My first retail job in the city was at Urban Outfitters. I loved everything. I loved the discounts. I loved the merchandise. I loved the outfits I was allowed to wear on the floor. Even though I would never spend one hundred dollars on their pair of featured jeans, the vibe felt very me despite the hipster stereotype.
One day in the middle of my shift, I was working the dressing room, and the cutest woman approached me. She was half-heartedly looking through the sale rack that stood near the entrance of the dressing room. The dressing room was my gig, and I harassed anyone who came near.
“Looking for anything in particular?” I said, always ready to give my advice.
She asked me what my favorite trends were this season, and she asked what I would recommend for her from the sale rack. I immediately answered her questions and picked out a few options. I was so bored. What else was I going to do?
She apparently loved me and what I had to offer, and she told me she was a scout for Michael Kors, and they were opening the new flagship store in SoHo, and she wanted me to be a part of the team.
I accepted, I was hired, and in months, a new three story Michael Kors flagship store was built by the hands of me and my new coworkers. We put the store together from the ground up, and we became a fashion-friendly family.
I never thought that a year later, I would be leaving them behind.
When you discover and acknowledge that you have a mental illness, a lot of things can change in your life. That year, while I was working at Michael Kors, the symptoms became too apparent, and it was impossible to ignore them. I started seeing a therapist, and it was no surprise when she told me that I appeared to have Bipolar Disorder. More specifically Bipolar Depression.
Bipolar Depression is essentially a type of Bipolar Disorder with which you experience non-permanent symptoms of clinical depression at random. With Bipolar Depression, it is very easy to experience the full effect of depression, and it is very easy to dismiss it as a “bad mood” when it suddenly goes away.
The tricky thing about Bipolar Depression is that it is only temporary. Clinical depression can take over someone’s life and manifest in that person. They can ache for weeks, for months without feeling relief. Bipolar Depression creeps up on you like a cloud drifting in front of the sun. One second you’re comfortable and warm, and the next second you’re in the shadows and everything gets slightly darker, like you’re viewing the world with the Inkwell Instagram filter. Then, suddenly, the clouds float past, and everything is sunny again. It’s enough to make you question whether or not you were ever depressed at all.
I had the sun on me when I started my new job at Michael Kors, but a year later, the bipolar symptoms started to take over. It’s common with depression, bipolar depression specifically, for symptoms to surface during one’s early twenties, and that’s exactly what was happening.
It started when I was physically unable to get out of bed, and I took that for the usual college student fatigue. Papers and projects and proposals were due, and that had to be it. When I awoke to my alarm, I smashed the snooze button with all the strength I could muster, and I felt like I weighed five hundred pounds. There was no possible way I could stand up and get out of bed, but I managed to crawl my way to the shower, and then the subway. This went on for weeks, but halfway through my work day, I would always eventually feel okay. I thought to myself, “This is fine. As long as it’s not affecting my actual work performance or my school work.”
And it didn’t for a while, but eventually it took over. Most mornings I was stuck in my bed. I was skipping class, and I was calling in sick to work. One morning, I felt okay enough. I felt like I could make it through the whole shift, so I went. I could feel the stares of my coworkers and my managers all day. I knew they were thinking that I was a lazy millennial who always called out “sick”.
And then it hit me. It felt like when you’re standing in the warm shower, and the hot water runs out, and without warning, an ice bucket is pouring over you. That’s what it began to feel like when my random mood swings occurred. I could physically feel the depression take over me, and I knew that for the rest of my shift I would be antisocial and quiet. Without a thing to set me off, I would be angry. Without a thing to set me off I would want to cry.
My coworkers began asking if I was okay. I tried to conceal what I was feeling, but every corner I turned there was another coworker asking me what was wrong, and I wish I could’ve told them what it was, but I had no idea.
Eventually, I was sent home because it became apparent I “wasn’t feeling well.” And it continued. I was calling out more than ever, and my managers were noticing. I felt like an asshole, and I felt like a failure, but there was truly nothing that could get me out of bed most days.
On my last day at the store, I told my favorite manager, Sara, the one who found me at Urban Outfitters. I said, “I’m so sorry, Sar, but I have to put in my two weeks.”
Over the year I had spent at Michael Kors, she became my work mom. She was my favorite manager. She was beautiful with her long brown hair, and she was glowing from her new marriage. I could feel I was betraying her after one second of looking at her face.
“B! No, you can’t leave us. What’s wrong, B?”
I told her it was school-related. I told her the work schedule was not lining up with my school schedule, and that’s what I told my family. Something in her watery brown eyes told me that she knew it was more than what I was telling her, but she accepted my decision.
The problem with this situation is how differently it could have turned out if we didn’t have to deal with the stigma of mental illness. In America, employers have current and former illnesses on record, and if those illnesses resurface, there is an understanding between employer and employee, and the employee is usually allowed time off. There is sometimes sick leave when it comes to physical, bodily illness. Bring a doctor’s note, and everything is forgiven in the corporate world.
The problem with these policies is that they are not inclusive to mental illness. If I had a fever or a terribly running nose on those days I felt too depressed to move, then maybe my associates would’ve had pity for me. If I had something overt to prove my sickness, then maybe I wouldn’t have received those stares of disbelief when I came back to work after days off, but the problem was that I had nothing to show for my illness besides a face full of indifference.
In our current society, we are subject to be called fragile snowflakes for wanting social equity and trigger warnings. As science advances, and we discover concrete evidence to prove that there are chemical imbalances in our brains, we are subject to denial and persecution. In our current society, mental illness still equates to “crazy”.
I have a mental illness, and I am not crazy. Once I thought that taking mood stabilizers and antidepressants meant that something was wrong with me, but there is nothing wrong with me. I am happy to say that I have found the proper doses of medication that allow my brain to function well, and I’m proud to say that I have found content in the happiness that these medications have allowed. That’s not wrong. What’s wrong is the way society views people like me who suffer invisible battles daily. What’s wrong is that I had to fake food poisoning instead of telling my boss that I was working through medications that will soon help me feel okay. What’s wrong is that I had to feel like I was insane because my serotonin doesn’t flow like everybody else's.
Mental illness is more common than society will have you believe, and if we can open up the conversation with the people in our lives, it will do wonders for humanity. As a society, we need to open up the dialogue about mental illness. In no way am I urging those of you who are mentally ill to proclaim your illness if you are not ready. Discovering and becoming okay with our own mental illness is a struggle that each person will deal with in their own way. However, I do urge those of us who are ready to share our stories to share them. The more we talk about mental illness, the more we combat the stigma.
For those of you who don’t suffer from mental illness, try your best to be understanding. If your loved one confides in you the secrets of their brain, please know that it means they trust you more than you could know. If someone opens a conversation about their medication, don’t make it more than it is, but also, don’t make it less than it is. Be there. Learn the symptoms. Learn the side effects. Be there for your friend as if they were laying in a hospital bed because sometimes that’s the way it feels.
I think the more we share our stories, the more people can understand. There are not many books written from the perspective of mentally ill persons because when one is in the vortex of depression or other illnesses, it is hard to find the motivation to write about it or even talk about it, but when we can, we need listening ears. Because as of now, having a mental illness is one of the best kept secrets by many of us, and even though some may call us snowflakes, we need a safe space to talk about it.
