Everyone Matters and Deserves Dignity: Inclusion Week and World Mental Health Day 2015

I have just finished (as of four minutes ago as I’m typing this at 17:34 on Friday) InclusionWeek in the UK for @KPMGUK. I have to say I am rather shattered. But also absolutely elated. And tomorrow is World Mental Health Day 2015, with this year’s focus on #Dignity. I will be running the ParkRun (@BushyParkRun) and writing the run report with a focus on the stories of people who run either for their mental health or for other causes. I’ll repost it here when I finish it.

So, to reflect on the week, what a week it has been. On Monday I launched my campaign #RedefiningResilience: https://www.facebook.com/RedefiningResilience to share my story with the groups of people I know may be able to identify with what I’ve experienced. I want to help people to realise that if they are still going then they are resilient. You can read more about this on my page and in this post.

http://haslaptopwilltravel.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/redefining-resilience-launching-my.html

I also participated in three of the many events I’m proud to say that the fabulous Diversity and Inclusion team at KPMG organised with support from all of our networks.

I spoke on a panel on Monday evening for #LeanInCircles, answering the question, “What would you do if you weren’t afraid?” with my experience of deciding to take the step (or leap) to be completely open and honest about my mental health at work. I was really proud to see how many colleagues then shared some of their own experiences with mental health within their groups – as I said at the time, the more that we talk about this, the more that we keep the conversation going, the more we will enable our colleagues to be better through that comfort to be honest, and feel supported and comfortable to get help if they want / need it.

Lean In Circles

On Tuesday morning I was back in at 8am on another panel for our Mental Health 101 panel discussion, where 160 colleagues attended to hear about “Everything you wanted to know about mental health but were afraid to ask”. The turnout was amazing and the questions and engagement from the audience was inspiring to me. I was joined on the panel by partners with lived experience of mental illness, our occupational health chief medical officer and the head of employee wellbeing. I tried to speak honestly about my experiences, highlighting that everyone deserves respect and support, that everyone should be supported if they choose to share, and that everyone has mental health and we all need to take care of ourselves.

I finished my contribution (in person) by sharing a stand with many other colleagues from our work’s network to talk about our internal #BeMindful network and the support that KPMG offers and advice on how to look after yourself mentally at work. All in all, a tremendously enriching and inspiring experience for me – to see my colleagues talking about mental health, many for the first time – and finding common ground where before they might have anticipated isolation and stigma.

As I said in my Monday post about #redefiningresilience, living and surviving with a mental illness does not always mean that you get better and ‘bounce back’. “I do not bounce,” I told Tuesday’s audience. “But I come back.” Slowly. So slowly, and it may take time, setbacks, tears, frustration, cake, pills and more. But I come back.

This week has also been a week of celebration. I met fellow shortlisted candidate @Jackie8 (Jackie Scully) for an inspiring chat on Tuesday night where we shared our various experiences of resilience. I am hoping Jackie will share her story of resilience (facing massively intrusive hip surgery, then breast cancer while being creative director of Think) soon on my #RedefiningResilience page.

On Wednesday night I attended the #Brummell30 @BrummellMag reception for those women who - like me - have been listed on their list of 30 most inspirational women in the city championing diversity. I was honoured to be in the company of such amazing women. 

Read the full Fundamental Facts Document

I’ve written a post on #Dignity for @MH_Voices as well https://mentalhealthvoices.wordpress.com/. (I'll post the link when it's up.) In it I explored the perspective of mental health from a professional employee’s point of view. I ended by stating what I believe we should expect our employees to never take away our dignity and always treat us with respect.

I like to think the best of all people – but I expect from everyone respect in the workplace, no matter your skin colour, (hair colour in my case!), religion, sexuality, disabilities or life circumstances. Dignity is defined as “The state or quality of being worthy of honour or respect”. In reference to our individual right to dignity, I like this example: To “stand on one's dignity” meaning to Insist on being treated with due respect. (references from OxfordDictionaries.com)

The Mental Health Foundation writes of the theme of ‘Dignity’ for this year’s World Mental Health Day (10th October 2015) “…An ill-informed and damaging attitude among some people exists around mental health that can make it difficult for some to seek help. It is estimated that only about a quarter of people with a mental health problem in the UK receive ongoing treatment, leaving the majority of people grappling with mental health issues on their own, seeking help or information, and dependent on the informal support of family, friends or colleagues.”

So, just in case anyone reading this would like to know what I expect from others in relation to mental health, it’s this: At the end of the day, as my colleague Greg is often reminding me when I'm resourcing our next project, resources or employees are still, actually and most importantly, people, and they deserve respect, support and never to feel undignified because they share at work that they have an illness or life challenge. In fact they should be applauded for their courage and given the support that they need.

1)      Ask people how they are, and actually mean it. “How are things?” “How have things been with you?” And if it means taking three ‘how are you?’ cycles to get to the point where the person can actually answer honestly, then three it is. Or four. Or five. And so on.

2)      When they tell you how they are, show them respect and support (whatever they say – this isn’t just about mental health). “I’m sorry to hear that.” “What can I do to help?” “I’m here for you.”

3)      If they don’t want to talk about their mental health in detail – even at all - that is okay – it is up to everyone whether they share personal information about themselves, but tell them, again, “I’m here for you.” “Let me know at any time if I can do something.” “I’m not going anywhere.” (It might be worth saying that – at work – you will get more support officially and this may mean you can adjust your work situation to accommodate your needs better when / if you’re well enough to be working.)

4)      If they talk to you about it, say thank you. “Thank you so much for sharing that with me. I imagine it might have been difficult for you, but I really appreciate you coming to me with this. I hope that I/we can help you.”

5)      If you feel you can, and you have experience of mental health – whether yourself or someone you know – share that. “You are not alone in this.” “I actually have depression myself, so I hopefully can understand something of what you’re going through.”

6)      Keep the conversation going. “How can we support you?” “What can I do that will help with this?” You sincerity and the fact that you are prepared to have a serious conversation about this will hopefully show your colleague or employee that you are in their corner.

And then – if this is my experience - I expect to get support as a follow up (occupational health referral, adjusted flexible working, time off, or whatever I need within reason). I expect to be treated with the same respect as everyone else in my company, whether I have a broken back or a broken spirit. I expect people to respect me because I am a professional, competent person and I am worthy of respect – whatever external circumstances I’m also handling. I respect other people in the same way. I expect openness and honesty rather than whispering about employees behind their back which will make them feel like they should be ashamed of what they’re going through. 

And finally – and this will come, and only now from the most exceptionally inclusive people – I expect praise for those people who have taken a deep breath and spoken up about their illness. People should stand on their dignity. Everyone matters. Everyone deserves respect and to dignity. So let’s make sure that happens.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T Let's Talk About Mental Health - Comfortably

I cannot believe it has only been five days since I wrote my manic Monday post. I am feeling distinctly odd after three consecutive nights of very little sleep at all, trouble even with getting to sleep, as well as my old favourite - trouble staying asleep - which is my biggest problem.

I expect attending the judging panel for @womenoffuture (Women of the Future awards) this morning did not induce additional drowsiness! I was so excited to have the opportunity to talk about mental health and the need to end the stigma around this widely experienced and more widely misunderstood category of illnesses. I also felt tremendously grateful to be in a position to speak about it: mental health for me is one of our most critical health issues in this country and globally.

It continues to become more and more apparent that mental illness does not discriminate. Speaking today to the judges I remarked upon this. There is not one group of people I can think of - whether we think about gender, age, ethnicity, sexual orientation, nationality, lifestyle, or life, in fact - where mental illness is not present. We may have 1 in 4 people with a mental illness in the UK, but that means that so very many more people are affected by their connections to those 1 in 4. Let's think of the mothers and fathers, the wives and husbands, the children, friends, work colleagues, medical professionals and strangers who are interacting every day with those 1 in 4. We are living in a world of tremendous pressure and challenge. I would be very surprised if many people at all were completely free of connection to someone with a mental illness (themselves or others).

The paradox is that while mental illness is everywhere, silence about it is also everywhere more often than not. We still do not talk about mental health comfortably. I try to, with my known background in this area serving as an "easy chair" to slide into for this discussion, but others who are speaking of their illnesses or struggles for the first time cannot gauge the reaction of others as there are so few precedents; cannot guarantee that when they take that huge step, that leap, risking so much, while so ill, to be honest about a part of them that is unwell and needs support, that they will get that support. They might not even receive acknowledgement, let alone respect and help.

The judges asked me what I would do if I won - what I thought needed to happen - to improve things. For me, it isn't about providing support mechanisms in the work place or better NHS care (although both of these things are absolutely critical and the latter is in dire need of help, with so many people excluded from care as they do not qualify for treatment based on basic statistics. For example, did you know that if you had an eating disorder and presented with a BMI of 17.1 (i.e. .9 points below the lowest 'healthy' weight for a height of about 5'5") that you would be turned away from A&E (the ER) and asked to return when your BMI had dropped further. You would not be deemed sick enough to receive care. "Please lose more weight." = "Please get sicker, and then maybe we can help you.") 

This is what I said needed to happen, and what my focus for the next three years will be: "We need to make it normal for people to talk about their mental health." 

Why did I say this? 

Imagine if you had a very unpleasant spot on your face. You can use concealer to hide it, sure, but at the end of the day, you're very aware of a throbbing, red, sore, mass on your face that you know you'd far rather would disappear, and you're pretty sure everyone has noticed. But if you tell people about it, you're more likely to get empathy and shared stories (and recommendations of nuclear strength Clearasil), as well as perhaps the odd puerile cry of "That's gross" than have people fall silent, look down, say "Oh," and nothing more. Say nothing. Walk away.

Imagine if you could walk into the office, and on the second (or third) round of 'How are you?'s (because we know that the first is a saying hello, and the second might be a reflex action from the first) that you could say, "I'm feeling quite anxious today, so I didn't sleep that well" or "I'm feeling quite unwell mentally. I think I need to take it a bit easy today to try to prevent things getting worse." The latter statement makes perfect sense to me: you're not feeling well, and you've got to work / go to school / attend your child's school play / go and run errands. Therefore you see how you can reduce your 'to-do' list for the day so that hopefully those sniffles or early symptoms don't turn into flu (or, worse, man flu. Hor.ror.). And so your sick feeling isn't exacerbated by excessive travel. 

Why is it, then, that we so rarely hear people say anything about their mental health? Why is 'presenteeism' (which is where people show up to work with a mental illness (or any other kind of illness) but pretend that they're fine when really they are not and probably shouldn't be at work) so prevalent in our world? Why do you so rarely hear people say that they are off sick "because of depression", rather than because of a cold, flu (man flu!), food poisoning, tonsilitis, etc? 

I think the answer is, because hardly anyone says that. Still.

People don't say "I'm feeling depressed today" / "I'm feeling manic today and can't concentrate" / "I need to sleep today because my anxiety kept me up all night". People don't say it, so people aren't used to hearing it spoken of. And so people assume they can't say it themselves. They assume it's not an acceptable statement to make, and not a "good enough" reason to be absent from work.

We do - desperately- need to help people get the support that they need, but if they can't talk about it in the first place the likely outcome is that they won't seek help. They won't feel it's important/ a valid illness. And before that, they will not feel they can even mention it. 

We know that men struggle more than women to even voice struggles with stress, anxiety, depression and so on. And not talking about this can be - literally - deadly. The number one cause of death among men aged 20-34 is suicide. And this could so often have been prevented by better comfort levels for saying: "I feel very anxious." "I need help." "I am not okay." 

Gender / other factors aside, the bottom line is that people really feel they cannot talk about their struggles with mental health (even with stress). They feel ashamed, weak, less than. Like they mean nothing. 

This is so wrong. We all matter and we all deserve respect, courtesy, kindness and care - for ourselves and others. If we could change this situation and make talking about our mental health as easy as discussing a nasty spot or, say, a broken arm, shingles, or flu, this would mean that our serious and debilitating illnesses would not be worsened by the massive shame we would associate with having them. I personally have berated myself, hated myself, shamed myself and been disgusted with myself for being ill with depression. Why? Why is my illness so shameful? 

It isn't.

If I had not been so ashamed I firmly believe I would never have become so ill. I know that because being honest with my team is the same as making me feel instantly lighter. I haven't had to pretend I'm fine when I'm not, which in the past twenty years at school, university, in my jobs to date, I have done, and which has made me feel more ill: not just sick, but sickened by myself, by my sickness.

So that is where I would start. With more conversations until mental health conversations are "normal". Until people feel they can say, "Today I'm depressed." "Today I'm anxious." "I need help please." "I need to take a day or two off." And I can't wait to get that conversation going again any chance I get, and definitely at the Women of the Future summit in October. In the meantime, let's talk about mental illness and mental health. We all have mental health. Let's make it easier to make time to talk about it. Please help by starting your own conversations.