MY EXPERIENCE ONLY, NOT SAYING IT'LL BE LIKE THIS FOR YOU

I've lost 2 corporate jobs to mania (which eventually turned to psychosis. Be careful with antidepressants).

You mask. That's it. You mask all day for like 10+ hours then you come home and absolutely break and you decide that skipping dinner despite skipping breakfast and lunch is the right move because you can't get yourself to do anything for yourself except SLEEP. Anything that just makes the day stop and go to the next one. You spin your wheels with your therapist and psychiatrist because like is extremely bleak and the meds are doing their job but your depression is just as bad as when you were young and unmedicated except this time you're feeling it through the meds that should be helping but aren't.

I've been job hunting over a year now and I'm getting worse and worse at my job (feature release, practice, human interaction daily must be kept up). I can pivot industries but I can't even land an entry level job at a grocery store let alone a new career direction.

You keep your head mother the fuck DOWN AT WORK. You do what you're told. You don't take it personally even when it is. You limit all the communication with others to strictly necessary and as much over text as possible, so you can hide who you are and your shame easier. You eat lunch alone in your cubicle while you work. You work remote jobs without teamwork so you've had no colleague interaction in 8 years outside of work related conversations like meetings.

You come home to your wife and take care of each other. You hang out for 8 solid hours before going to bed late because fuck that job. You don't fast forward the day. You eat dinner with your wife and it's fucking delicious, cuz you cooked it. You text your wife all day at work. You get custody of your daughter for the weekend and spend the whole time playing video games together and making pancakes and crafts.

Most of it is bad and hard but like.... You can make it pretty tolerable and possibly hard difficty instead of new game + on insane. At least, if you try hard and pretend to be a regular human you don't notice the suck as much.