Baring My Soul on a Random Monday...(On Depression, Resilience and Toxic Workplaces)

I have tried to reconsider writing this, but every bit of me was screaming with a desire to get it out. To get it off my chest. To share it with the world. Because it matters. It set in drafts first...but, here we are...Sharing some of my deepest moments with you all, on a random Monday because we have to talk about what truly matters.

A couple of years ago I nearly lost my life to suicide. I didn't have a suicide attempt. I had a near suicide attempt. And for a determined person like myself, that was close enough. In those moments I feared my determination and will to execute and finish things. Because no matter how bad it had gotten inside my mind, somewhere deep, deep down I knew it was all a lie and I didn't want to finish my life...so I held on with all my might. And in those moments, that can be excruciatingly hard.

Even writing this is difficult and it makes me take deep breaths as my hands shake and hover over the keyboard. It is extremely difficult for me to imagine from this stand point where I am now that my mind was ever in such disarray. But it was. I cannot not feel the pain and compassion for the person I was then. And for the suffering endured. A depression that started as a functional depression at first kept progressing until it reached the point of almost no return. I had previously never been depressed, and knowing what I know now, I can see that I also had no idea what depression really even meant. For quite some time I didn't even realise what was happening to me. What started as a functional depression took a wrong turn and progressed nearly to a point of no return. Thankfully, things are better now and I am fully recovered.

But, you might be wondering why I chose LinkedIn to tell you this story (although it isn't exactly my first time writing about it on here). You might think that it isn't professional. And it might not be what we consider to be 'professional' - although, what does that even mean anymore (rhetorical question but feel free to answer in the comments)? But it most certainly is human. And organisations are made of humans. It is so human that some 280 million people in the world are living with depression (and women are 50% more likely to suffer from it) and it's the 4th leading cause of suicide in young adults (WHO statistics). And today's workplaces are contributing to a development of anxiety and depression for many people. The reason it matters so much to me to talk about it on this platform is the fact that my development of a major depressive episode was triggered by a combination of a toxic workplace environment and toxic personal relationship at the time.

There are many different paths to depression. I happen to know one very intimately. Many of the leading causes of depression are the denial of self, suppression of our feelings, needs and wants, and that's what had happened to me. When we do this for long enough we start to push down all emotions - and we end up being numb. People with a complex PTSD (due to childhood trauma) are more likely to develop anxiety and depression. And ACEs study tells us that about 2/3 of population have at least one ACE (adverse childhood experience). This means that a great majority of the population is dealing with the consequences of their maladaptations to their childhood experiences that are now preventing us from living a healthy life. All those maladaptations are the reason why many people are turning to addictions, being anxious, depressed, aggressive. Our nervous systems are dysregulated and we find it hard to cope with the triggers. Aggressive or controlling people trigger others who might develop anxiety or depression as a result, yet both behaviours originate in early maladaptations to our environments. How incredible is that? In a way, they form two sides of the same coin...

This process of my own healing made me very angry at times and it also made me determined to change the world (helping heal one person at a time). Having become aware of all the self-denial that had caused my anxiety and depression I became angry, first at others, and then at myself. At first this anger wasn't healthy. I was furious and there was a complete over-pouring of it. But anger is often just a signal that our boundaries have been violated, however when we feel it after many years of boundary violation it can be quite volatile (and it already is a powerful emotion). My relationship with anger is much healthier now. I see it as a signal of a boundary violation and I check in with myself. It is my signal that I should not allow others to cross a certain threshold (learning this does not come easy to many of us especially if we've been taught to deny our own needs and boundaries). And then I honour myself and my feelings, not allowing anything or anyone to stand in the way of that. Because if there's one thing I know I won't do again - is deny parts of myself. And that core relationship we have with ourselves is crucial for living a healthy life.

The work and personal environment I was in that triggered my crippling anxiety and depression were toxic. But I can also see now that those people were living their own maladaptive patterns. At first I really struggled to understand why some people acted in toxic ways. This question haunted me. And it wasn't until I got deeper into the understanding of our early experiences and how they shape our understanding of the world that I could understand that we each look with different eyes. We each respond to stressors differently. Our early experiences determine this to a large extent. Being able to understand this will make your life much easier. When we realise that people do what they do and often not necessarily to harm us (even though it may seem that way) we can take back our power to decide how we react in response to that. We don't have to participate in their dance. It is our voice that counts. Our opinions matter. And we do have the power to exit the dance. To say 'No' and mean it, guilt-free. The problem is that we each view others as we are - and as we would never subject someone to mistreatment, we think that others must really hate us to mistreat us like that. But the fact is that people have their own issues with themselves. Our job is to work on ourselves. If each person worried about resolving their own maladaptive coping and healing in order to build true resilience this would would be a better place.

Organisations indeed have an important role to play in ensuring safety of their people. They need to TALK about it openly. They need to make people aware of maladaptive coping patterns, consequences of that, educate people on different aspects of human behaviour and how to cope in healthy ways. This understanding is perhaps far more important than personality types and other ways companies try to improve performance. BUT - I also strongly believe that each and every single one of us has an important work to do to resolve our own issues and develop resilience. The thing is, toxic people can only exercise control over us when we haven't resolved our internal chaos - then they can trigger it with their own externalised chaos. When we know all of our deepest parts (shadow) - positive and negative and trust our intuition and our voice - others hold no power. People cannot trigger what we've dealt with and cannot exert control over our unconscious defences when we've faced all of our issues. This is WHY I advocate individual healing and resilience building.

Imagine the world in which organisations did their part on educating and truly empowering people to be their authentic selves, and people did their own internal work to heal so that we can all start relating in healthier ways. Our workplaces are more than just our professional environments - they can and need to be the communities of people who support and care for one another. This is why my work consists of working with companies to ensure psychologically safe environments + working to educate individuals to develop their own healthy coping and resilience.

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If you're interesting in learning more about how I can help you develop personal resilience or would like me to work with your company, please contact me directly on LinkedIn or email: [email protected].

Online courses with a group coaching programme coming soon!

P.S. I do a free monthly webinar on toxic workplaces and ACEs connection. I'll announce the date for July shortly.