Letters to our bosses about how to help with mental health
At A Lust for Life we are inundated with requests from companies and managers about how to help talk about mental health in the workplace, and how to support a colleague who may have mental health issues. We asked people who have had mental health problems to write anonymously to their bosses to tell them what good support looks like.
If you’d like to help improve workplace responses to mental health, please write an anonymous letter to your boss by emailing editor@alustforlife.com. You don’t need any identifying information, just tell your boss what they did well (if anything) and what they should try to do in future.
Dear Boss,
There was never much choice for me about whether or not to disclose my mental health issues at work. I wanted to do it because it felt like the right thing to do. I had experience of trying to cover up and hide what was going on inside and outside of work. This was excruciating. Facing up to my problems meant being able to be open when it was required. Furthermore, I had been in my job for almost 20 years. In those years, I had never been in trouble, never faced any form of disciplinary action and had a reputation for being good at my work and going above and beyond what was asked of me.
So I disclosed. When my diagnosis was depression, I told you, my then manager. You were nice if a little uncertain about what to do with the information. When I took a day’s sick leave and wrote “depression” on the form, you told me it might be better not to. At the time I was hurt at this but looking back, I think you might have been trying to warn me.
When I received my diagnosis of BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder), the service I worked in was between managers so I told our Area Manager. She asked me to meet with her to chat about it and because we knew each other so well, I was happy to do this. At the time I thought that the fact that I was so well known in my job would mean that my disclosures wouldn’t be seen as a difficulty but this wasn’t the case. At the meeting, she and the HR Manager were quite awkward. One of the first things that my manager said to me was that she had googled BPD and “it wasn’t pretty”. These words still haunt me today.
Looking back I had a totally false sense of security. The diagnosis was recent and I didn’t really know enough BPD to talk about it in detail. I did my best but they quizzed me and I got very anxious and ended up going into more detail than I intended to. I mentioned that I had suffered childhood trauma. Both women became shocked and tearful and the meeting became quite surreal as I tried to apologise and offer comfort to them. I was then sent to the company doctor for an assessment. He reported that I appeared to have no issues doing my job and that I was receiving the appropriate supports outside of work. Things settled down after this but there was an awkwardness that hadn’t been there before. The company doctor had advised that I might need time off and might need help to pace myself but after that meeting, I was afraid to ask for anything. Rather the opposite, I felt the need to prove that I was “perfect” and had no difficulties whatsoever.
A year later the combination of overwork, shift work and my own issues became too much for me. I requested a change from shift work but the only offer made to me was to continue shift work but at a lower grade. I broke down after a training day (Abuse Policies) and I took time off. It became very difficult to go back. I was sent to the company doctor who recommended that I stay off work for the time being. I was given 6 months off to recover but still found it very difficult to get back to where I was. I asked again about a change of hours, but one day at a meeting with the area manager and HR manager (in a hotel so I wouldn’t have the “stress” of meeting in our head office) I was fired. The experience of this has stayed with me and it is very difficult to talk about. My work relationships became awkward and the emotional impact meant that I couldn’t stay in touch as much as I would have liked to. My whole identity seemed to disappear overnight.
The sad thing is that I worked in a care setting. The people I disclosed to were people who were employed to support vulnerable people. The organisation doesn’t have a good reputation as a supportive employer but even my GP has pointed out the irony that a company funded to provide care would fail to treat an employee with empathy and respect.
There are so many things that would have made the experience easier. I wish you had advised and encouraged me to bring a friend or colleague to the meetings. This would have helped so much with the anxiety and the sense of being alone. I wish the comment about BPD had not been made and especially when the diagnosis was so recent. I know enough now to respond but at the time it made me feel like I had become a liability.
I wish that I had been given options to help make my work easier and that someone might have helped me to navigate my way through it all. I’ve heard of companies having employees act as mental health advocates – I would have appreciated so much having someone with me, someone who could talk to me about what was being said and help me figure out what to do next. Looking back, I was trying so hard to stay on top of things but destroying myself in the process.
Above all, I wish you and the other management team had treated me as me, the person who had given them her all for 20 years and not as a problem that you just wanted to go away.
Support Our Campaign
We rely on the generosity of the public to fund our work and so far together we have achieved great things! Please do continue to support us so we can provide future generations in Ireland with the resources to recognise and talk about their emotions, and equip them to navigate the ever-changing world around them as they grow
