Mental Illness And The Workplace
Does mental illness have a place in the workplace?
Mental illness and the workplace often brings stigma and discrimination.
Colleagues act as though they are treading on eggshells around you once they suspect you have mental health challenges in the workplace. I never knew how word got out about my condition though as discussions with Occupational Heath are confidential. Perhaps I had not sheilded the medication I took at work with someone discovering what they were for.
Mental illness made me unaware of the errors I sometimes made as I was no longer as observant as was my former nature. This placed me at a disadvantage at work as colleagues often had to cover for my lapses. What I had going for me was that I was keen to work, often returning to work before I was fully fit to do so.
God took care of me in surprising ways as often events conspired to cover for my lapses. When it mattered most, resources I was not expecting became available to complete important tasks assigned to me.
One of the strange things I discovered was not being aware of several unopened emails over extended periods of time. I was also very easily distracted from my set purposes as anyone or task that got my attention got done by me to the neglect of what I was doing before then. Setting personal priorities had now become more challenging.
I remember coming back to my desk to hear a discussion by some of my colleagues about something they were astonished I had not noticed. There were temporary blind spots for me in observation with sometimes me doing the exact opposite to what I set out to do. I would return confident that I had done what I set out to do only for someone to point out my error.
I once had prepared many refinements on a project document only to send an earlier version even though what I was confident I was sending was the final version. I worked best when there were others to check through the work. Follow up was also an issue. Those that were firmly critical of my results got me to perform the best whilst those that were mindful of how they would come across only encouraged my blindness to errors that were committed.
Working relationships with my Line Managers and the hiring Managers was critical in my retaining the jobs I was on. My second line Manager hired me after I was willing to take on extended commute times of up to two hours into work. My excellent relations with him not only got me more work experience in the two years I was there, it also kept me out of hospital.
Eventually the combination of long commute times ( I had a twelve hour day away from home on account of work) with expensive accommodation in the area I worked, forced me to start looking elsewhere closer to home.
My next job had me starting after another hospital admission. The activities following my resignation became a trigger for a relapse. My performances were worse as I found myself unable to keep awake if I sat in meetings for more than fifteen minutes. Ultimately, this led to stagnation in my development. We will talk more on this again soon…
Today is International Workers’ Day, also known as Labor Day in some places. Wikipeda says this day is a celebration of laborers and the working classes that is promoted by the international labor movement, anarchists, socialists, and communists and occurs every year on May Day, 1 May, an ancient European spring holiday.
How has mental illness affected you in your workplace? We would like to hear from you so we can create awareness and put a stop to discrimination in the workplace.
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