Surviving at Work

Set Up for Success

I got my first job when I was 15 – a hostess at Plush Pippin, a diner built around its pies. Other than the giant pie case next to the cash register, I was the first thing that people saw when they entered the restaurant: 5’4”, 110 pounds; wrapped in a green, stiff polyester a-line skirt and red apron with an apple stitched at the top; teeth gleaming between my upturned lips and recently freed from the metal cage that lined them up neatly over the prior 18 months; light make-up on my pale skin because that was wholesome-not-whorish, as my stepmom liked to say; likely a few pimples desperately caked with cheap cover-up. My demeanor was polite and generally unassuming, such a nice girl. I had a strong handshake to emulate confidence instead of my truer state of shyness and anxiety. I had already learned to “fake it ‘til you make it”. Customers did not shake my hand, of course, but the manager that interviewed me did. Cute (white) girl, clean and tidy, with good grades and a confident handshake…plus a close friend who was already a stellar employee there had recommended me – why wouldn’t they hire me?

I got every job I applied for over the next 15 or so years, and I usually got promoted if I stuck around and there was a promotion to be had. The jobs were mostly waiting tables with a retail job, a temp job at a university medical center, and a brief stint as a nursing assistant mixed in until I got my BA. Lots of volunteer work mixed in too: helped organize a blood drive, mentored a girl living at the Child Study and Treatment Center (youth wing of the state mental hospital…last stop for troubled kids, it was considered), interned at a community organization that provided advocacy and shelter services for domestic violence survivors. Then a county prosecuting attorney’s office hired me as a domestic violence victim advocate and promoted me two times in five years, then I went to grad school and landed an internship at a public policy-oriented organization and was hired on full time, and then I was recruited by a state agency that was a regular opponent of mine on legislative proposals, and I finally accepted their third offer. My boss in that last job in the series was the intergovernmental relations director, and he was working toward the top agency position and was grooming me to take his job once he was successful in that.

Born with and propelled by privilege, plus a dash of drive and big brains, I seemed to have found my safe place in work.

Fitting In

My personal relationships were volatile at best, including my relationship with myself, as evidenced by my suicide attempt at 19. I got comfortable in my emotional armor after that – relatively, anyway. I grew accustomed to it. It served me, helped me to feel impervious as I strived to create a better world, one with less suffering.

I understood that the personal and the professional were not to be mixed, and that worked for me for a while because I carried so much shame about everything “personal”. That sterile, inhuman workplace expectation suited me in that way, though the consistent messages that I as I was was not acceptable leached into my blood and caused me to pack all those feelings into a dark cave where I would retreat as the wounds from childhood trauma festered and new wounds were created.

I love how Brené Brown talks about “fitting in” as the opposite of belonging. The basic idea is this: if you can’t be yourself in a group and be considered part of the group, you don’t belong. My experience has shown me that most workplaces emphasize fitting in more than belonging, especially when it comes to mental and emotional health.

I noticed it most clearly in my first public policy job. Whenever a new position opened up, my boss emphasized needing to find someone who “fit” the organization, and I felt that sentiment in everything. I remember my boss advising me to dress in clothes that weren’t noteworthy or memorable – blend in, he said, try not to be noticed. I pushed back on some of these pressures, like how I dressed, but there were some ways of fitting in that felt imperative: hide the fact that I smoked cigarettes (part of how I managed my anxiety), make excuses to not join yoga sessions or social gatherings with colleagues because I needed to be alone, don’t ever let it be known that I had personal experience with some of the public policy issues that I worked on, avoid people as much as possible when I felt triggered.

Even though those were the happiest years of my life (because I got to watch my daughter become who she was), I struggled with anxiety and depression related to my childhood and young adult traumas, and trying (and failing) to fit in wore on me. I felt like I was going to need to move on to new jobs, new friends, new community every few years because that’s when people seemed to be able to see how troubled I was and didn’t want me around anymore. I “sucked up” as much as I could in the meantime.

Then came the accident

My 11-year-old daughter died. I couldn’t save her. My screams echoed in my head whether awake or temporarily asleep. If I closed my eyes, images of her still body floating down the river, her face streaked with blood from my tooth-split lips as tried to resuscitate her in the metal rescue boat. Lurching stomach and dashes to the bathroom as the horrifying reality that she was gone, that doctors made me make it official, punched me over and over from the inside.

My employer and co-workers were amazing in that next year, giving me bereavement leave and emotional support and calibrating their expectations of me. Access to good health insurance and extra funds and time allowed me to get EMDR treatment, helping me to dull the PTSD symptoms in that first year. People checked in but didn’t over-coddle me.

People and tools are more readily available to help with the immediate, the acute trauma – not so much beyond that. Over the next several years then, a move to another state, a new venture into consulting work which would take up a great deal of time and attention, new friends, intense sexuality, and booze and other drugs (prescribed and not) helped to pass the days over the next several years. All those things numbed me, helped me to not feel what was real, what I couldn’t handle. What others saw in me during that time they called strength, and they lauded me for it. They didn’t realize I wished for death every day, and if death wouldn’t come, I wished that someone, anyone would at least give me permission…space…time…to not have to be so “strong”.

Flash forward to sobriety

I think of my own experience in early sobriety every time I work with communities on planning to address homelessness because someone always wants to force people into sobriety or to get them there more quickly. I was dating someone during my descent into alcoholism. He was so worried about me, rightly so, but I said, “Please don’t worry. I just need to fall down for a while. I’ll get up. I always get up. I promise.”

The worrying should’ve come after I stopped drinking. Alcohol was a crutch that helped me manage the major depression, panic disorder, and PTSD that set in after the accident – not to mention the extreme grief that had set in…about my entire life, left me feeling an overwhelming sense of hopelessness. Alcohol had kept me alive in the wake of the accident – I really believe that. Being sober, on the other hand, was like being a diabetic without insulin, yet I was still expected to work hard every day, to produce, to be thoughtful and kind, to collaborate effectively, to manage my own shit so I could be there for others…or go away and fix it, then come back (with what resources, I’m not sure).

I was experiencing the loss of my daughter and PTSD from the accident as if it had just happened, no one in my personal life seemed to have patience for me anymore, and I still had no clue how to be there for myself. How was I supposed to work in all that? If I didn’t work and achieve as much as I used to, how was I supposed to face myself? If I couldn’t succeed in my work, what good was I? It was the only remaining value I could see in me – the only one I thought I could be proud of, anyway.

Do I have to sacrifice my dreams in order to take care of my mental health? Do I have to compromise on what I offer the world through my work because of my mental illness?

I think of a dear friend of mine who lives with Bipolar I Disorder. It is a severe mental illness that prevents her from having the career she imagined for herself when she was in college, that she was succeeding in until her first manic episode that turned her life upside down. Her primary income is her disability check, though she recently just started to teach violin lessons again. That is the most work that she is likely to do for the rest of her life. Otherwise, she risks another severe manic break.

My greatest dream for myself at this point in my life is that I could make a decent living as a writer; writing is my first love. In the meantime though, I am educated and experienced in engaged public policy development, and I can earn a comfortable income if I don’t lose my shit while I’m at it. I know what I need in order to do my work well:

• work less than 40 hours on a regular but not rigid schedule,

• have supportive colleagues that know what I am struggling with and that respect my boundaries and give me space when I need it while also treating me like a whole human not a broken one,

• ability to adjust deadlines within a reasonable time period to allow me to attend to depression or anxiety/PTSD when it emerges,

• have room to think and process things,

• have plenty of time and space to breathe and be quiet, and

• earn enough money to be able to pay for health/mental health services and all my other bills and to allow for some travel to connect in person with close friends and family every once in a while.

Luckily, I work in a field that allows me to do my work as a consultant. Like waiting tables when I was going to school, I can make more money in fewer hours than in other jobs that I am qualified to do, and I don’t have to worry about needing more days/hours on leave than is allowable. I have the freedom to take a walk when I need it, to build in regular meditation practice, to take a day when needed to cry and another to rebuild myself without feeling like a spectacle. When I have the balance right, I am relaxed, optimistic, creative, compassionate, effective. I can be an incredible asset for the clients and communities I serve and as a collaborator with my colleagues.

If I am able to find the balance I need to add my own brilliance to the world, does that mean that others will be able to as well?

I know that I am lucky. I am guessing that most people in situations like mine do not have the luxury of work options that can meet both personal and income needs like I do. I wonder if those who cannot work even as much as I can have a talent like my friend with Bipolar I Disorder who can earn a little extra money doing something she loves. I recognize that we may not be able to work within the same conditions that others can, but it would be a better world if there were more options for all of us. There would be more productivity when we are working, more productivity in the workforce generally, less homelessness and other strains on our public systems, more happiness and kindness, possibly less selfishness and cruelty, possibly less trauma inflicted on our children.

How can employers make room for people to manage their mental illness?

I recognize that the Americans with Disabilities Act provides some room for people who are struggling with short- and long-term mental health challenges. This article from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission offers some guidance on our rights at work, but I have to say that I got dizzy from rising anxiety as I read it and imagined what it would take for me to advocate for myself in these ways. I couldn’t shake the thought of the crushing blows that would land on my psyche if I asked some of my prior employers for accommodations, knowing that one or more of these consequences would come: my job would be at risk, promotions would no longer be available to me, rumors would circulate, and/or I would generally be treated as a problem to be dealt with, making daily life at work untenable.

I wonder if there are other possibilities for transformation at a societal/cultural level that could emerge, putting less strain on the person who is already suffering and making the ADA and other such regulations less necessary as a lever to balance worker and employer needs.

• Could expectations for the pace of production ease up?

• Could we build in expectations for imperfection, allowing more time to iterate and evolve – and to pause or take breaks when needed in the interest of greater quality when complete?

• Could we stop rewarding excessive work…stop making “above and beyond” an honorable thing?

• Could profit margins and/or earnings for executives be capped to curb the relentless drive for “more” and “faster”?

• Could helping a colleague be rewarded?

• Could some work be more objective-oriented, providing flexible work schedules and livable wages and other supports to help reach those objectives?

• Could employers be honored and rewarded for creating work conditions that strengthen quality of life for everyone?

• Could we rethink the role of work in our lives and society generally?

• What if individuals didn’t have to pay for food, housing, or healthcare, and we could all do less work for pay and more work for joy and fulfillment?

The mental health challenges that many of us are struggling with have been created or exacerbated by our capitalistic culture and unforgiving systems. I suggest it’s time for policy makers to explore the possibility of fixing those things rather than attempting to control or fix those of us who are already doing what we need to do to survive.