I've been in higher education IT for over 11 years. I've gotten "Exceptional Year" ratings. I manage a team of four devs and a portfolio of 20+ apps.
I also have Bipolar II, diabetes, and I'm a recovering alcoholic — sober since 2020.
If you're a dev managing your own stuff, this is for you. Not quite the “inspirational” version, but real nonetheless.
The Real Version
The performance reviews say things like "force multiplier" and "technical backbone." What they don't capture: the hypomanic phases where I'd fire off more ideas than anyone could implement, followed by crashes where getting out of bed felt impossible. The time I sent an apology email to my entire IT org while manic, outing myself as bipolar to hundreds of people. The years I used alcohol to manage what my brain wouldn't.
When I got sober, I replaced drinking with work. Classic move, right? The dopamine hit of shipping code. The validation of being the guy who solves the "impossible" problems.
Then I lost my brother. And somewhere in the grief, I realized I was going to burn out completely if I didn't change how I thought about all of this.
Your Health Isn't a Side Quest
Here's what took me way too long to accept: managing my health isn't something I do around my job. It IS the job. Everything else comes after. Especially more so as I stepped into leadership and became responsible for others.
Bipolar and diabetes create this feedback loop — mood affects blood sugar, blood sugar wrecks mood, stress spikes everything. It's not a metaphor. It's just how the body works.
I tried to brute-force through it for years. Push harder, sleep less, prove I could keep up. You know where that leads.
Spoon Theory, Basically
If you don't know Spoon Theory: you start each day with limited "spoons" (energy units). Every task costs spoons. When they're gone, they're gone. Borrow from tomorrow and you pay interest in a crashed mood or spiked glucose.
So I stopped organizing work by priority and started organizing by energy cost:
- High-energy stuff (architecture, hard conversations) → morning when I'm sharp
- Medium stuff (code reviews, meetings) → afternoon
- Low-energy stuff (email, docs) → the valleys
I built a hybrid system by literally just talking through my constraints with AI over a bunch of sessions. GTD for capturing everything, time blocking for structure, Pomodoro for pushing through fog. Nothing fancy. Just honest about what I'm actually working with.
The key insight: rest isn't the opposite of work. It's what makes work possible.
Making Myself Less Necessary
Here's the weird part: my limitations made me a better manager.
When you can't be the hero pulling all-nighters, you build systems that don't need heroes. When you know a depressive episode could knock you out for days, you write documentation and processes that let your team function without you.
Practically:
- Reusable code libraries so we're not reinventing stuff
- Documentation that's actually useful (AI memory, not bureaucracy)
- Mentoring junior devs into mentors themselves
- Automating the tedious stuff — CI/CD, release notes, deployments
The goal is to make myself progressively less necessary. Sounds bad for career advancement, but actually? The good orgs reward people who elevate everyone around them, not people who hoard knowledge.
The Humbling Part
I gotta be honest: I've watched people who output less than me get more recognition. And a lot of the time, they deserved it.
Because they were consistent. Reliable. They showed up steady every day.
When you're managing Bipolar, consistency is hard. Hypomania feels productive but creates chaos. Depression tanks your reliability. Boom-and-bust might average to high output, but it's not the same as being someone people can count on.
My work feedback survey shows I rate myself way harsher than my team does — like 2 out of 5 on stuff they score me 4.6. That gap is years of feeling like I had to compensate for my brain by being visibly exceptional.
The truth: sustainable and reliable beats exceptional and erratic. Every time.
Environment Matters More Than Salary
I work in higher ed, not FAANG. Not where the big money is. This is intentional.
I've had the same leadership for 11+ years and enjoy working with my directorl. When I've struggled — visibly — I wasn't managed out. I was supported. That kind of psychological safety is worth more than any salary bump I'd get jumping to a high-pressure gig.
If you're managing chronic stuff, environment isn't a perk. It's infrastructure. The right manager, the right culture, the right flexibility — that's what makes everything else possible.
The Short Version
If you're a dev fighting similar battles:
- Don’t pretend that you have the same resources as everyone else. You don't. Build systems for your actual constraints.
- Energy management > time management. Know your peaks and valleys.
- Rest is productive. For real.
- Make yourself less necessary. Document, automate, mentor.
- Consistency beats intensity. 70% every day beats 150% half the time.
- Environment is infrastructure. A good manager isn't a luxury.
- Your inner critic lies. Get external feedback. Trust it more than the voice saying you're not enough.
- Work can be an addiction too. Ask me how I know.
Work-life balance isn't a myth. For some of us, it's a survival strategy.
I'm not writing this from the other side, all figured out. I'm in the middle, still managing the loops, still learning what sustainable looks like.
But I'm still here doing my thing. Still shipping code. Still leading a team.
If you're fighting similar stuff — you can do this.
Not by pretending you don't have limits, but by building systems that work with them.
That's not settling. That's engineering.
If this resonates at all or made you think about something else, I'd love to hear from others.
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