What My Mental Health Struggles Taught Me About Authenticity at Work
Being authentic about your personal struggles at work creates more resilient people and teams
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In many ways, the past 12 months of my life have been pretty wonderful. I received a hard-earned promotion at work. I had opportunities to work on high impact, high visibility projects. I successfully launched a freelance writing career. I started meeting with a career coach and made huge professional development strides. It has been a good year for my career.
That being said, in many ways this year has been… difficult.
It’s been difficult for a myriad of personal reasons. I faced losses that I was ill-equipped to deal with, followed by a series of very difficult personal experiences that left me feeling profoundly sad and isolated. As 2019 progressed, I could feel my mental health lagging.
Over the past year, I’ve spent most nights crying and most days ignoring the pit in my stomach. It felt like I was stuck in a hole. A hole that left me feeling alone and sad and scared. More than anything, I was terrified of pulling somebody else into that hole with me. I was terrified of alienating my friends or family or coworkers by bringing up how hard life had become.
I was so determined to be ok — and to prove to everyone that I was ok — that I was unable to recognize the danger I was in. I was incapable of asking for help or even understanding what help might look like for me. I became very good at automatically saying, “I’m doing great”. After all, I wanted to be doing great. Maybe if I said it often enough it would be true.
In the back of my mind, I knew something was going wrong, but I did not know how to articulate what I was feeling. I did not have the vocabulary to ask for what I needed. I had faced adversity in the past so I thought I’d just rise to this occasion. I’d be strong. I’d push myself through with sheer willpower. Still, each day was getting harder. I was mentally exhausted. I needed to get help.
Instead, I tried to kill myself.
I woke up in the hospital. I spent the next several days physically healing and mentally unraveling what had happened to me. I worked with a team of mental healthcare workers who showed me the compassion I was unable to show myself. We came up with a detailed plan — a failsafe to keep me alive when my brain no longer wanted me to be. Then I was discharged.
Coming out of the hospital was both wonderful and terrifying. Just a few days had passed, but a lot had happened. The strangest part of the whole experience was returning to work. I was back to my normal routine as if nothing life-changing had occurred. No one knew what had happened.
I did not under any circumstances plan to inform my coworkers, manager, or team about my hospitalization. I didn’t want to appear weak, or needy, or worse unstable. There was nothing I feared more than being labeled “crazy”.
So I kept it to myself.
I still struggled a lot. I cried a lot. I worked closely with my therapist to better manage my emotions. I still felt broken most days. It was very hard to be present in life, to think about work, to focus on my responsibilities.
I felt very isolated.
I came to realize this isolation was a byproduct of inauthenticity. By hiding this Big Thing™ that was actively consuming much of my thought-life, I was hiding a huge part of myself. I was compartmentalizing in a way that was stressful and unhealthy. I was not giving my team the chance to support me professionally so that I could take care of myself personally. If I had been hospitalized for a physical illness I wouldn’t have thought to hide it. Yet here I was.
I was torn between wanting to be a more authentic leader and not wanting to lose credibility. I knew all the supposed benefits of an authentic workplace, but I had to weigh very real risks. There are “fails” that are safe to share at work, they help you appear more human without requiring any actual risk. It’s one thing to share about a failed idea or a misguided decision. It was another thing to share this. This big, humiliating thing that I feared made me appear unfit for leadership.
Yet, I knew that this could be an opportunity to connect with those around me in a very real way. If I could find a way to talk about my experience, I would be giving others tacit permission to be open about their difficult experiences. We all have our Big Things™. Things we’re ashamed of, things we’re afraid of, things we find painful. Maybe I could help someone feel less isolated by talking about my Big Thing™. Maybe we could develop more resilient people by creating a more authentic team, instead of just paying lip-service to authenticity.
Despite my fears, I began to thoughtfully and matter-of-factly tell people. I’d simply say, “I was hospitalized recently because of my mental health.” Some of those statements turned into deeper conversations. Regardless, it became an opportunity to convey that 1. I’m struggling, 2. I don’t need you to do anything about it, but 3. I want you to actually see me and see that I don’t have it all together right now. I wanted my coworkers to know that they didn’t need to have it all together either.
This journey has not been pretty, but it has taught me lessons in authenticity and resiliency. I’ve learned a lot about myself. Here are some of the lessons I learned from the hardest year of my life:
There is power in vulnerability
You do not need to tell everyone everything. You should not, in fact, tell everyone everything. However, there is power in telling some people, some things. By being vulnerable you build little interpersonal bridges that foster empathy, reduce stigma, and relieve feelings of isolation.
Thoughtful vulnerability empowers those around you. It creates a space where your team can say “I’m having a terrible day,” or “My anxiety is making life tough right now,” or “I need to take some personal time”. That level of vulnerability makes people, teams, and organizations stronger.
Your thoughts and feelings are valid but they are not always a reflection of reality
In the aftermath of my hospitalization, I felt deep shame. I felt embarrassed and selfish. I felt like a bad daughter, a bad sister, and a bad friend. I was afraid I had let everyone down. The truth? I hadn’t and I wasn’t.
Feeling something, even feeling something very strongly, does not make it true.
I’ve learned to categorize my thoughts and feelings as either helpful or unhelpful. “Bad” feelings are not always unhelpful, just as “good” feelings are not always helpful. Instead, I look to see how my thoughts and feelings are serving me. Are they driving me to be better or drowning me in self-loathing?
Unhelpful feelings are valid, but they don’t need to be dwelled upon. Understanding that concept has given me greater resiliency in the face of disappointment. I’m able to contextualize unhelpful thoughts, counter them with objective truths, reframe the narrative, then move on.
Success is not always linear and failure is not all-encompassing
Throughout this year, I’ve often felt as if my mental health issues have somehow invalidated my professional competency. Was I a fraud? Was I secretly a mess and just faking my success? Was I just hiding behind my job? No. I am a complex person who in some ways has my life very together and in other ways has my life very not-together. People are multifaceted. Our flaws and struggles do not disqualify us from our personal or professional successes.
More importantly, mental illness is not synonymous with failure. You can struggle, very significantly in fact, with your mental health and still be someone who has meaningful things to offer this world. Needing help does not make you incompetent or incapable.
Lastly, momentary failures do not mean that you are a failure. You are not the totality of your worst days. Failing sucks. It’s also very human. Seeing failures for what they are — just a moment in time, not the entirety of my person — has allowed me to move past these moments without internalizing them unnecessarily.
Progress is about forward momentum, not perpetual motion
Finally, I’ve learned that it’s ok to be stuck. It’s ok to feel bad. It’s ok to not be where you want to be.
Just because you are not continually moving forward, does not mean that you have stopped making long-term progress. Accepting this truth has allowed me to accept myself for all that I am. It has allowed me to have greater compassion for myself and for others.
As I work towards better mental health, I’ve learned that some days will be filled with hard work and progress while other days will feel like stagnation. I have to trust that the momentum from my good days will be enough to carry me through my bad days. We do not need to be constantly doing something, anything to feel better OR to be successful OR to reach our next goal. Instead, we can accept that not all motion is progress. It’s ok to stand still.
Authentically discussing my mental health at work was not an entirely safe decision. Even in a workplace that values “Being yourself”, I knew there could be backlash or bias. I knew I was taking a huge career risk. Even posting this story feels risky.
However, I’ve been amazed at how my coworkers have had my back. We’ve developed deeper trust, better communication, and more empathetic relationships. I’m better at my job because I’m more authentic in my work relationships. In my opinion, the risks are worth it.
This past year has been a wild ride. I don’t know what the next 12 months will bring. But I’m glad to be here for it.
