I’m very open about my past experiences with depression and anxiety. I’ll tell anyone about it: friends, family, managers, dates, random people at random places.
I’ll tell you what depression feels like, which medication worked for me, how exercise made a difference (and how it didn’t). I’ll share articles, books, or just chat with you. I’m not ashamed or embarrassed. Today, I’m in a great place mentally and I worked hard to be here. I want to help others.
So again, once more for those in the back – I’VE EXPERIENCED DEPRESSION AND ANXIETY AND IT SUCKS!
I’ve found that my openness encourages people to confide in me about their own battles. Sometimes they need guidance on how to start the healing process. Other times they just need to know someone else understands what they’re going through.
People are talking about mental health because of the pandemic. This is great and I really hope that it results in lasting changes to workplace culture.
But I’m worried that companies are getting away with talking the talk – and not actually practicing empathy when an employee needs help – because that’s what happened to me.
Depression on the job
I suffered through my worst bout of depression and anxiety while working in sales at a startup. I found that when your performance is declining, some companies aren’t too pleased when you ask for more help.
I used to have a bad habit of putting on a mask to hide my problems. My poker face was very good. People thought I was very calm and stoic during stressful situations. While working in sales does teach you to roll with setbacks and persevere through difficult months, I was just putting up a facade.
I didn’t accept that my mental health was as bad as it was. I thought I could just power through this day, or this week, or this month. I thought that if I could just close this sale, I'd feel better.
The problem with constantly pushing yourself is that you’re soon running on fumes. I couldn’t sleep at night because I was so anxious about failure. And I couldn’t wake up in the morning because I was so tired from lack of sleep. That’s not sustainable.
Anxiety on the job
For those that haven’t experienced anxiety, imagine being on the look out for something bad that’s about to happen, all the time. Our brains come up with all kinds of stories based on small details. If my manager looked at me the wrong way, I was convinced that they hated me and planned to fire me . If a prospect ignored my emails for a week, I was sure that they’re definitely going to back out of the deal.
There’s a term called catastrophizing in which people jump to the worst possible scenario. Any error at work, no matter how small, will get me fired. My reputation will be irreparably damaged. I’ll lose my job, my friends, and my credibility. My anxiety had me reading into every detail of every interaction every day.
I was all around miserable. At this point, I was barely keeping my head above water. One morning, I was running late for work. So late that I decided to call an uber. As the driver got closer to my office, I couldn’t hold back my emotions anymore and I started crying. Just completely broke down. I texted my manager that I can’t come into work that day and that I’m sorry.
He responded along the lines of “what the hell? We have a call. Are you serious?” I asked the driver to turn around and take me home. When he dropped me off he said that he hoped I felt better soon. It was a small kindness I still remember today.
The rest of the day was awful. I felt hopeless. My roommates came home after work and saw that I was a mess and tried to take care of me. I didn’t hear anything from my manager the rest of the day.
Asking for help… and being denied
I knew I’d have to talk to my manager about what happened the next day. I dreaded that conversation. When I got to work, we went into a private meeting room where I told him that my depression had hit me hard and explained the severity of the situation.
He told me that he was giving me a warning and that if I did something like this again, I would be fired. I was instructed to send an email to the head of our sales department acknowledging that I messed up and that I understood I was under warning.
That was it.
My manager didn’t want to talk further about what actually happened. He didn’t check in to see if I was ok. He was mad at me for missing work and bailing on a client call. Now, following one of the worst days of my life, I was in trouble at work as well.
This is what mental health stigma looks like
I still don’t know how I feel about that manager. We aren’t in touch and he didn’t reach out to me after I left that company. I really don’t think that he’s a bad or cruel person though.
I think that he couldn’t understand the severity of my situation and that, as a human being, I was in a dark place asking for help. There were two big problems in this interaction:
He didn’t fully believe me. He couldn’t relate because he never had depression (as he told me). He was far more concerned with my professionalism and inability to fulfill my responsibilities as a salesperson. This event reflected poorly on both of us at work.
As my first line manager, he was in no way prepared to handle this conversations. We didn’t have a proper HR department to consult either. There was one person, who I later spoke to, and she also said she couldn’t relate. My manager had no guidance on how to handle this situation so he worked within his own comfort zone.
I managed to stay employed at that company for a few more months. Then there was a reorg in the sales department and I was assigned a new manager. That manager didn’t know what had happened and I definitely wasn’t going to tell her, not after how badly it backfired last time.
During this time, I also blamed myself. My failure at work felt like a failure of me as a person and a professional. I knew that the way I was treated wasn’t right but I had internalized a lot of the abuse too.
I think it took me a year, maybe more, to really get a grasp on everything that happened, to know that it wasn’t all my fault, and to acknowledge how badly this manager reacted to my cry for help.
When we talk about the stigma of mental health issues in the workplace, this is what it looks like. Managers and leaders can understand depression in theory, but when confronted with it in real life, they fall back on their pre-conceived ideas about the employee and the validity of their mental health claim.
If you’re a manager and one of your employees is struggling to perform their job, take a step outside of your role at the company and ask, is this person doing okay? do they need support as a human being? How can I help them? What do they need from me? You won’t have all the answers. But you can help.
Creating a formal mental health plan
I want to see more than just talk about mental wellness from employers. We need a structured mental health plan available for employees like me, starting with medical leave. Alternatively, or in tandem with time off, the workload should be reduced temporarily. Having small wins at work can help a lot with self esteem while recovering.
The mental health plan should clearly list all of the wellness benefits the employer offers like counseling services, access to treatments, meditation programs, exercise programs and subsidies. When getting out of bed in the morning seems impossible, combing through paperwork is just too hard.
A formal mental health plan that is part of every company’s HR practices will hold employers accountable when workers raise their hand and ask for help. Simple or short term changes to support the employee now can result in more productivity and loyalty later.
There are people who will call this special treatment. They’ll say this is a loophole and anyone can lie and say they’re having a mental health crisis and get out of work. As if we’re all just waiting for an excuse to be lazy.
And what’s the alternative? To reprimand employees? To micromanage their day to day activities? To fire them when they are already at rock bottom and take away health insurance that they desperately need?
I got better, and you can too
I wanted to be successful in that job. I wanted to over-achieve. I needed a helping hand and unfortunately I didn’t get one. Luckily, I had love and support from friends and family and I’m so grateful.
I look back and wonder how I dragged myself through each day. I know now that it’s because I had strength. It takes strength to get through depression. It takes guts to ask for help. But we can make it so much easier for people!
Everyone should be able to set boundaries at work to protect their mental health. It should be easy to ask for help and receive empathy and a plan. Human beings are resilient. I am in a great place mentally today – and I want you to join me.