This week I have had to reassess quite a bit.
This is as I become adjusted to my new higher dosage of medicine, and sleep about 10 hours and need 3 hours to wake up. That's 13 hours
So dialed back my "goals" to walking 30 minutes a day and showing up to work every day. This is okay, it will likely only take 2 weeks to get adjusted, however, I have gone from 25 mg to 250 mg in 6 months. My doctor has stated that 2 weeks of stability and I can back off. But I don't seem to get 2 weeks of full stability.
I wonder how much more money I spend on my mental health specifically because of a job.
Problems with implementing strategies. The main problem is that the amount I have to output on any given day is less than the average person--mostly due to medicine side-effects, but also due to underlying illness management.
This has been illustrated and made popular by the notorious "spoons" therapy which is made fun of frequently. But it is another way I feel, like 7wb stated, mentally ill are canaries in the coal mine. Having a career makes the mastery or implementation of any other skills/systems difficult if not impossible--projects are relegated fro weekends.
With the spoons theory--which I will translate as I believe many here would roll their eyes at the original essay
-Those with chronic illnesses have reduced energy outputs (original essay uses spoons as a currency for these outputs, I am not sure why). Think of energy available as currency. Perhaps the average person is given 100 units of currency to spends and different actions have different prices. Perhaps work is 35 units, house work 15, etc etc. Once you reach your 100, you become ineffective.
For someone with a chronic illness, not only are you allocated less energy units, the cost to spend those units is higher. For instance, I am already at a disadvantage as my medicine requires 13 hours to wake up from. During depressive spells, I may only get enough units to get out of be for instance. Sometimes going to work spends all of my energy. (I believe this explains the 40-60% unemployment for people like me).
However--mania would give me, for instance, 3-4X the average persons budget. But this you can think of like credit, and will put you into a large deficit later on (depression).
Spending all of one's energy on keeping a job reduces the energy needed for lifestyle changes, habirs, or "self-care." WIthout self-care, you become increasingly dependent on relegating this care to psychiatrists, therapists, or in extreme cases--outpatient hospitals.
This reinforces dependence on job--at least in the US where health care is not provided. This creates cycle of increasingly unwell people who are constantly in scarictiy mindset. Because job makes one unwell, because statists show you should be happy for even keeping a job, and because you have learned helplessness out of necessity (no energy for agency, dependent on outsources mental health care--mental health care itself is an example of Jacobs illustration of filling holes and then outsourcing soiciety to dig holes back just to be filled again"
This also plays into consumption. Being in a constant energy deficit means you move to the only other currency you have--money.
Mentally ill people frequently enourage each other to outsource and do what they need to keep functioning--functioning meaning holding a job.
This is why self-care is now intrinsically tied to consumption. I believe this started in chronic/mental illness communities and was dispersed to the general public.
If main goal is to keep job, but keeping job puts you in energy deficit, you will outsource. This means take-out, perhaps even consumption to outsource dopamine hit--which temporarly increases energy reserves similar to caffeine.
Almost all studies on mentally ill function use "job" as an indicator of how well they function at life. In fact, to be granted disability--you have to prove that you cannot hold a job in any way or function. It does not matter if the job itself causes recurring episodes, what matters is if you can do it. That is why you typically need repeated hospitalizations and loss of jobs before being granted disability. This is well known in the bipolar community. Having a job means, to society, that you are high-functioning, despite holding a job making you more and more ill.
For this reason, until I can quit my job, I think the farthest I can progress is advanved consumer. I can likely get my savings rate pretty high, but building up other skills/hobbies is left to weekends. Trying to implement these while having my job was over-extending myself. For this reasons--my emphasis necessarily has to exist in the world of budgets, money, savings, etc.
I may, in time, get a part time job. My savings will likely stagnate--but the other currency (energy) will be improved so that I have focus on what I want. For that goal--I would like $300K saved and $20K liquid net worth. long way to go.