Hi-Ho-Oh-No

So I’m still depressed, I had 3 wonderful days of hypomanic respite last week but I’m back down to earth now. I’ve adopted a new positive mental attitude which basically means forcing myself to do things everyday that I don’t want to do- get up, get dressed, go out etc.

Tomorrow I’m having a much needed haircut then…….*drum roll*…….I’m going into the office for a coffee with a colleague. My heart rate increases just thinking about it- which I suppose should demonstrate it’s nothing special as my local Morrisons has the same effect, anyway, I’m going to do it.


Now that the children are back at school and I have a lot of time on my (shaky) hands my thoughts have turned to work.

I loved my job, for all the ups and downs it brought I was always happy to be there and to be part of the small select team working towards a shared goal. My job gave me purpose and identity, not to mention lots of good fun and a fairly reasonable remuneration. My job was a huge chunk of who I am or was.

I haven’t worked now for well over six months and in that time my job has been someone else’s job. I think I’ve come to terms with not being indispensable but I am plagued with worry that my time off has proved me entirely dispensable.

I often put myself in the shoes of my employer and ask would I want myself back? Would I employ someone who has been off for so long sick? I guess I wouldn’t make a very good employer as my answers are always “no”. I’m lucky, I have a good employer and I know my job will be there when I’m ready but that doesn’t make it any easier to go back.

I don’t know where I’m going to fit back in at work, from the silly things like someone else is using my desk to the serious things- I’ve no idea what’s happened over the last 6 months or so, I don’t feel I have the skills to do my job anymore now that the lithium has somewhat stunted my previously ample creativity and productivity.

I’ve been tempted to take the path of least resistance and resign, not because I want to but because it would be easier than going back. Nobody can tell me when to go back to work, my team of healthcare professionals have been quite good at telling me when not to attempt it but the decision must be mine to make when I am ready. The problem is I don’t think I will ever be ready, I think I’m just going to have to suck it and see and hope, for the sake of my shattered confidence, that I get it right.

Decision made

I'm going to go for it and attempt to maintain a fairly informative and hopefully entertaining blog.

I also hope at some point to be able to make it look...well....a bit less shit.

Today was a fairly uneventful day, had work which to be honest was a little bit pointless and soul destroying so I'll need to fix that.

The one good thing about work was escaping from the kids for a while- it's the October holidays and I was all parented out- especially as the non-political parent has been away darn sarf this week with work.

Glasgow North-East by-election is now official and I'm going back tomorrow to help with the campaign. I'm a bit excited as I'll be taking some local Labour Students with me. It's been a long hard slog convincing the local University Labour Club that they needed to do any actual work for the party and I got as far as threatening to tear up all the requests for work experience and jobs they submitted before I had a firm commitment to help in the by-election- I bet they love it.

Having horrible sad moments this week as I realise the eldest child is 15 and old enough to be Young Labour, sadly he's just a bit too autistic for all that. :-(