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Mental health is still an issue in the workplace

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Re: Mental health is still an issue in the workplace

#71

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

wu-ikkyu wrote: post #62
calafrax wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Medically speaking a mental illness is no different than a physical illness. Mental illness does not have to be severe just as physical illness does not have to be severe. Sick leave policies typically only require a doctors note/visit if you are absent for multiple days. Taking a single day off for mild mental illness, something like elevated stress levels causing anxiety that interrupts your sleep, seems perfectly…

>Medically speaking a mental illness is no different than a physical illness. I am a proponent of taking time off for mental health, but I have to nitpick here. Medically speaking, physical illness is different from mental illness. One is diagnosed from objective scientific tests (pathology) while the other is not.

As a counterpoint, there are no objective scientific tests for, say, back pain or neck pain or nausea or menstrual cramps.

Re: Mental health is still an issue in the workplace

#72

Post by stevenbedrick »

throwaway2928 wrote: post #50

Not that long ago, I was considering joining a startup where an old manager of mine was the head of eng. They seemed to be doing some cool stuff, another friend had recently joined and spoke well of it, and I thought I'd give it a go. As part of that process, my old manager took me out for coffee to talk about the company, etc. When we chatted, he basically laid down that he was concerned- when I had worked for him,…

That sounds like a really great realization to have had!

For the record, what your old manager was doing (directly asking you about your mental health status in a quasi-interview setting) was probably illegal, at least in the US (IANAL). There are pretty strict rules around the kinds of things that employers are allowed to ask prospective employees about, and health (mental or otherwise) is very much on the "not allowed" list.

Employees have a legal right to protection from discrimination along those lines, and companies (no matter how small) most definitely do _not_ have the right to discriminate in that way.

Re: Mental health is still an issue in the workplace

#73

Post by andrewfong »

steven777400 wrote: post #5

Great article. A few years ago (at a previous job) I took a sick day for "sanity", but told them I wasn't feeling well. I felt guilty about doing it. I think part of it is the association of sick leave with externally visible medical issues, and the corresponding "straightforward" medical verification. In other words, if you have a temperature or are vomiting, that's obvious. Many infections or physical injury can be…

Another way of thinking about this, rather than "mental vs physical" or "healthy vs sick" is "how much discretion does your employer give you to balance work with your own well-being".

There are plenty employers who are willing to accommodate you if you have an actual DSM-diagnosed mental disorder but are skeptical of a "sanity day".

Likewise, there are plenty of employers who will let you take time off if you're actually chucking mucus across the room. But what if I just suspect my immune system is a bit weak from the long hours I've been pulling, and that going into work today is likely to trigger a cold? Or what if, in order to keep up with work, I've been drinking 8 cups of coffee a day and eating nothing but microwave meals because I don't have time to figure out healthier options? Technically, nothing prevents me from performing my job. It doesn't require a doctor's appointment, nor is there some illness that's easily verifiable. I'm not broken yet. I just have a hunch I'm breaking down.

And then there are a whole host of issues that might not qualify as "health issues" but are things I need time to deal with if you want me to function at my best later: childcare, DMV appointments, legal issues, car repair, etc.

Re: Mental health is still an issue in the workplace

#74

Post by cryoshon »

altonzheng wrote: post #54
cryoshon wrote: post #43

first off, good for madalyn, it takes too much courage to introduce specifics regarding any kind of sick time and mental health is especially burdensome. 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 w…

Not sure why you're being downvoted, thought you had some great points. As someone who has struggled with mental health myself in the past, I'm kind of wary of the whole "let's reduce depression down to how we would treat a broken arm." argument. While it's good intentioned, and I totally agree we need to reduce its stigma in society, I wonder if it does more harm then good in the long run. Depression is a disease of…

>(If you can't tell, I think the biochemical causes of depression are a bit overemphasized in today's society.)

this is actually "necessary" in the sense that it prevents discussion of other equally substantive depression-causing things such as a precarious lifestyle contingent upon retaining paid employment.

put differently: depression is multifactorial, but the medical consensus is that it's connected to anxiety. and anxiety, while also biochemical and genetic, is in large part caused by external factors.

but if we admit that external factors cause anxiety and thereby depression, we admit that the very jobs we're afraid to take time off from to tend to our depression are in fact causing us to be depressed in the first place. and for the american culture, this reality cannot be voiced-- it's antithetical to capitalism as we practice it.

finally: talking about mental illness at work is a surefire way to find yourself unemployed or longlisted for a promotion. this adds an additional level of furtiveness to those who are already mentally ill, which makes their issues worse.

whether or not someone has a genetic predisposition to mental illness or not-- and many likely do-- a good work culture can make things either a bit easier, or much harder.

Re: Mental health is still an issue in the workplace

#76

Post by curun1r »

aaron-lebo wrote: post #47
curun1r wrote: post #37

My only issue with this is how he seems to lump in the "mental health" days that people without diagnosed mental health disorders face with the stigmatization that the other group feels. I fully support people who need to deal with mental fatigue in these ways, but if just taking time off "cures" your mental health issues, it's a different class of problem from what others are dealing with. The "still" is incredibly…

You are very very right. 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…

> Trump has something wrong with him, he'll never get treated

A bit off-topic, but in case you're interested in that 'something', here's one analysis from a psychologist that made the rounds of liberal psychologists that my mother associates with: http://www.nationalmemo.com/psychoanalyzing-donald-trump/

Re: Mental health is still an issue in the workplace

#77

Post by wu-ikkyu »

dragonwriter wrote: post #69
wu-ikkyu wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Medically speaking a mental illness is no different than a physical illness. I am a proponent of taking time off for mental health, but I have to nitpick here. Medically speaking, physical illness is different from mental illness. One is diagnosed from objective scientific tests (pathology) while the other is not.

> Medically speaking, physical illness is different from mental illness. One is diagnosed from objective scientific tests (pathology) while the other is not. Not all “physical” (the term is not really the correct distinction, since all illness, including mental illness, is physical) illness is diagnosed directly in that manner (not all physical illness can be, because not all is understood well enough to have definit…

>some psychiatric conditions have lab tests of the same sort available.

Which ones?

"psychiatric diagnosis still relies exclusively on fallible subjective judgments rather than objective biological tests" -Allen Frances

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Frances

Re: Mental health is still an issue in the workplace

#78

Post by paulddraper »

calafrax wrote: post #8
steven777400 wrote: post #5

Great article. A few years ago (at a previous job) I took a sick day for "sanity", but told them I wasn't feeling well. I felt guilty about doing it. I think part of it is the association of sick leave with externally visible medical issues, and the corresponding "straightforward" medical verification. In other words, if you have a temperature or are vomiting, that's obvious. Many infections or physical injury can be…

Medically speaking a mental illness is no different than a physical illness. Mental illness does not have to be severe just as physical illness does not have to be severe. Sick leave policies typically only require a doctors note/visit if you are absent for multiple days. Taking a single day off for mild mental illness, something like elevated stress levels causing anxiety that interrupts your sleep, seems perfectly…

> Medically speaking a mental illness is no different than a physical illness.

I'm sympathetic, but don't make the discussion worse by throwing falsehoods like this around.

Besides the fact expressed by others that physically illness is more diagnosable, you typically don't get mentally ill from being in proximity to a mentally ill person. (At least, I never have.)

Physical illness is a different situation. That's why my workplace offers near unlimited sick time for this reason. As much as we'd love you have to working, we don't want your diseases.

---

(Granted, having an anxiety attack in the middle of work may not do wonders for the mental state of your coworkers, but blithey asserting this "no different" is dubious at best.)

Re: Mental health is still an issue in the workplace

#79

Post by [deleted] »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #71
wu-ikkyu wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Medically speaking a mental illness is no different than a physical illness. I am a proponent of taking time off for mental health, but I have to nitpick here. Medically speaking, physical illness is different from mental illness. One is diagnosed from objective scientific tests (pathology) while the other is not.

As a counterpoint, there are no objective scientific tests for, say, back pain or neck pain or nausea or menstrual cramps.

[deleted]

Re: Mental health is still an issue in the workplace

#80

Post by MadSax »

curun1r wrote: post #37

My only issue with this is how he seems to lump in the "mental health" days that people without diagnosed mental health disorders face with the stigmatization that the other group feels. I fully support people who need to deal with mental fatigue in these ways, but if just taking time off "cures" your mental health issues, it's a different class of problem from what others are dealing with. The "still" is incredibly…

When I worked for a large bank right out of college, they had buckets of planned time off and a smaller subset of unplanned days you could use. They didn't care why you used your unplanned time off and one my bosses even told us to use them all even if it wasn't for sickness, just use them.
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