An interesting retweet popped up in my timeline this morning (I’m there as @gregeverything by the way!):
I’ve talked here before about the difference between physical ailments and mental ailments from my own experience (here). In an ideal world, we’d be treated just the same whether we were suffering with a broken arm or depression.
My involvement with Mind and Time to Change meant that we visited workplaces and talked to staff about mental health, with the aim of dispelling harmful myths about it. One thing that really stood out to me was how, in general, unprepared and scared managers felt about the prospect of a disclosure or managing someone who had been signed off for a mental health issue. We also encountered managers with damaging stigma too about people they considered were taking advantage of the system.
Coming back to the Tweet, the gentleman says that his colleagues sent flowers when he had appendicitis but when he was signed off with depression, nothing. I wonder if his colleagues know about his depression? If they do, then yeah his colleagues are showing a distinct lack of empathy and a whole lot of stigma around mental health.
I have been fortunate that I have not needed to be signed off from work – actually at my worst, work was a place I felt safe and had a sense of routine. However, had I been off, I’m not sure I’d have wanted my colleagues to know why. I have learned to disclose my problems a lot more, but I only do that when appropriate and/or to people I trust. Not all colleagues fit into that category for me. There’s probably a little residual stigma of my own in there too, not wanting people to know my business, pry or think differently of me because of my illness.
And this way of thinking must put managers in a difficult position. I’m not sure what the legal/HR position is on how much a manager can/should disclose to the rest of the team about why a person is signed off work. All the rest of the team know is that they are having to work harder as a result. It can create a toxic environment. Some managers I have known have disclosed physical injuries to us ‘oh Steve broke his arm over the weekend, the idiot, he won’t be in for a few days’. We all had a wry laugh at his expense and got on with it.
A final thought is that despite the strides we have made, sometimes people don’t have the words when it comes to mental health. Maybe this guy’s colleagues feel embarrassed by not knowing what to do or say. Maybe it’s so far out of their understanding they are paralysed. Lots of possibilities, I suppose.
Some tips on having conversations on mental health are provided on the excellent Time to Change website.
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