Work and Mental Health - where do I fit in?

Picture this. You are in a train travelling to an office which is 2.5 hour away. You have been worrying about the journey for days, it even affected your sleep. Your stomach starts to cramp.  

You are getting agitated. You pray that no one will seat next to you because you know you will flinch every time they will come too close to your personal space. You mutter to yourself and you realise you are making jerky movements with your shoulders. You have chosen to travel outside the 'rush hour' but you are getting nervous because there is a noisy child nearby  and someone's music can be heard even with their headphones on. The noise is like fingernails digging inside your brain. The cramping is so bad that you know you will have to run to the nearest loo as soon as soon as you get out of the train. You worry there might be a queue. By the time you get to the office you are already exhausted. You try to mask how you really feel. If someone talks to you, you force your mouth into a smile but inside your mind wanders and you feel like the office walls are closing around you. You can't use the one and only office toilet because your anxiety is telling you someone is going to open the door. You need to get back into the train that evening and the noise of the station is overwhelming. You can't work out what platform you need to use. You just stand there paralysed. You get on the train. You want to cry. The following day you are releived to be able to work from home but you woke up with your stomach and chest covered in a red rash. You recognise it, it is your 'anxiety rash' raising its ugly head again. You have a remote team that morning meeting. You feel your soul leaves your body as someone is rabbiting on about what they did over the weekend, because you spend your weekend trying to recover your strength at home and because you could not face the idea of mixing with people. By 2pm your body has given up and you are completely burned out. You can't even get your fingers to type anything, they just hang above the keyboard, frozen, and your mind has shut down. 

Welcome to my life. 

Unsurprisingly, this snapshot shows that combining work as a neurodivergent individual with taking care of my mental health is something that has blighted my life. I was able to work full time for about 4 years when I was younger but then my health took a turn for the worse and I ended up only being able to work 3 days a week, often even struggling to that and going from burnout out to burnout. Often leaving unsympathetic employers after a year or two and having to take a couple of months off to recover and then starting the cycle all over again. 

Staying in employment when you have long term mental health issues can be tough. You have to explain your sickness record and your patchy CV. And if you manage to get a job you also have a tough ride manage to stay in that job. The issues I have regularly encountered as an employee are: 

- A lack of understanding of mental health conditions and mental health treatment. When I came back from my sick leave after my breakdown last year, my GP advised that for her to sign me as fit to work I would need some reasonable adjustments including home working. I duly emailed the fit note provided to my manager and HR before my first day back. On my first morning back at work my manager booked a meeting with me. It became clear the manager had not bothered to read my fit note, so I had to point out the reasonable adjustments that the GP had listed there. Their reaction was to say  'Yes, but how flexible can you be?'. They then asked me to attend 2 evening events that week. My response was to remind them that my GP had only agreed to sign me as fit to work on the condition that I could work from home. I could not even type a sentence or concentrate more than 5 minutes only a month ago so the idea of travelling for 5 hours to attend and help run busy social events and going home late at night in my first week back at work was absolutely terrifying and impossible. It is only when HR and Occupational Health got involved that this manager backed down. 

- Stigma. When I came back from sick leave I also quickly realised that I was being excluded from some meetings and email trails. My performance, which until then had always been praised, started to be put in question (without any evidence) and my personality was criticised. I was suddenly too 'rigid' for expecting people to follow agreed procedures and policies. I was 'rude' when I asked someone to clarify what they were saying in a meeting. A birthday card was sent to me three months after the actual date with a note that the team 'had been busy and had forgotten'. When they came back from holiday my manager booked regular catch-up meetings with the rest of the team to see how they were doing, but not with me. Basically, it was as if being unwell with a mental health issue had turned me into a pariah. It was hard to explain to them as well that there was a six month waiting list for NHS therapy and that although I had been referred I was not going to 'get better' immediately or the fact that mental health issues often fluctuates and that I could face similar issues in the future. The irony? I work for a charity that supports vulnerable people, many of them with mental health issues.

- A lack of flexibility. I took my current job only because I was assured the team worked remotely and I would only need to travel for quarterly team meetings. Six month later, once I had passed my probation, I was told I would need to be in the office once a month. Two weeks after that I was told I would have to be in every week. This happened to me as well in previous jobs with managers removing my opportunity to work from home one day a week when I declared I had long term mental health issues.I have no idea as to why they thought this was a logical step to take and I had to involve ACAS in this case and lodge a complaint for my one day working from home to be reinstated. 

I know that the media and governments are always pushing for people with disabilities and/or long term health conditions to be in work. This will be a pipe dream for many as long as employers don't embrace flexibility and home working and fail to try to understand what having these conditions really means. 

Stop trying to fit a square peg in a round hole

This is how one of my friend’s GP described her attempt to go back into the workplace: 'Stop trying to fit a square peg into a round hole'. My friend is a very capable and talented woman who raised a family while working in various demanding jobs, including nursing. 

She also has a life long history of anxiety, depression, PTSD and other mental health issues. She has been unable to work full time for the past few years, instead changing career and doing freelance work in a creative industry. A few months ago she was really excited when an acquaintance suggested she could also do some part-time work in her pet supplies shop. My friend is a huge animal lover and she decided that this would be a nice opportunity to return to more permanent work. Unfortunately, just as the starting date for her new part-time job creeped closer my friend’s anxiety went through the roof and she ended up in front of her GP with serious concerns about how and why her mental had  suddenly taken a turn for the worse. Her GP pointed out that she should maybe accept that moving back into a salaried job might simply not be for her and instead focus on her freelance activities. Wise GP. 

Accepting and working around my limitations

I had to accept that I can only work part-time if I want to be able to manage my mental health issues correctly and avoid burnouts and breakdowns. I have moved out of an expensive city and

cut down my expenses as much as possible to fit that model. I also have had to stop comparing myself to others and see myself as a failure. I do the best that I can with the hand that life has given me. It is not easy but I have had to learn that my mental and physical health come first. I also accepted my neurodivergence and I no longer try to force myself to mask and be someone I am simply never going to be. 

I know my strengths: I am creative, I can always bring new ideas and ways of doing things to the table, I am a decent writer  and I have shown a great deal of resilience in my life. 

I know my weaknesses: I get bored easily, I get tired very easily, I am not interested in small details, I can't do office politics or small talks, I struggle with verbal communication in general and I can't carry on putting myself through the nightmare of trying to use trains and commute. 

And that's fine, I am better off accepting my limits and playing to my strengths and seeking employment that fits what I am able to offer. I am also exploring retraining and self-employment as an alternative because, unfortunately, I am very aware that flexible work environments that understand the needs of people with mental health issues can be hard to find.