toxic juices they produce that seep into water and the gases they create as items breakdown and go through chemical changes. It was enlightening.

Before I could finish one co-worker says "what the **** does have to with your car". So I said "I would rather keep it running and preserve what I have than create more garbage in the world". I was then treated as fool and the talk reverted back to the normal "Hey did you see that UFC fight? Oh man I f'd this chick last weekend after being sooo drunk" wooo hooo blah blah blah.

I keep wondering if our minds are this way and if it is a curse or a blessing.

[Standup2me]

Hey LI, that is why I shop at thrift shops.

It sort of feels like recycling

[ManicIcarus]

Originally Posted by tigersassy

Does anyone ever feel like they are being taken advantage of? I'm wondering if it isn't attributable to bipolar. I go through phases/cycles where I feel like I'm being taken advantage of by my employer. Last time I felt like this I quit without having another for sure job. I'm starting to feel like this again, but I don't want to quit. Can't afford it plus I really do like my job. I just wish I'd get acknowledgment for what I do.

Tig

I think everyone feels like that at some time bipolar or no. Just being bipolar makes you more aware of it where other people might put that on the back burner and ignore it. What matters is you know you're doing a good job. Living for someone else's approval never ends well (though it is of course nice to get someone else's praise or approval from time to time).

Edit: Though it does sound like they're putting you through the ringer at the moment.

You mean like RIGHT NOW?! It's something currently going on and with my thoughts looping around about it, I remembered your thread title. And in reading through, I think some of the things are different, but probably related. Like acknowledgement. You can be taken advantage of w/o acknowledgement. But it can also be with acknowledgement. All praise heaped on. Which seems good, but it's often these same advantage-takers that get nasty if you don't agree to everything they want. You're either great or horrible, but either way you're expected to be their puppet. Grrrr. But I digress.

I don't really feel it's a "bipolar thing" except how it's likely to happen when you're revved up and taking everything on (because you can do it all!) It's just too easy for people to take advantage of that situation.

Having said that, here's my twist. I get taken advantage of in the form of being expected to pick up the slack. Being told that...Ready for this? Because I'm bipolar, I'm supposed to "understand how it is" (because of knowing flooring depression and not being able to deal with the world) when someone goes MIA on the responsibility front. I TRY to leave things, but it's hard because I care. And they know this full well about me. And what really spirals me? Overwhelm. And it doesn't take much. I'm really not lazy. I just.shut.down. I can't think and my head becomes a mishmash of looping half thoughts and white noise. Depending on the situation, sheer panic can set in because I "should be able to do this! It's so f'in simple!" And I can't. People really don't get this or understand how "little" (in their view) it takes.

So anyhow, yes, I get taken advantage of quite a bit, but not because of BP. It's because of the usual MO: Too often being too nice for my own good (but I'm working on that Haha.), not speaking up for myself, being hard-wired to be a helper and not let people down. It's a recipe for being taken advantage of. It's also a recipe for overwhelm. The BP only really comes in in making the resulting overwhelm more problematic.

[hamster-bamster]

Right - fmla is federal so they must comply, whichever state you are in.

[r010159]

It is a feature of my personality to set myself up for people to take advantage of me. Then when it happens, I begin to feel helpless as it gets out of control.