Posts Tagged ‘HR and Mental Health’
The 25% Club: How We Are
Posted on: February 1, 2013
This post is part of the 25% club series dealing with the topic of mental health, particularly as it relates to the workplace. Some of the posts, like today’s, will be accredited, others will be anonymous – all have a powerful impact and help to shine a light on a topic that we need to talk about so much more than we currently do. Today’s post is by Amy McDonald, who you can find over at her website or on Twitter @AmyMcDTU.
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It’s people that make business happen. Yet frequently we hear about companies satisfying the demands of the business rather than ensuring that staff are supported to achieve these goals with open and effective two-way communication.
Together with adults with long term mental health issues, I deliver interactive theatre training about mental health at work. Ultimately we hold up a mirror to the trainees, reflecting back behaviours and attitudes that are common place. The excessive emphasis on demands coupled with the diminished focus on relationships at work carries with it stark consequences. Trainees commonly remark on the shift in attention at their staff meetings. They say,
“We spend all our time focussed on the welfare of our clients, there’s never time to talk about how we are.”
I believe it’s this lack of awareness in the people we work beside, the decrease in face to face communication that enables mental ill-health to go unnoticed. That is of course, until it’s too late. By that time your colleague has spent months with presenteeism before being signed off and is subsequently absent for 6 months or more. A situation that could have been avoided if only someone had taken the time to ask simply,
“How are you?”
And taken the time to listen to the answer.
Not to interrupt.
To be empathetic.
To hear what the other person said.
To give eye contact.
To observe body language.
To offer support and help when needed.
Often we blame – the boss, the senior management, the system. I’m not saying they’re blameless but victim-thinking rarely helps. The only one who can change of course, is you. It’s about taking responsibility for your own dissatisfaction. For example, if you can see that a colleague is clearly not well: she’s struggling; he’s forgetful; she’s getting confused; he no longer smiles – it’s up to you to do something, to say something. Doing nothing rarely leads to effective change. It’s about taking the first step, often the brave step, the compassionate step to raise your concerns. To talk about it.
A fundamental shift is needed to balance out the priorities between demands and relationships. Two-way communication in which opinions are taken on board and concerns are taken seriously will create an open and honest culture – a culture in which we all feel able to speak freely about mental health and ill-health. It’s about being proactive and caring for our colleagues, the people that make business happen. So go on, shout it from the office tops,
“Let’s talk about how we are!”
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If you care about mental health and want to make a difference there are lots of things you can do
- visit Mind’s website and check out their excellent corporate resources
- take the ‘time to change’ pledge
- attend our event with Mind on 5th February 2013 at 6pm
- share your story and read those of others as part of this blog series. If you would like to contribute, please get in touch with me on Twitter (@AlisonChisnell) or through the comments section of this blog
- do you want to join me in running the Royal Parks half marathon in October to raise money for Mind? Register here if so and let’s form an #HRforMentalHealth team (non HR people welcome too!)
The 25% Club: A Piece Of Me
Posted on: January 31, 2013
This post is part of the 25% club series dealing with the topic of mental health, particularly as it relates to the workplace. Some of the posts, like today’s, will be accredited, others will be anonymous – all have a powerful impact and help to shine a light on a topic that we need to talk about so much more than we currently do. Today’s post is by the very excellently named @HRTinker.
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After Alison’s blog last week this really got me thinking about mental health and how it affects me.
For the majority, we all have our own black dog that we keep and, for the most part, we manage to control and maintain. However, on occasion (at some point during each year for me) the dog becomes a lumbering force in my life. My depression, anxiety, stress, low mood, call it what you wish, flares up. The impact is not debilitating, but on a level it stops me functioning.
What it does do is impede my ability to have clarity of thought and strips every ounce of self-belief from my bones. I question every single action that I take. I don’t believe that anything I do is productive, worthwhile or right. I have nightmares and sweats, it’s horrible. But I get through it, it lasts for a period of time and then goes as I feel comfortable with whatever the issue is.
As I have gotten older, I have found the dips to be lower and the time it takes me to get out of these dips to take a wee bit longer each time. While I am lucid about all of the above, it doesn’t get away from the fact that I have a problem.
In truth, I don’t wish to go to the doctor as it will probably only confirm that I suffer from low mood and periodic periods of anxiety and stress. This doesn’t make me a strange or weird person, I’d say most of us have a mild mental health issue.
But there is a stigma with admitting this. This isn’t a problem, it’s just a piece of who you are, how you break down problems and how you react to certain stimulus.
This is the crux of the matter, because the ‘what’ that gets you to the point of depression is so personal; so is the way of getting out. I would never be able to tell you exactly how I control the dog but I do, each time is a different. In the desperation to help, many talk about counselling, therapy, pills but you need to be ready to address what it is that gets you there, before you can start talking about it.
For me, the way out is deep thought, it’s reflection and with a few select friends (generally with no association with the issue) I will open up. If you were to meet me in work or at a party you’d say I was loud and outgoing, I am. But I also have problems that I struggle to escape from. I don’t think I’m strange, I just think that at times I struggle. Don’t we all?
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If you care about mental health and want to make a difference there are lots of things you can do
- visit Mind’s website and check out their excellent corporate resources
- take the ‘time to change’ pledge
- attend our event with Mind on 5th February 2013 at 6pm
- share your story and read those of others as part of this blog series. If you would like to contribute, please get in touch with me on Twitter (@AlisonChisnell) or through the comments section of this blog
- do you want to join me in running the Royal Parks half marathon in October to raise money for Mind? Register here if so and let’s form an #HRforMentalHealth team (non HR people welcome too!)
The 25% Club: An Aftermath
Posted on: January 25, 2013
This post is part of the 25% club series dealing with the topic of mental health, particularly as it relates to the workplace. All of these posts are intended to shine a light on a topic that we need to talk about so much more than we currently do. This one is written by me.
Mind have asked me to provide a trigger warning for this post, as it discusses suicide. Please read it carefully. If you’re struggling, please read Mind’s information on coping with suicidal feelings or talk to the Samaritans, who are there to listen 24/7. Mind also has information on how to help someone who is suicidal.
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I don’t know whether this story fits within the 25% club series. I am not a member of the 25% club, nor even just one step removed, yet my life has been inexorably altered by one who was. And on today, of all days, I would really like to tell you his story.
Eleven years ago yesterday on a Thursday evening, I came home in the evening after a long and busy day at work and listened to an answer phone message from Mr C’s brother, Roger. It was an upbeat, cheerful message, thanking us for his Christmas present, talking about his new house and where he was going to put the mirror we gave him. I listened to the message, smiled, told Mr C when he came home and thought no more of it. We would phone him back at the weekend and have a chat.
Eleven years ago today on a Friday evening, I came home from work late and tired after a busy week at work. I cooked, ate, drank some wine, waited for Mr C to come home after he had run his scout group. He eventually did and we chatted and laughed and went to bed. Then, at nearly midnight the phone rang. Mr C – Dave – answered it. It was his Dad, telling Dave that his brother had died, had committed suicide. His Dad had driven to Roger’s house, fearing the worst when he had not shown up at work and he had found him.
Even now, I can’t articulate the shock, or incomprehension. We had only once been told by his parents that Roger had “been a bit down” and knew nothing of his depression or the demons he had been fighting. We scrambled back into our clothes, Dave telling me I could remain in the flat, me insisting on remaining with him. The dreadful, silent journey to his parent’s house. Ringing his Mum to tell her that Dave was on his way and the utter deadness of her voice. Watching Dave embrace his Mum and then driving off to my own parents’ house, waking them in the middle of the night and howling and sobbing my grief for what had happened, my anger at the choice that Roger had made and my sense of betrayal that we had known nothing of what was coming, the impact that I knew it would have on all our lives.
It wouldn’t be true to say that the weekend passed in a blur, as I remember much of it in all its dreadful technicolour. Seeing Dave’s parents for the first time since it happened, the grief and loss etched on their faces. Going to Roger’s best friend’s house and being there while Dave told him and his wife, us all crying together and drinking hot, sweet tea, trying and failing to find answers or reasons. Dave’s grief was mostly silent and heavy; he could only tolerate classical music, he wanted to try to maintain as much normality as possible, we still had friends over for dinner on the Saturday evening. Such very, very good friends who were willing to give Dave the normality that he craved and put their own feelings and shock to one side to be there for him. Dave managing to come to Sunday lunch with my family, but on the condition that no one asked him how he was, talked about what had happened or told them how sorry they were. So incomprehensibly difficult for an open and communicative family like mine, but they managed it, simply saying how very pleased they were to see him, us. Dave insisting on going to work on the Monday morning, when I couldn’t even consider going in. It wasn’t until someone asked him cheerfully if he had had a good weekend that he realised that he couldn’t bear it and came back home.
Two questions came up again and again in the dreadful telling of the news to people: how and why. We didn’t know the how for several days, as Dave’s parents wouldn’t or couldn’t tell us and Dave wouldn’t or couldn’t ask them. Finally my parents gently and compassionately asked and we finally learned that Roger had hanged himself. This was no cry for help; this was a cry for release, a deliberate choice. We also learned, over time, that he had made previous attempts at suicide and that he had suffered depression for many years, although had hidden it well. After his death we found some emails that Roger had sent to the Samaritans, describing with heartbreaking detail the depression that consumed him like cancer. The ‘why’ we will never really know the answer to: he wasn’t happy, he didn’t have a long-term girlfriend, he didn’t want to continue living, he seemed to genuinely think we would better off without him. But the silver bullet answer to ‘why?’ is one that is rarely, if ever, provided by someone who commits suicide. The only solace comes from accepting that you will never truly know.
And life goes on, of course it does. But it has also shifted and changed things irrevocably, relationships changed and altered, pressure points contracted and expanded. In the early days, months and years there were so many painful experiences for all of us, some of which inevitably spilled over into the work environment. A straightforward meeting with my boss to talk through my objectives six months after it had happened ended up with me in tears for no apparent reason…except that just keeping going and trying to keep everyone else going was painful and difficult. I struggled with my relationship with my mother-in-law and the pressure I felt under to somehow fill the gaping void in her life. I worried that Dave was often so absent from me, lost in his thoughts and grief that he couldn’t put words to. I had counselling on my own, we had counselling together and things started to get better again. But it took time, a lot of time. It was Christmas and Roger wasn’t there; we got married, he wasn’t there; we had our children, he wasn’t there, he isn’t there….that part of it never really stops and that is for me, who is at least one step removed from being the closest affected. I can only relate the story that is mine to tell: if my mother or father-in-law were to ever tell theirs, it would break your hearts and mine to read.
There is so much I haven’t told you about Roger. In the same way that people do not wish to be defined by their mental health conditions, he would hate to be defined in your minds by his death. He was thirty years old when he died and he was clever, thoughtful, kind and considerate. He was exceptionally well-read, intelligent, funny, hard-working, proud, stubborn, physically strong and fit. He had good friends, many of whom he had known most or all of his life, a good job and a loving family. He was interested in politics and history, patriotic, highly knowledgeable about many subjects and had a great sense of fun. He is greatly missed and will always be so.
If I leave you with any points, it is these: firstly, that depression remains deeply, dangerously hidden in some people, who walk and live amongst us. Unless we do more to talk about it, they will continue to feel alone and isolated. Suicide has such a stigma: we need to understand more about how to give people the tools to talk about it, to offer support, to not be frightened or to condemn what we don’t understand. Secondly, that the ripples from those in the 25% club extend far beyond their membership and that we have a duty of care to support the carers and others who are affected in the workplace and out of it.
This story is one aftermath of a suicide, the aftermath that is part of the fabric of my adult life and has been absorbed into it. If I knew the true story prior to the aftermath, I would have told that instead. But on the anniversary of my brother-in-law’s death, I wanted to honour his memory and give him retrospective membership of the 25% club. Rest in peace and know that you are loved.
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If you are affected personally by this issue or know someone who is, there are people and resources to help
- The Samaritans are there 24 hours a day, 365 days a year
- Mind has information on coping with suicidal feelings
- Mind also has information on how top help someone who is suicidal.
If you care about mental health and want to make a difference there are lots of things you can do
- visit Mind’s website and check out their excellent corporate resources
- take the ‘time to change’ pledge
- attend our event with Mind on 5th February 2013 at 6pm
- share your story and read those of others as part of this blog series. If you would like to contribute a post, please get in touch with my on Twitter (@AlisonChisnell) or via the comments section below.
The 25% Club: Coming Out
Posted on: January 24, 2013
This post is part of the 25% club series dealing with the topic of mental health, particularly as it relates to the workplace. Some of the posts, like today’s, will be accredited, others will be anonymous – all have a powerful impact and help to shine a light on a topic that we need to talk about so much more than we currently do. Today’s post is by David Marten, who you can find on Twitter @DavidMarten.
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When starting to write this blog, I wanted to say that it’s a topic of much discussion by people, but I stopped myself instantly after thinking that in reality, it isn’t something we talk much about at all. 1 in 4 of us at some point will have mental health issues, yet it is a subject still taboo in discussion.
I work in HR and have helped develop policy at previous companies to open up discussion on stress, for example; and I actively encourage employees to be honest and open if they are facing difficulties. But what has got me thinking recently is how difficult it is to do this in reality.
It’s all well and good me saying that people should be more open and honest but there is still so much stigma attached to this subject, both in the workplace as well as the outside world. So I am honestly not surprised at all that it’s not talked about.
So there are two things that I should really say now. Firstly, I am gay (I’ll come on to this later). Secondly, I have suffered from a mental health issue.
Just writing that down knowing that someone else will be reading that I have had issues with my mental health is a very difficult thing for me. The worry that I will be treated differently by people and especially my work colleagues has made me not ever want to mention it.
But with a recent series of blogs by my colleague Alison and people guest blogging via her site I thought it was about time to openly talk about my mental health issue, hoping that it may help someone get through what they are having to deal with.
I have called this blog coming out as it feels like I’m doing it again by talking about my mental health.
It all started at the previous company I worked at. Work had started to get busier and more colleagues were leaving my department which meant more pressure on me. I just kept thinking that if I could just get through the next few months at work it would get easier and better and so I carried on as normal.
Unknown to me at the time however, I started to get into a vicious circle where I became more stressed and so things got more on top of me which led to some mistakes, which meant more work and more stress. And so the cycle continued with no end in sight.
At the same time my home life was starting to deteriorate. I would leave work panicking about how much there needed to be done and therefore couldn’t relax, couldn’t sleep and then started to dread going to work. I would say sorry for anything that was happening around me, would say I was useless at everything, and would think for no real reason that my boss thought I was useless.
Then one day I broke out into tears at work. I can’t rememberwhy but I have to say, I’ve never done that before. At this point I knew there was something wrong.
But I didn’t know what.
I was terrified of speaking to my boss about my workload – my instinct due to my illness was that he would thing I was terrible at my job and he could cope so why couldn’t I?
So I said nothing.
Then things got worse and I stated to get physically ill with heart palpitations and other not nice things.
I eventually went to see my GP and after speaking to him about my physical symptoms and what else had been going on he said that I was suffering from stress and depression.
These few words were like a weight hitting me. Me? Depressed? Huh? What?
We talked a lot about what I had been going through and then about options, and with his help we came to the decision that I needed to have time off work.
I left the doctor’s surgery and again burst into tears. This time it was a raw emotional outburst. For the first time in months I felt some relief.
For a long time before this I had been walking around in a daze – pain and panic running though me, thinking it could never get better. I was stuck like this and there was nothing that could be done about it.
Thankfully I was wrong.
I was signed off work and started to go to counselling. Medication was discussed but at the time I felt it wasn’t right for me.
Having time off work was what I needed but the counselling helped me so much. I also have an amazing partner who was there to support me throughout all of this.
The counselling allowed me to explore why I was like this and most importantly what I could do to make me well again.
A book I read described how if you broke your leg you would need to see a doctor, need to take rest and maybe have medication, and to receive support from the people around you. A mental health problem is no different to that.
I mentioned earlier that I was gay. I didn’t do this to come out to the world. Friends, family and work colleagues know this about me (well, if they don’t they do now!) but I wanted to try to convey how difficult it is to ‘come out’ as being gay and compare this to the feeling of coming out about mental illness.
Reading through one of the guest blogs from Alison’s’ website (entitled ‘an invitation’) the author says “I don’t want this to be the only thing that you know of me or associate me with, because I’m so much more than that.”
I have had my own personal experience in this and can wholeheartedly agree with this view-point. When I let people know I am gay (it’s not always obvious to everyone) I have that feeling in me believing the same thing – that I don’t want this to be the only thing people associate about me.
I guess it’s difficult for people not to do it though; especially if they have had no experience or any dealings with gay people. And so it is with people who have not dealt with mental health issues.
This is another reason why I feel mental health issues are a topic that the world needs to talk about – so that it becomes something that is the new normal; where people can speak out and not feel terrified about what others will think and how they will treat them going forward.
To be open and honest about one’s mental health is one of the hardest things we could ever do. Until we start doing this and be more open, how can others who are suffering find their way through the dark times they are facing, to some sort of light and help that they so desperately need?
My story is one of millions out there, but I hope that it will help someone find the courage to realise that they are not alone in the world. That there are others like them and there are things they can do to help themselves.
Talk to someone. It can change your life.
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If you care about mental health and want to make a difference there are lots of things you can do
- visit Mind’s website and check out their excellent corporate resources
- take the ‘time to change’ pledge
- attend our event with Mind on 5th February 2013 at 6pm
- share your story and read those of others as part of this blog series. If you would like to contribute, please get in touch with me on Twitter (@AlisonChisnell) or through the comments section of this blog
- In: 25percentclub | Business | HR | HR for Mental Health | Mental health
- 3 Comments
This post is part of the 25% club series dealing with the topic of mental health, particularly as it relates to the workplace. Some of the posts, like today’s, will be accredited, others will be anonymous – all have a powerful impact and help to shine a light on a topic that we need to talk about so much more than we currently do. Today’s post is by Graham Frost, who you can find over on his blog or on Twitter @grafrost.
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In the early 1990’s I was in my mid-thirties, in an unhappy marriage that I couldn’t see my way out of, working five or six 12-14 hour shifts a week on the railway. People who knew me at that time tell me that they feared for my sanity. I was on a treadmill of my own making, and couldn’t see a way of stopping it.
My wife worked for the railway too, we had met while working together, and she had been taking a lot of time off sick because of the stress and depression caused by her very unhappy life. I had married her because I thought I could make her happy, yet all I had managed to do was to make myself unhappier. I used to seek the company of other unhappily married men, so that we could bemoan our lot in life together.
One day, my wife told me that her manager had suggested that she might go for some counselling, to help her on the road back to work. I was happy to hear that she might be taking a step forward, and supported her in anything that might help her to deal with her troubled past. I did notice a difference in her after the first counselling appointment; she said that it had been such a release, being able to talk to someone completely non-judgemental about what was going on in her life.
After the second or third appointment, my wife came home and said that she thought it might be a good idea if I went and saw the counsellor too. I didn’t really think there was any reason for me to go, but I was at a point where I would do almost anything to try to make our relationship work, so I agreed to look into the idea.
In order to make this work, I had to go and see my manager, and persuade him that I needed counselling. I didn’t think I could pay for it myself, and, as far as I knew, it wasn’t available on the NHS, so what other option did I have? I knew my manager well, he was a decent man. When I told him that I also wanted to go for counselling, he looked at me in amazement.
‘But there’s nothing wrong with you, Graham, you’re a model employee, you’re always here, you’re one of the most reliable, hard-working people we have!’
Eventually, I managed to persuade him to arrange some counselling sessions, paid for by the company, on condition that I ‘didn’t tell anyone’. He made the arrangements with ‘Personnel’, as H.R. was called then, and I attended my first counselling session a week or so later. It was the first time I had talked to anyone about everything that had ever happened in my life. All the stuff about being brought up in a fundamentalist Christian cult, leaving home at 17, my brief life of crime, Borstal and my cancer story came out over the first few appointments. My weekly counselling hour became my ‘me time’, something I had not experienced for a long time. My counsellor was marvellous – she was convinced that I had been suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder for years.
I see that period in my life as the start of the second phase of my life, when I realised that I could do anything that I set my heart on doing. I did escape from the unhappy marriage, I did put together and work with the best customer service team that I possibly could, and I did go on to have a second career in Learning and Development, all because someone helped me to sort my mind out.
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If you care about mental health and want to make a difference there are lots of things you can do
- visit Mind’s website and check out their excellent corporate resources
- take the ‘time to change’ pledge
- attend our event with Mind on 5th February 2013 at 6pm
- share your story and read those of others as part of this blog series. If you would like to contribute, please contact me via Twitter (@AlisonChisnell) or through the comments section on this blog
The HR Juggler 
