Is Bipolar considered a disability in terms of a job?

LegacyUser

Hi all, regular user going unreg for this. I've tried searching the forum but can't find the answer I'm looking for.

Basically I was diagnosed with bipolar at the start of the year. I've been off work for the last 12 months with a physical symptom (don't want to give too much away here) that, after much testing and investigation, is thought to be psychogenic and related to the amount of stress I'm under, and probably having an undiagnosed mental illness. I had been diagnosed with depression and was on a very high dose of antidepressants. Once the bipolar was diagnosed I had to stop them straight away and was started on Lamotrigine. My dose isn't stable yet but it's not far off.

Anyhoo, I had been getting sick pay from work, but that's stopped now. I have an income protection policy which I submitted a claim under, however they advised me yesterday that they are declining my claim, so I'm going to have to try to go back to work (despite the physical issue) because I can't afford to live on illness benefit, and thanks to a recent manic period, I've no savings to fall back on either (my husband lost his job a few months ago and we have a young son). I suffer from social anxiety and barely leave the house without my husband, so the thought of going back to work and dealing with the public is terrifying me. I work for a big company, and one of my friends suggested I check if there's a disability liaison officer in the company and to have a chat with them regarding going back and seeing could they put me in a different area that wouldn't be 'front line'.

I'm hoping someone can tell me whether or not bipolar is actually classified as a disability? If I'm able to avail of help from a disability liaison officer, I'd really find that helpful, however I don't want my employer to know about my condition unless it's absolutely necessary, so don't really want to go "declaring my hand" so to speak if it turns out that it's not considered a disability at all and they tell me there's nothing they can do for me and then it ends up on my record that I've got a mental illness. A few colleagues who I've worked with over the years have had mental health issues and none of them have found the company to be very understanding of it, and most of them have found that their careers have pretty much stagnated since they made the company aware of it. There are people being made redundant in my company and I'm worried that if they know I'm bipolar my head will be on the chopping block.

Sorry for the long post, I'm just really confused and scared at the minute.

Synyster Shadow

My uncles gf has bipolar and she is on disability allowance. Even has a travel pass. Best thing to do is talk to citizens advice

RockLady

Disability Allowance only last for two years now, that was brought in in I think 2011 or similar. Apply for the Invalidity Pension, OH applied for it with his bipolar and got it, he was even given a travel pass.

Be warned, and I hope you're not as unlucky as us, it took almost a year and an awful lot of hassle to get it: he applied and got turned down, appealed and got turned down, applied again and got turned down, and finally was awarded it after appealing his second turned-down application.

Gatling

RockLady wrote: »

Disability Allowance only last for two years now, that was brought in in I think 2011 or similar. Apply for the Invalidity Pension,

That's very incorrect disability allowance doesn't only last 2 years ,your confused illness benefit ,

Op applying for disability allowance can take over 12/18 months and even at that it's highly likely you will be refused ,and may need to make several appeals to get accepted,

But it seems you want to stay in your job so I wouldn't worry about SW ,

Your best best is talk your companies disability officer and see what the company's interpation is ,
They may well be willing to move you to a less stressful position ,

For instance a gp could say your condition is a disability but your company may say your still capable of working within the company

RockLady

My apologies I jumped the gun, it was indeed illness benefit I was thinking of.

Basically OP, mental illness is considered a disability for SW. Like anything in this economic climate (I hate that phrase...) you'll fight tooth and nail for it.
One step at a time - see how you get on with your company first. OH's were awful, but that's obviously not indicative of every company out there.

smcgiff

A company is obliged (do go to citizen's advice to confirm) to do its utmost to help you through and to accommodate your illness. Declaring such could possibly help protect you from redundancy due to company's fear of not following the rules. ( but that is only speculation on my part).