0%-150% + Zero In Between: When Being Professionally Bipolar Takes Us From Power Suit to Panic Attack + Back Again

A twisted tale of simultaneously crushing goals and being crushed daily.

Hey Thinkers + Feelers ♡ The wild and wacky cultural conundrum of girl boss vs girl moss continues this week. If it has done the same for you, condolences. Metric’s ‘Help, I’m Alive’ is your reading companion for this exploration. The pulsing synths capture the anxious energy of ironically moving between high-functioning success and near-collapse, with lyrics like ‘Help, I’m alive, my heart keeps beatin’ like a hammer. Hard to be soft, tough to be tender. Come take my pulse, the pace is on a runaway train.’ Hit play, and let’s walk this contradiction together.

Every morning I drag myself out of bed like a zombie from The Walking Dead, except instead of hunting brains, I'm desperately searching for my own through the fog of yesterday's unfinished to-do list and a sub-par sleep where I woke up three times and emailed myself thoughts and reminders for the impending day ahead.

It's been nearly 15 years since I entered the workforce with the wide-eyed optimism of Andy Sachs in Devil Wears Prada, or actually, maybe more Andy Dwyer from Parks and Recreation, discovering a new pit to fall into that is all enthusiasm, no real contingency plan.

Work is the constant companion that never leaves, never sleeps, never stops demanding more, like that clingy ex who somehow still has your Netflix password.

I am the employee who makes HR nervous because I don't take holiday leave. In the system, I glow red like a warning light, a significant liability. I subconsciously stockpile my holiday leave like a doomsday prepper hoards canned baked beans; theoretically useful someday, but destined to expire unused. But I try, god, let me tell you I really do try to take those days, but then someone decides to resign, falls catastrophically ill, or ghosts the office for two weeks in an unannounced crisis of faith or temper tantrum. And there I am, of course, scooping up the scattered pieces and trying to keep things moving because I can't help it. Because that's what ‘reliable’ people do. Because that's how I've trained everyone to expect me to be. And how I’ve subliminally trained myself.

My brain is hardwired like a Silicon Valley server farm. It’s constantly processing, relentlessly optimising, perpetually upgrading.

Always. Giving. 150%.

Because anything less feels like total failure. Because 149% might as well be 0%. Because my self-worth has become a dynamic spreadsheet with pivot tables where the numbers only matter if they're higher than yesterday's, trending upward like a good little graph that makes investors in the world of capitalism happy.

When my boss says ‘This looks great,’ my immediate thought races to: ‘But it could be greater.’ I hear ‘adequate’ when they say ‘exceptional.’ I see ‘mediocre’ when they write ‘outstanding’ on my performance review.

I've climbed the career ladder so enthusiastically that I've worn off the rungs, creating my own path upward while simultaneously wondering why nobody followed me to this lonely, oxygen-deprived elevation.

And for the ones already there? F*ck, I don't even like them! They smell like weaponised incompetence, failing upwards and hot air every time they enter a room or open their mouth.

The voice in my head speaks in a LinkedIn algorithm. It whispers in motivational quotes against sunrise or nature backgrounds. It scolds in hustle-culture mantras that would make Richard Branson weep with pride.

Sleep? A weakness. Boundaries? An excuse. Self-care? Something to optimise for maximum productivity returns, like putting premium gas in a car you're driving straight off a cliff (glass or actual).

This deeply programmed voice promises that with just a little more effort, a bit more grinding, I could be sitting in that C-suite office, making decisions and changes that matter while drinking coffee from a mug that says ‘Boss’ in an ironically unironic way.

Then there's the other voice. The voice of indifference, nay, disinterest.

The rebellion. The mutiny.

This is the voice that wakes me at 2 AM. Not with anxiety about tomorrow's presentation. But with one scintillating and subversive question that drops into the silence like a stone.

It says: ‘What if we just... didn't?’

This voice doesn't speak in LinkedIn inspirational posts. Nope. It communicates in Squidward sighs. In Daria Morgendorffer eye-rolls that could level a city block. In one-word texts sent hours later. In the beautiful silence of an unscheduled afternoon stretching endlessly before you.

Short. Blunt. Effortless. Free.

This voice doesn't want to hustle. It wants to chill with the dedication Kourtney Kardashian brings to avoiding work. It dreams, not of productivity hacks but of legitimate, unapologetic laziness. It wants to channel my inner Garrett McNeil from Superstore and experience the pure, unfiltered joy of doing absolutely nothing at work. For days. For weeks. Until the concept of time becomes meaningless.

This voice fantasises about sending an email. Nay. Not just an email, the email.

Subject line: I’M DONE

Body: [Don’t bother replying, her mind has left the chat]

Attachment: GIF of Michael Scott screaming ‘NO GOD PLEASE NO’ on infinite loop

Out-of-office reply: This email account has been deleted. So has my LinkedIn. So has my will to participate in capitalist society today. Contact literally anyone else because I am now vehemently allergic to professional responsibility. Side effects include spontaneous happiness and the ability to remember what my apartment looks like in daylight.

With no regards and no f*cks given,

[she has actually left the chat]

This voice doesn't want a promotion; it wants a prolonged coma with excellent Wi-Fi. It wants to wake up when the study loans are magically forgiven and minimum wage is no longer a punishment. When housing costs less than a kidney on the black market. When ‘having it all’ doesn't mean ‘sacrificing everything.’ It wants to tell my calendar to talk to my middle finger because my brain has left the building, never to return unless the meaning of life has been found, or at the very least a really good taco.

It wants to ghost faster than a Tinder date who asked about your five-year plan. To disappear like the last season of Game of Thrones really should have. To sleep like an unapologetic teenager on a Saturday morning. To breathe without counting the inhales as potential productivity units and the perimetre of a metaphorical box. To exist without trackable metrics or quarterly reviews or a personal brand that needs constant tending to like some needy digital Tamagotchi.

GRWM: Professional Bipolarism Style

6:00 AM: Ambition awakens first. Before my eyes open. Before my alarm sounds. Ambition has already created a mental to-do list that would make Hermione Granger with a Time-Turner seem woefully unproductive. Ambition whispers with the intensity of a drill sergeant: ‘Today is the day we get noticed. Today we become indispensable.’

6:30 AM: Exhaustion counters with a giant yawn and a seductive murmur that feels like a warm blanket: ‘Five more minutes.’ Which becomes ten. Which becomes twenty. Which becomes a frantic rush that ambition will punish me for all day like an angry fitness influencer disappointed in your form and lack of dedication.

8 AM: I've arrived early. Again. Ambition straightens my posture at my desk. Cracks knuckles with the precision of a concert pianist. Opens laptop with ceremonial reverence. ‘Let's crush this day like we're Thor and this day is Loki.’

9:15 AM: Thirty-seven emails answered with machine-like efficiency. Three virtual calls completed while simultaneously making notes and planning what to have for lunch. Next month's strategy document already outlined, colour-coded, and sprinkled with buzzwords that sound impressive. Ambition is insatiable. Ambition is relentless. Ambition is already planning what else to accomplish before lunch, calculating how many more tasks equals worthiness.

10:05 AM: Exhaustion whispers again, slouching against the door frame of my consciousness. ‘Coffee break?’ it yawns. Ambition scoffs like a disappointed parent. ‘After you finish the quarterly report. After you've earned it.’

12:15 PM: Lunch. Finally. I stare at my sad desk salad like it personally betrayed me. Limp greens and pale tomatoes mocking my life choices like tiny vegetable therapists. Exhaustion grows louder, sprawling across my mind: ‘Is this what you went to uni for? To eat refrigerated greens at your desk while answering emails about emails about meetings about emails?’ Groan.

12:45 PM: I imagine faking my own death with the detailed planning of a Gone Girl protagonist. Starting over as a humble goat farmer in New Zealand, where my biggest stress would be naming too many goats after characters from the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. Do goats need much attention? Can goats sense imposter syndrome? Would they judge me for my resume gaps?

1:55 PM: Ambition has regained control, standing tall with shoulders back. I'm a productivity machine once more. The office MVP. The problem-solver. The go-to person who goes to every meeting that could have been an email because ‘visibility’ is apparently a career strategy and not just something you need while driving. Pew pew pew.

2:15 PM: ‘You're so organised and you think so fast’ they say. Ambition preens like a peacock at a vanity mirror. Exhaustion translates through a lazy drawl: ‘You're so good at sacrificing your wellbeing that we'll keep sucking dry until there's nothing left. You're the human equivalent of an all-you-can-eat buffet of competence.’ Deliciously depressing.

3:55 PM: Exhaustion is now practically screaming, lying flat on the floor of my psyche. I've mentally drafted my resignation letter six different ways and imagined delivering it to my CEO with the production values and dramatic fervour of a Marvel movie. I’ve planned my farewell party down to the passive-aggressive playlist. I’ve picked out the outfit I'll wear on my first day of unemployment - obviously something that says ‘I'm thriving’ but with elastic waistbands. I’ve practiced saying, ‘No, I don't miss it at all’ with convincing eye contact and the serenity of someone who has discovered tax-free income and just purchased a ‘Summer Home’ in the Hamptons.

5:30 PM: Time to go home. Theoretically. In an alternate universe where time has meaning and promises to myself hold weight besides the weight of guilt I feel that drives my wayward desire to be the first person in and last person to leave the office most days.

6:00 PM: I'm still at my desk, hunched like Gollum over my precious laptop. ‘Just one more email.’ For the fifteenth time. Clinging to my standing desk like it’s a walking frame. The cleaning crew knows me by name and has stopped asking if I'm leaving soon.

6:55 PM: Finally packing up, moving with the slow deliberation of someone leaving their childhood home. Exhales and sighs aplenty while ambition taunts me to take my laptop home with the subtle nuance of a hostage-taker. ‘Just in case inspiration strikes. Just in case someone needs something. Just in case you wake up at 3 AM remembering that one thing you forgot.’

9:25 PM: At home, scrolling through and liking Instagram posts about ‘setting boundaries’ and ‘work-life balance’ from influencers who seem to make a living by taking photos of themselves not working in expensive loungewear. Exhaustion laughs bitterly, snorting like April Ludgate in Parks and Recreation. Ambition is already planning tomorrow's outfit, something that says ‘Girl Boss’ but not ‘I'm trying too hard,’ the sartorial equivalent of an Olympic sport.

11:05 PM: The cycle resets like a particularly cruel video game with no save points. Ambition sets three alarms with military precision. Exhaustion hopes they all fail catastrophically, preferably in a way that involves a power outage, more hours in the day and the excuse to sleep without interruption until noon.

I am pretty sure this is kind of / definitely a cry for help.

I am stuck in this vortex, flung between girl boss and girl moss narratives, where we're simultaneously expected to grow an empire and just grow organically, lying still while the world races around us.

We were raised on a diet of ‘follow your dreams’ and ‘you can be anything,’ (which don’t get me wrong, I loved), only to graduate into a recession where ‘anything’ quickly became ‘anything that pays the bills without requiring a soul sacrifice.’ We were told we were special snowflakes, only to discover that snowflakes melt when the heat is on, and the planet is definitely warming. And instead of doing anything about it, the collective society we’re stuck in refuses to acknowledge its existence, and so we must, as the Instagram art and inspirational posters tell us ‘persist’.

Our generation is a generation that was promised the corner office but given the open floor plan where our existential crises happen in full view of twenty coworkers pretending not to notice. We were told to ‘lean in’ only to discover we're leaning into a void that echoes with the promises that are rarely if ever delivered. We're expected to hustle like our lives depend on it while simultaneously practicing mindfulness and self-care - the cognitive equivalent of trying to floor the gas and brake pedals simultaneously.

We Instagram our meditation practices and then immediately check our work emails because we've developed notification FOMO like Pavlov's most anxious dogs. We listen to podcasts about preventing burnout at 1.5x speed because we don't have time to hear about relaxation at normal speed, treating self-care advice like we're cramming for a final exam in Personal Peace & Nourishment - LifeCourse#2025. We're walking contradictions with Apple Watches that simultaneously track our steps and our stress levels, quantifying our failure to be both productive and peaceful in real-time metrics.

We're expected to work like we don't need the money while budgeting like we don't have the job. To network like extroverts while recharging like introverts. To plan for retirement as if climate change isn't happening while recycling as if it can be stopped by our individual actions. To build community while competing against each other. To be authentic but professionally palatable. To be disruptive but not difficult.

In the Venn diagram of society's expectations, we exist in the impossibly tiny convergence between ‘exceptional’ and ‘easy-going,’ ‘ambitious’ and ‘content,’ ‘unique’ and ‘collaborative team player.’

We are Schrödinger's workers - simultaneously burned out and not trying hard enough until someone opens the door (literal and metaphorical) and observes us having a breakdown in the supply closet or crying in our cars between Zoom calls.

I laugh. I rant. I reconcile. I recognise the absurdity of it all. Don’t you?

We make TikToks about our anxiety while actively feeding the algorithm that heightens it. We joke about our meaningless jobs while desperately clinging to them as the world crumbles around us. We dream of escape while adding more links to our professional chains. We are both the prison and the prisoner, the diagnosis and the disease, the hustle and the exhaustion.

I hate it. But I can’t stop.

So here I stand - equal parts LinkedIn profile and existential crisis, power suit and panic attack, ten-year plan and day-by-day survival, inspiring and infuriating contradictions navigating a system that itself makes no damn sense.

Ambition would say there is something beautifully, chaotically human and rewarding about that. ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Indifference and disinterest would say that is completely cooked, and to get a real life.

So I guess I'll just keep alternating between these extremes multiple times a day because, let's face it, that's how a millennial like me rolls. Never quite figuring it out, somehow making it work (most of the time), one avocado toast and therapy session at a time.

But somewhere, hopefully, in the briefly quiet moments between the hustle and grind, I'll be planning my escape (or my ascension) depending on which voice is winning that day.

P.S. A good brew transforms more late-night thoughts into tomorrow's essays. If my thinking, feeling and writing has sparked something in you, help keep my brain buzzing and shout me a little coffee over here: buymeacoffee.com/shesthinking