Psycopathic: I break the agreement because I want to do what I want to do.

Anti-psycopathic (particularly for the manic/hypomanic phase): I break the agreement because my brain is creating thousands of ideas a minute, I'm churning out code, I've solved 20 problems that we'd been having just this morning, but none of them are my assigned task(s). It's almost a compulsion, and not one driven from personal want. I don't want to delay the actual work, or procrastinate, but my brain keeps focusing on all the wrong (for work) things.

EDIT: Another fun bit is the after effect. After that spirited creative period, you realize what you've neglected and it feeds the part of the mind pushing you into depression as guilt.

2. If you really think that you have a problem, talk to your doctor and find a therapist. This is the #1 thing that helped me.

I'm trying to write a response and have deleted several in composing this one.

Depression with anxiety (for me, they feed on each other and dealing with one helps with the other) and hypomania are my issues. "Fixing" them, I haven't yet. I've learned to deal with and mitigate them. I'm going to focus on dealing with depression, because that's what I really have the most experience with and has impacted me the most. My manic episodes have been brief, and usually occur immediately before or after depression and they've not directly impacted my work since I've been able to focus that energy in a way that was productive. I didn't do it on my own. Seek therapy to develop the skills to help you.

On sleep: Sleep, but not too much. This is hard, especially with depression. For me, I found that I wouldn't sleep in either extreme state. The worst was a period of depression where I'd sleep an average of 1 hour a night for 3-5 days, and then crash for a day. I didn't want to be by myself in a dark room and an empty bed, and my dreams were far from pleasant. But I needed that sleep, I went insane without it. I was hallucinating. I saw things constantly moving out of the corner of my eye. I was convinced I was hearing things, but couldn't see what made the noise (didn't help when, once, it turned out that a spider had taken up residence in an errant grocery bag, that scratching noise was real). I felt that things were crawling on me (at one point I convinced myself that I had fleas I couldn't see, that scene from A Scanner Darkly where the guy goes nuts seeing the bugs everywhere, I could sympathize). So for the love of god, get some sleep. If you find yourself oversleeping (note: easier said than done), find a reason to get up every day. I had school at the time. I didn't miss a class. It forced me out of the apartment. Later, I quit grad school and got a full-time job. The responsibility of having to go somewhere really did help kick me out of that cycle. I was socializing with people, made new friends, and got out of the apartment for 9+ hours a day. Like I said, easier said than done, but find something to motivate you out of the house at least every weekday. I spent a lot of money eating out, but that walk to the restaurant got me out of my home and out of my head for a while. Just don't let food become a crutch, I nearly topped 240 lbs at one point (not good on my frame).

A note on exercise: Walk around the block. Walk around the office block. If you're in a city where this is feasible, walk to lunch. You don't need to become a gym rat, but getting a little bit more exercise and fresh air can help to brighten your mood and help you get through the day. I took up soccer a couple years back, it provides me with both exercise and socialization.

A note on socialization: Socialize, but don't hide yourself in it. In my worst depression I was trying to get other people to go out with me all the time or to do things at someone's place (never my own, it was a constant mess). I was overdoing it, and when I left I felt emptier than when I got there. I was all smiles, and sometimes they were genuine. But when I left I went back to a neutral face, and all the thoughts that I was hiding from came flooding back. Try and make some real connections, maybe meet with a support group. Finding someone, in addition to your therapist, that you can talk to about your issues is incredibly helpful. I've talked to several friends over the years about my issues and told them what some of my warning signs are. I've never stopped an episode with this, but they've helped me recognize it earlier so that I could deal with it before I lost myself in it (in my deepest depression, as noted above, I was not at all of sound mind).

A note on medication: I've never taken medication for my issues. There were a couple episodes of depression where I probably made the wrong choice with that, however. This is a personal decision that you should make with the guidance of your doctor. If you find something that helps you, good. I've just found that (most of the time, again some episodes got...dark) talk therapy and CBT have been mostly sufficient for me.

A note on work: Work is good, it keeps me from sitting around all day and thinking about whatever's driving me mad, and it puts me in a situation where I socialize. Socializing isn't always easy when you're depressed, sometimes it's just fucking painful. But if you can get past the pain, the benefits (for me) payoff. Hopefully you have a good boss you can go to for help. But you probably don't (at least by my measure, most bosses aren't good bosses). Find a way to state your need for a reduced workload when you're depressed without saying that you're depressed. Tell them that the 3 projects are just too much, you can finish 2 of them if they can hand the third off to someone else. This may not be as much as you want removed from your plate, but it's a start and you're not pressing your luck. If you've got a good boss (like I presently do) you can be honest, tell them you need a light load for a few weeks, and they'll accommodate you. But get diagnosed. If you can't get out of bed in the morning, get diagnosed and go through HR to get a flex schedule. Getting diagnosed is incredibly important to keeping your job when you have issues with depression. Work with a manic episode. Try to focus, I'm lucky that I can with mine (or I focus well enough on the tasks at hand). If you can't, sell them on whatever you want to work on. Don't try to ask forgiveness later for "slacking" on your assignments for a month, it may not go well. Convince them that the tool you're making will really payoff in the end. Convince them that the resources you're learning and studying can be used in the project, but you need this time to develop the skills. And don't lie to them about this. That'll come back on you, too.

A note on sympathy: Sympathy is not enabling. If you're looking for advice on how to help a friend, be sympathetic but try not to do anything to encourage their negative feelings. And don't dismiss them when they have problems. One of the cruelest things that I ever saw was when a friend attempted suicide and nearly all her friends abandoned her. You may feel angry and confused over their actions, why did they keep this from you for so long, because they didn't think they could talk to anyone. Your anger and confusion is normal and natural, but do not let it out on them. We need support in these situations, feeling abandoned will only drive us back down that hole. The friendship may not survive in the end, but as a decent human being at least give it a chance.

A final note: This may not be well-written, I'm under a time crunch here. I'll try and read it again when I get home later tonight and reply with corrections or a better post.

Now I try to get agreement on the project before I start. I've found this is often possible.

For most people, the work isn't based on free agreements. They have no power, must do what they're told, and rarely get the chance to freely commit to anything.

I don't think there's much wrong with de-prioritizing an unfree commitment (especially if the delivery is only 2 weeks later rather than "not made"). The failure is on the people who created that context. Software companies especially need to understand that subordinate work will generally be of 1/10 the quality of work that people freely elect because it suits their vision, career goals, or intellectual interests. (A large part of the "10x" effect is motivation.)

Knowing myself, I don't freely commit to things unless I'm 100% (or, to be honest about it, more like 99.5%) sure I can deliver. (If keeping my job requires it, I'll unfreely commit to things because I need to eat, but not prioritize them over my own career needs.) And no matter how sick I may be, I will fight it and keep it from affecting my work as much as I can. Having fought this thing for over 20 years, I'm actually far stronger than 99% of people almost all of the time. I'm also more conscientious. The illness is only a weakness during (very rare, less than once per year) flare-ups.

You keep on implying that as a software developer you know better than the people asking you to do work. That even though you are not doing what was asked, you are doing something more important. That may be true, but I'm having a really hard time seeing the difference between the two types of people you are portraying (both seem very self-serving, regardless of motive), and neither of them seem like people I want to work with or have running large organizations.

If somebody had to spend a few extra weeks off work each year to get chemotherapy you'd be a complete bastard to say they were unethical and broke a commitment.

That doesn't change just because it is a mental health issue instead of a physical one. If you can accommodate it then you have the ethical obligation to do so.

Disagree that it's a problem. Micromanagement is the problem. Side effects of high creativity (whether a person is or is not suffering from a mood disorder) aren't problems. If we desire progress for this world, then society should adapt to its best people, not the reverse.

More to the point: if you don't trust people to work on what they consider important, then don't hire them. The idea that every iota of work has to be approved by some silly priesthood is counterproductive and idiotic.

In large organizations there tend to be a lot of pretty arbitrary deadlines and unfortunately overall good work does not seem to offset missing a few arbitrary deadlines. So upper management hammers middle management who in turn hammers the team lead who then either bottles it up or pushes it down onto the plebes below.

In startups being different (ehm sorry not a good "cultural fit") is enough to get you fired so good luck if you expect understanding and support.

I think the best option is to work in a large organization under a respected, strong, and results driven team lead doing important work.

I tend to agree that some bosses are micro managing idiots. But I had a boss who told me what side of the desk my phone had to be on - even though I'm left handed.

I think we're now arguing about the ethical obligation of an employee, which is an open question. Is it (from the most restrictive to the least):

    (1) to subordinate wholly to one's immediate manager?
    (2) to act in the corporation's best interest?
    (3) not to act *against* the corporation's interests?
    (4) not to use one's employment with the corporation to act against its interests?
    (5) not to break laws or compete illicitly with the company?

People I'm describing are at 2-2.5 on that subordinacy spectrum. They're pursuing the joint interest of themselves and the company in a way that attracts middle management opposition. They don't deserve the punishment they'll typically get (termination, possibly worse) for that.

For the amount of words you regularly commit to speculating about mental issues on this site, ever think about just getting out of your own head once in awhile? You know, day-by-day just practicing to stop caring so much about every small emotional upswing & downswing? Ya know, just letting them be what they are.

The way you write about your emotions makes me think you take the sound of hoofbeats and start freaking out about zebras, not rationally concluding horses. Practice getting off the rollercoaster, a "3 hour depression attack" is you magnifying some tiny event into a giant mental battle. And yes, I've experienced panic attacks and depression before, so I explicitly know of the tendency to both fear them and how your mood colors every conclusion you're making about life. You draw up these massive narratives about emotional events that honestly don't need any explanation. They are what they are, the sooner you stop trying to analyze / write a book about them and focus on something else, the sooner they pass.

Maybe you need to stop fighting yourself so hard and just let go, ever think about that? Before you start defensively banging out a giant response too, let my words soak in a little. From an outside perspective, all you ever talk about on this subject is purely conjecture and stems from your own personal projections about the root of mental health issues, there is rarely any objective factual basis for your posts.

This reminds me of my friend's advice to me last fall. I'd sufferred an injury to my back which caused me to have a herniated disk. This in turn put pressure on my sciatic nerve. My friend told me to just walk normally. If I could have, I wouldn't have been limping and cringing with every step.

For people who have long term pain (and who have had the scary dangerous stuff ruled out by a proper doctor) the old advice was "lie flat on your back and don't exercise". This is the worst thing those people can do. Modern advice is "carefully take paracetamol and keep moving as normally as possible; and when you're back to normal get some exercise to strengthen those back muscles".

Again, nothing to do with your pain.

When it comes to changing one's own mental outlook/attitudes/moods, if someone doesn't have faith that reaching out to take those painful steps of courage will, in time, "fix their back", then it most certainly won't be fixed.

A common anti-psychopathic/hypomanic pattern is the creative "flare-up" in which a person is highly focused but intolerant of inefficiency. Such people, when faced with the slow pace and meaninglessness of most corporate work, often just elect to do something more useful, or try to solve the deeper and more important problem. It's hard to blame them.

Again, massive implication here. Why are you so sure that the anti-psychopaths are making the right call, that the work they are working on is more useful to the organization?

Case by case, one can't be 100% sure on every call, obviously. But I will choose the beneficial and sometimes altruistic creativity of the anti-psychopath over the self-advancing vice, social competitiveness, and superficial reliability of the psychopath every time, and be right most of the time. No one can make the right call all the time.

I do not accept the premise that the behavior your are describing is by definition "beneficial and sometimes altruistic." And I do not accept the premise that the reliability of the psychopath is superficial.