Essay: Mental Health (part 2)
It’s one thing to deal with anxiety, depression, panic, et cetera as a kid. Family can help diffuse the tension, as a college student there are on-campus services that can help. In some ways it’s a lot easier to cope. I mean, everybody knows that school is stressful! Mental health issues as an adult, in the workforce, are another ball game altogether. While no one says to expect less stress when assuming an “adult life”, no one really says anything about all the ways it’s about to get a lot more stigmatized and difficult to deal with.
So, in all honesty, it doesn’t get better. I’m not trying to be cataclysmic or create undue concern, it’s just the experience I have had. First, insurance providers are straight up BITCHES. Mental health care is really freaking expensive, and a lot of times it’s not covered by insurance. Therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists… they all necessitate a lot of research, a level of “fit”, and accessible pricing. With the increasing number of people seeking out therapy and the like, it would logical to assume insurance coverage of the situation is improving accordingly. Maybe it can be assumed from the “insurance providers are bitches” bit, but guess what—in most cases, they don’t cover that provider! Does it matter who or what I’m talking about? NO. Because it’s that categorically bad. No one is hoping for more people with mental health issues, but maybe that will be what finally causes the breakthroughs in range and amount of coverage. All of this has to be navigated as a young adult, getting an initial job, in an intensely change-heavy period of life.
The changes alone are enough to cause circumstances that require therapy! Alas, that’s not even the tip of the iceberg. Workplaces, at least in the tech industry, are refined machines that chew up employees and spit out their mangled corpses then move on to the next batch. What a cheery view, isn’t it? Take a moment and ask a friend, especially a female or someone from an underrepresented group—do they have a crying room? Have they experienced micro or unfiltered aggression and condescension? Mansplaining is in the global lexicon for a reason. I can personally attest to all of these things. I could write an entire book about my time in tech (and I probably will) and all the wild things that aggravate existing mental health conditions.
In my case, my mental state worsened and worsened until I burnt out. The thing is, I didn’t recover. And burnout, mounting in severity without respite doesn’t just stay burnout.
It was mid-April 2019 and I had been working non-stop since the winter holidays. I hadn’t been able to take time off to de-escalate or recover from the break-neck pace of my job. So on a seemingly innocuous day, several hours into meetings and work, I broke. Every semblance of sanity and well-being was shattered. I cried, hyperventilated, lost mental and verbal coherence—like a panic attack that just would not end.
In a brief moment between sobs, I messaged my manager. I informed her that I was acutely burnt out and experiencing what I could only describe as a mental break. Her response was to politely inform me that I could take the rest of the day off—but no more than that, at least for another six weeks.
So there I was. I was given half of a day to recover from the single most traumatic experience of my adult life. Half of a day to recover, without anyone to help. Half of a day to recover before resuming the exact same pace, responsibilities, and any additional work that had gotten backlogged while I shook, uncontrollably, alone.
There isn’t a happy ending to this story. I got in trouble for the time that I took off that day, and I got in trouble when I broke again, in a foreign country, hours after successfully covering an event. The thing is, I was not able to change the culture, or create a safer space for others. I just got replaced.
Mental illness isn’t curable. This discussion doesn’t have an end. In the meantime, I love you. Try to keep safe.
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