The Cost of Coming Back: What They Don’t Tell You About Recovery and Returning to Work
There’s the hospital stay.
The medications.
The questions that echo in the silence when you’re back home.
But what no one prepares you for—what there’s no pamphlet or discharge form for—is what it takes to come back.
Back to work.
Back to the same desk, surrounded by people who know.
Back to a life that looks the same but feels… changed.
In this recent Courage Circle conversation hosted by Yollanda Zhang, I opened up about what it’s really like to rebuild after a bipolar diagnosis—and the silent battles that come after the loud ones.
Stay tuned for the full Courage Circle video, which will be posted on the Bipolar Empath YouTube channel soon!
How My Mother Became My First Advocate
I was raised by a single mother who immigrated to Canada in the 80s. It was always me and her against the world—and in so many ways, it still is.
When I was mislabelled and placed in ESL as a kid (even though English was my only language), she marched into my classroom and refused to let me be underestimated. At 77 years old, she did it again—this time as I was being wheeled into the ER during my first manic episode. She fought for me when I couldn’t. She believed in me when I didn’t even know who I was anymore.
Her example of advocacy is what now fuels my own.
When I created Bipolar Empath, I didn’t have a plan. I just had a story—and a deep hope that it could help someone else feel less alone.
“There’s no blueprint for coming back—but we get to write our own.”
Returning to Work After Psychosis
The hardest part wasn’t the hospital stay.
It was walking back into the office after it.
I’d just gone through a full-blown manic episode—what I now call “the naked punches” incident—and the next chapter wasn’t recovery. It was shame. It was paranoia. It was silence between me and my boss that no one dared to break.
At the time, I didn’t know what bipolar even was. I’d never been “sick” before. My first leave lasted only three months, because that’s what the system told me was reasonable. But I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t even close.
I showed up to work late because I could barely get out of bed. I avoided eye contact. I avoided conversation. I lived every day under the weight of being seen—not for who I was, but for what had happened to me.
Looking back, I see now that healing required far more than medication or a doctor’s note. It required self-understanding. And self-compassion. That only came during my second leave—and by then, I knew my heart was somewhere else.
Letting Go of the Life I Thought I Wanted
Two weeks before my partnership interview at one of the Big Four accounting firms, I landed in the hospital.
I had spent years chasing the title, the prestige, the dream. And for a while, it was working. But that diagnosis forced me to ask: What does success really mean if it’s costing me my wellbeing?
After being restructured out of the firm in 2020, I chose not to dwell on the “why.”
Instead, I started my own advisory business. I leaned into mental health advocacy. I wrote a book. I went back to school for psychotherapy.
In short, I started living a life that fit me better—one built on truth, not performance.
Crystal Ball Reflection
There’s a version of me that still walks into that corporate building and tries to pretend everything’s okay. But that version is gone. He had to be—for me to become who I am today.
This isn’t just about recovery. It’s about reclaiming your life after the world tells you it’s over.
If you’ve ever had to come back—after a diagnosis, a breakdown, a moment you never saw coming—I want you to know: you’re not weak for struggling. You’re strong for returning.
Even stronger if you choose not to go back at all, and instead, build something new.
With empathy,
Shak
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Shak is pursuing his Master of Arts in Counseling Psychology (MACP) and will start his practicum in January. He's involved with the Canadian Mental Health Association and he's working on turning his blog, Bipolar Empath, into a book while managing his accounting business.
Stay tuned for more updates on Shak’s journey and the impact he continues to make in the mental health community!
