Mental health is still an issue in the workplace

now, moving on to the rest of the post: of course it's still an issue. taking sick time for any reason is still an issue. everyone feels the pressure to not be sick, to not take sick time, and to work while sick. i have never worked for any organization where this was not the case-- even in some good places that were good to their workers-- and have only escaped it by working for myself.

>It’s 2017. I cannot believe that it is still controversial to speak about mental health in the workplace when 1 in 6 americans are medicated for mental health.

you see, mental health is more of a threat than "physical" health. you get better from having a cold. you sniffle through a few days of work, maybe take a day at home, then sniffle through another day or two, and the lost productivity stops.

the spectre of mental health is that it is a long term sap on an employee's productivity that will also have flare-ups which result in time taken off, total work stoppage, malingering, unreliability, and bad morale. and it can't really be "cured" just treated. it's the profit seeking organization's nightmare. they'd never hire someone mentally ill, if they could reliably avoid being sued for their discrimination.

>It’s 2017. I cannot believe that it is still controversial to offer paid sick leave.

only in the blisteringly backwards and proudly ignorant USA is it controversial. we are far behind the rest of the world when it comes to labor rights and treating people like human beings.

elsewhere the issue is settled definitively. to be blunt the CEOs haven't done their part in fighting for this basic right, nor has the government, nor have the workers. everyone has too much to lose by being the one to push, so nobody pushes.

>Our jobs require us to execute at peak mental performance. When an athlete is injured they sit on the bench and recover. Let’s get rid of the idea that somehow the brain is different.

the difference is that an athlete ages out of being competitive after a time, and so their profit-driven self-infliction of injury ends earlier.

workers are stressed by work for most of their lives, for most of the hours of their waking day. work is far more detrimental to people's brains than being an athlete is to the body.

oh yeah, and workers can't choose when to stop, unless they want to choose to stop eating too. to be blunt there's no way that american workers could possibly operate at peak mental performance with their mental scaffolding so occupied with maintaining job security. this causes mental illness too, of course.

name a bigger stressor for people than their jobs / money.

>Take some time this week to express gratitude to individuals on your team. You might be surprised at the positive impact.

this is a bare minimum, not part of any solution.

the real solution (which won't be implemented because it is expensive) is to have an iron law in your corporation that your employees must take X paid sick days per year or per month. it's that simple.

then it won't be an issue, because it'll be a policy that people are forced to follow. there's no guilt about taking sick days for any health reason at that point. nobody feels like they're being dead weight when they take a sick day.

>Take some time to reflect on how your company’s values help create a safe-space for your teammates 

this is more likely to be lip service or self-deception at most companies than it is a reality. most companies value profit, and act accordingly when that value contradicts the health of their employees because their employees are replaceable.

>1 in 6 of whom is likely medicated for a mental health issue.

this should tell us that our society is violently unhealthy for our minds, as is our work culture.

and they are.

While I'm very happy that the author seems to be getting what they need, a day or even week here or there is not fixing my problem. I've always been the kind of person anyways who doesn't really settle into a vacation or travel excursion until around week 2, so maybe I just move more slowly.

Eventually I would like to contract again (been salaried for a few years now). I am lucky enough to have a partner in a different, but still also well-paying and in-demand industry, to help with finances. We live minimally anyways, so I'm hoping it wouldn't be impossible to maintain our quality of life without working myself to death chasing leads and payments. Partner is trying to do something similarly unorthodox. We have no aspirations for hockey stick growth or jackpot payouts, we just want to enjoy our lives while we can, while creating and helping in a way we like.

Edit: meant to reply to the comment regarding sabbaticals below.

When people have disorders like you list they are disabling. That's expensive for the worker and the employer and ultimately our social systems but it's just kind of expected that those people are forgotten with no resources but their own to cope. That's a horrible broken system.

What scares me is the undiagnosed (as you pointed out). There's way too many people in public perception that when analyzed closely have some kind of personality disorder. Not to play psychobabble but way too often these disorders are recognized for the success they provide but the destructive aspects are ignored. Some of these people have been so successful that they'll die untreated and it's a loss for them and everyone else.

Jobs had something wrong with him that he appears to have recognized and mitigated over time. Trump has something wrong with him, he'll never get treated. There are some other popular figures that are less controversial but in the same boat. Straight up sociopathic behavior that is applauded until enough people get hurt.

Then you've got the unsuccessful delusional people who end up committing mass murder. How many shootings and terrorist attacks could have been prevented through relatively cheap mental healthcare?

It seems like an obvious weak point in society that we don't really address. Worse, you gotta wonder if social media is exacerbating it in some people. It's easy to become a delusional narcissist these days. Maybe it always has been?