Unemployed with Bipolar Disorder
Here’s the latest from Practicing Mental Illness:
The unemployment rate for people with bipolar disorder is over 60%. This rate persists even in people with bipolar disorder who have achieved functional recovery.
This high unemployment is not the result of an inability to perform sustained, meaningful work. 82% of people with bipolar disorder have either graduated from college or have some college study. This is significantly higher than the population without a mood disorder.
It’s not a function of persistent symptoms of depression or mania, either. Whereas a large majority of patients were symptom free or had only mild symptoms 1 year after an episode of depression or mania, only 46% of the patients were employed, and as few as 12% worked at their expected level of employment.
This is tragic because those engaged in competitive, paid employment report greater improvement in symptoms, self-esteem, and satisfaction with vocational services, leisure, and finances compared with patients in the minimal- work and no-work groups.
This is a difficult time to be advocating for work for people with bipolar disorder. Despite such high levels of education, most people with bipolar disorder find themselves in low paying unskilled work. 91% of those who are employed earn less than $37,000 per year.
These are precisely the jobs that have been lost during the coronavirus pandemic. Early in the crisis there was a broad focus on unemployment assistance and business stimulus in an effort to preserve jobs and keep people in the workforce. Now political priorities have blurred in partisan bickering and talk of further stimulus has stalled.
Work has been instrumental in my own recovery. While my career was derailed by a series of hospitalizations and I earn less money now than I did when I was younger, I couldn’t have recovered, lived independently and had a family without always returning to work.
Any sort of success takes incredible self-discipline, and many days are rocked by mood swings that make work difficult, but I’ve been able to get up and work nearly every day. Absenteeism is high in people with bipolar disorder who do work, yet it’s crucial to go in even on difficult days in order to hold a job.
While this may not be within reach of those people who have not entered symptomatic recovery, those still severely disabled by moods that inhibit daily life, I believe most people in functional recovery, as are most people with bipolar disorder, can and must work in order to heal and live successfully.
Yet the study that followed a group of patients post-hospitalization and found only 46% employed reports that 80% were symptom free or mildly symptomatic. Obviously, more people could have been working.
It is on society and business to create a market where work is possible and in demand, yet it is on each of us with bipolar disorder to do whatever it takes to find employment and achieve independence. Training programs and other assistance exist. Too few people with bipolar disorder take advantage of them.
The greater risk of the economic crisis caused by COVID-19 is that some of these programs may be cut. This will likely factor into the conversation about what responsibility society has toward those who suffer from bipolar disorder. But those of us with bipolar disorder must equally accept our own responsibility to society and, when at all possible, get out and work.
Source: https://www.ajmc.com/view/jun05-2073ps91-s94
Anxiety Grinds On
2020 keeps dishing it out, and health officials now hint at further shutdowns. They encourage us to forego gathering with family and friends as we head into the holidays. Yearning for contact with others has settled in with anxiety to pose new risks to the mental health of ourselves and our communities. Yet there are steps you can take to manage anxiety right now.
My book Resilience: Handling Anxiety in a Time of Crisis covers ways to predict, prevent and manage episodes of severe anxiety, both for people currently struggling with mental illness and people to whom anxiety is a new, unfamiliar challenge. There’s an excerpt from the book with some tips here. You can buy the book here.
Meditation
When I began meditating years ago I would practice by reading and contemplating the Psalms of the Old Testament. After years spent studying Buddhism and practicing zazen, I’ve taken what I’ve learned and returned to the contemplation of the Psalms. It’s enlightening to rediscover foundational texts in the Western tradition after spending so much time with ancient texts from the East. I’ve launched The Psalms Meditations Project to detail and promote this practice.
Earlier this year I had the opportunity to appear on David Pasqualone’s Remarkable People Podcast. We talked about my experience with mental illness and how meditation has helped me manage it. David added bonus content on how to meditate with the Psalms, including a guided meditation. It was one of the high points I experienced in this year so devoid of high points. You can check it out here.