So far......Anxiety! (yet so good!)

So far, so good. The new job is way, way less chaotic than the old, and it seems that there is less pressure to do a zillion things at once. I'm not sure this will always be the case, but at least this week it's ok. The biggest thing is remembering a new way to do paperwork.

On the other hand I feel very odd about the bipolar thing. In the past I have always let employers know but never had specific medical details in my chart (having restrictions in a human resources file means that if they defy them I can sue). Since that didn't work so well over the last year or two and because I have become more susceptible to getting sick over that time I decided to use the preemptive strike method.

In the past I've always dealt mainly with the managers who were beyond local regarding this issue. It seems that this company may separate "lower" staff more or something. Who knows? Anyway, this left me dealing with the managers at the local facilities. Neither one jumped up and down yelling "yay, you are bipolar!!!"...I truly don't know what I wanted, but what I got kind of scared me. One of them seemed ok enough, but then when she talked to the higher up manager today she made reference to a fax she "couldn't discuss" (ie in front of me) and something else that just made it sound like she more than likely was talking about this. I may or may not be feeling totally paranoid. And then the other one talked to me about some of it very reasonably, but sort of in a way that made me want to scream I know more than you do about how to handle this. And one assistant asked questions that I didn't have answers for. The other I haven't told yet.

And some of it is hard. I have to get back in the swing of non-psychiatric patients. Someone got kind of upset with me today. I handled it ok, but in retrospect I'm not sure my approach was right. It would have been with my psych patients, but maybe not in this case. Only time will tell.

Another aspect of my job is predictably difficult. There's this other therapist who well, she just isn't very good. But she does take a lot of work. Therefore I've followed her around most of my career. And every time I've dealt with her evaluations which are so very wrong in many ways. I'm doing that again, and it's already getting old. And it will take a month before I'm done with her stuff, and probably one more before all the patients are fully on my treatment plans.

One place is also odd because many of the staff used to work at the place where I was discriminated against. I know that many very ugly things were said about me very publicly there, and so I wonder what rumors are going around. I really don't want to start with everyone knowing my diagnosis, nor do I want anyone to know some of the false accusations that were made against me.

For the most part though, things are really, really good. I just need to get past freaking out and expecting bad things to happen at every turn. I also need some serious rest. I should have taken time off between jobs. I need to quit believing I need to see 700 patients/day.

Most of I need to celebrate, because I got home before dark. And that was after doing errands! I don't remember the last time I could say that....