From Mental Illness & Surviving Suicide to Royal Attention & Treatment - Finally. #MentalHealthAtWork

By Ingrid Ozols, September 2018

I wish to acknowledge the many centuries of vulnerable people who have experienced and managed life with mental illness, been recipients of inhumane psychiatric care, to those who have died in these circumstances, through suicide or other deaths, to those we have loved and lost and the amazing people who bravely started what is now a social human rights movement - I give you my pledge and love that your pain, efforts to bring change for us to have an easier road and historical legacy will never be forgotten and will continue by many more voices to come.

Warning - please note there are references to suicide and self-harm so please look after yourself when reading this. If you feel triggered please stop reading, contact someone who feel comfortable with, feel free to reach out to myself or ring Lifeline in an emergency 131114

 “Who in the business world will talk to you about Mental Health in the Workplace?” a few people said laughingly as I registered Mental Health At Work (mh@work?) as a business trademark nearly two decades ago. I even went as far as doing this globally I felt so confident (on the inside at least, ok more hopeful than confident)!

‘This is such a horrid morbid topic, how can you go and do this negative work?” I did lose contact with some immediate family members when I “chose” my instinct to keep going on the journey of mental health and suicide prevention advocacy. I did not, could not let it go, for anyone. I wouldn’t know why for years, but stubbornly I wasn’t going anywhere. Now I do know the why. Not only for my mental healthiness but for my daughter’s, the people I love and know, and those who I don’t know, you and your’s. This is so much bigger than me and my loved ones, and your’s. These are ours, our humanity’s issues from generations ago to generations to come.

We all have a role to play, we all need to change what we think, believe and how we behave to others, especially those who may need our help. This pain can be reduced if know how and what we are dealing with. There are more advanced treatment options, with us being able to connect, using holistic, all of person - centred strengths - based approaches, including digital means, natural and organic choices for our health and wellbeing in many modes.

Lives can be changed and saved if we care enough to change ourselves and park our opinions and judgements to one side, and sit with another person’s pain and acknowledge and help them honour it. They, we, will heal more healthily if we do.

Opening a door, being a messenger that helps others to open doors and spread the messages, that “it’s ok to not always be fine and feeling great”, and “that vulnerability is a part of our very humanity along with a mix of emotions and experiences” will help alievate the pressures that come from holding things in.

A hug, a loving caring word, a compliment is far more calming and reassuring than criticism, especially if delivered harshly without thinking about the consequences of our words to another person. I, along with others have been told “this is a weakness, a character flaw, you are mature enough to understand and change your paranoia and insecurities, you are no longer a child but an adult.” No, this is not helpful to anyone who is managing life with PTSD, any trauma, severe mental illness or vulnerability to self-harm or suicide – or anyone for any reason!

When in a depressive episode, my brain goes into a chaotic spin, irrational distorted paranoid thinking and impaired cognition. I become obsessive of an idea, a person, an issue that lasts for an eternity, or so it feels. Intensity, ruminations are ever present and loud, switched on maximum volume impacting my ability to function. No wonder school didn’t make much sense at times when I was a child. Words, instructions would blur or be forgotten. This still remains similar at work as an adult experiencing great distress. Comprehending the written word takes hours of reading and re-reading. Articulating, understanding and writing is a massive fight as the noise in my head confuses my already chaotic thinking, and then berating any sense of confidence and ability, the voices continue like a scratched record or cd.

Something tugged and pushed me deeply, beyond my comfort. I believed believed believed my instinct was on the right track all those years ago and now, something, needs to change how workplaces and community manage people with mental ill health and suicidal vulnerabilities.

Having worked in management and human resources in my previous life, and my lived experience of mental illness, I connected quickly to many others who did experience similar challenges. No one deserves or chooses to feel this way or to have an injury or any illness. But like death, this is a non-negotiable part of life.

Bullying and harassment are commonplace. We know cyberbullying has killed many people by suicide. These harmful, toxic behaviours to others can be triggers for mental illnesses, potentially self-harm and suicidal behaviour. Anecdotes, and research, tells us this is on the rise. Sadly we now have Brodie’s Law in Victoria setting a precedent that IT IS NEVER OK TO BULLY ANY ONE – in a workplace. There are consequences. Tragic ones, leading to people taking their lives. These are now deemed criminal penalties in some jurisdictions, as they should.

Workplaces need to learn how to manage these issues as they do any health condition on many levels. Not only operating as promoters of health and wellness, but also from how to manage stigma and discrimination, “punishing” employees, by demoting them or making their roles “redundant” for being human, is no longer allowed. 

Today the landscape has changed. Mental Health and Suicide Prevention has been gaining momentum. The decades of advocacy from family and community has created a social movement that is changing parts of our broken way of dealing with these issues on global humanitarian grounds.

Starting with The Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaimed by the United Nations (1948) Article 23 states; “Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and protection against unemployment.”

This principle is expanded upon in Article 27 of The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities adopted in 2006.

In Australia, Common Law, Anti-Discrimination, OHS Legislation, Fair Work and Worker’s compensation Legislation provide further protections for people with vulnerabilities and their right to employment. This isn’t to suggest that all employers recognise they have a legal duty of care to provide safe work environments for employee’s physical and psychological wellbeing, sadly they are still far from it.

In 2000, my career changed. Today I am living and working my “calling”. As a fortunate member of society, I have had compassionate and kind mental health care and holistic support through my mental illness episodes and survived several serious attempts to die.

At 7 years of age with family falling apart I thought living in terror daily was what every other child did. Not wanting to be in my own skin, floating above my head and imagining death was my way of coping with pain I still can’t explain to anyone else. I wanted to end the pain. To stop the pins and needles up and down my legs every day for years, leaving me on a constant tight rope. The machetes and fire in my head were migraines starting to hit. I couldn’t ask for a hug, (I didn’t get them, most of my family weren’t the “huggy” kind) nor I was I allowed to cry or express any emotions, instead I had to “toughen up and get over it, others had life far worse, my family had escaped the war, but had seen their loved ones being murdered” 

This all added to feeling a burden, unlovable and suicidal. This has been one side of my story, which could be anybody’s story. We all have them, we are human after all, even if our content and contexts vary. The other bigger part of mine is - celebration, love, laughter and being in my world authentically, with the good and the tougher stuff.

I was determined to change my adulthood to something positive, glorious, to live and love better than I had experienced my early years. I dreamed and fantasised what my adulthood would look like. I never saw what was to come of this pain, and that it would all have a purpose and role to play in not only my very being, but in a professional sense and beyond. That it might even be helpful to one other person or two would give it sense, would help me not feel so isolated and like I was a lone monster.

But this would mean I would have to find courage from the bottom of my feet and toes to speak up, to “undress myself emotionally” and betray years of silence, but I am tired and angry. Tired of the secrets ( which didn’t get us anywhere) and angry at the system being broken and making life much much harder for those in need and their carers, adding untold distress and trauma to already debilitating circumstances that bring people to these points.

Luckily I had a married name. If I was going to do this I had to go in and do it genuinely with both feet in. Many media people asked me in those early days – and even now, would I like to be anonymous? No I am who I am – even if some members of my family curl up and hide, disowning who I am in case “it (my work and my reality) reflects badly on them” I understand their hurt and pain, their fear and guilt. This isn’t anyone’s fault, but judgement lack of compassion, anger, being, abusive, threatening when things get difficult is traumatising to the vulnerable person. For family to walk away in these traumatic times doesn’t help but increases the risk of tragedy. Sometimes though, it is the best response – even if it doesn’t feel like it. But we can try to do this more kindly or as far as possible within toxic atmospheres.

As I quickly learnt 20 years ago, a grass fire was set off. So many others would approach me with hugs, tears, holding my hands, thanking me for telling “their secrets” I was bombarded in workplace after workplace, community place after community place. The more I did this work the more the fire took stock, the more hugs I received, the more emails, phone calls, letters and cards. Over the years these have only grown (sadly) in number not diminishing in a more enlightened and supposedly affluent and technologically savvy country. No wonder, when stigma is alive and well, and with a broken mental health system that is unable to cope to meet demand of our society’s most vulnerable and severely ill.

The statistics confirm these are major public health issues with 45.5 % of Australian’s will experience a mental illness in our lifetime. 1 person dies every 40 seconds globally from suicide. In Australia we lose one person every two-three hours in one day!

Secrecy and shame live together, and like a ring intertwined, and now I know too many others have had to hold similar secrets so as not to shame their loved ones. Even as they also feel the self-stigma and self-shame burns inside. The secrecy has to be maintained. Hiding behind happy faces, confident demeanours, being a chameleon while schrivelling up and wanting to hide and die at the same time.

So with a sense of obligation to give back to community and using the voice that had returned after long bouts of enforced suppressed silence, I could use it to somehow make a difference in workplaces and the community. I have lovingly dedicated my life, to “feeling the fear, but doing it anyway” every day, in the hope no one ever hears the horrid words from well meaning or not so well meaning uneducated amateur psychologist family members, friends, workplaces, community, that too many of us have been subjected to and now only know too well, that too many more of us keep hearing similar messages!

One employer had been incredibly kind and gave me a gift of compassion and kindness, keeping me employed when I was unable to make sense of time or read a few lines. With the small team of colleagues they made accommodations and where adaptable, giving me lots of flexibility and tlc – especially when I tried to resign. They kept visiting me, checking in – all without harassment, but in a nurturing caring way they showered me with attention that helped me feel valued and cared for. Before I knew I was back at work on a full time capacity doing positive productive work and contributing to life. This was the motivator I needed as I became an advocate in the mental health sector. To be a gift giver, a door opener, a change agent in some small way.

I had been viewed as “heavy maintenance” hearing from one immediate family member “I was a bad influence on his children and an attention seeking selfish drama queen!”

Why is attention a bad selfish thing? Don’t we give loved ones with cancer, heart disease or any other physical illness, injury, disability unlimited attention? What if we didn’t? How callous! Isn’t attention, giving ourselves, our presence and our time to someone else a welcome gift we all seek? Its about human connectedness, it helps feel valued and cared for. This is what humanity is about – isn’t it? Love, companionship is about giving attention and receiving it, sharing it? Whatever the relationship may be? 

Instinct was telling me over and over that this was a common human condition seen in community and workplaces. we are all going to experience loss, love, grief, death, birth, joy, injury, illness being fragile and vulnerable. This is what it means to be human.

It was time to bring the skills and knowledge that I had learnt in advocacy and then university –at times spontaeneous decisions - to do extra studies in a way to face my enemy. Those frightening words that had filled my heart with fear over the lives of my loved ones; mental illness, rejection, isolation, suicide attempts, suicidal behaviour……

As a compassionate community we must stand together and DO something.We need a strategic culture change, but workplaces put this in the too hard basket, are scared and/lazy, some simply don’t care. That is awful to write but this is true for many who do tick a box awareness sessions, don’t teach skills or create safe supportive positive and healthy working environments. There are some truly fabulous examples of outstanding workplaces doing wonderful work in this space, there are so many tools, ideas, awareness campaigns, fact sheets, that can be easily adapted and embedded into the “way of doing business”.

It seems common sense, wellness drives productivity and profitability! It’s also a good thing to do for society – good corporate citizenship. 

My wings haven’t been permanently clipped because of my psychiatric history. If anything, rather than being crippled by fear, I have now befriended my enemy, as far and as cautiously possible. I know how to recognise, navigate and negotiate the landmines of my mental health a little more confidently with new life-skills and strategies.

My vulnerabilities have led me to find an inner strength. That strength is my vulnerability that fuels new experiences, with or without others approval. I can’t and won’t stop doing this, sharing, giving BIG hugs, smiling and talking to someone who feels isolated and alone.

My heart has long gone out to the Royal Family.Though the lead lives we can never imagine They are still people, they feel, they hurt, get ill, experience loss, love, injury, illness, vulnerability, fear. So it isn’t that surprising that Prince William and Prince Harry should have their own mental health vulnerabilities having grown up with so much complicated trauma and grief with their family challenges. Now their gift to us and the legacy of their late mother’s own mental illness and suicide attempts, sharing their mental health vulnerabilities will help countless people to recognise that sometimes means we are better reaching out seeking and giving help, than “keeping the stiff upper lip, our emotions suppressed and walk the road of harm”

How thrilled am I to see the words “Mental Health at Work” in Prince Williams extended crusade to help us bring much needed changes to our workplaces globally. Thank you Mind UK - Paul Farmer. It was with enormous pride, excitement and even trepidation that “Mental Health at Work” visited the UK from Melbourne Australia more than a decade ago to commence destigmatising and educating UK workplaces using the lived experience, storytelling about this public global health issue. Suicide prevention at Work is also trailblazing Australia. UK won’t be far away.

I can’t help but feel vindicated that my instinct was right, that I wasn’t an “imposter” who thought this was far fetched or a ludicrous concept. I did it to put a finger up stigma and to show communities ignorance is not an excuse. People are dying or maiming themselves, and sadly today in staggeringly high numbers. My heart aches, our work is far from done, our systems are broken and our governments pretend and pay lip service to change. Yet many families live 24/7 with devastating consequences and behaviours, waiting and praying they won’t wake up to tragedy.

A society that is knowledgeable about mental illness and suicide prevention, and embraces vulnerability and diversity, can no longer be satisfied with awareness. We have enough expensive fact sheets and campaigns. It’s time to become skilled and competent to have conversations, create appropriate safe places for people to share their distress and have systems and creative, innovative options in place where rejection and stigma are eliminated. In a technological world, we have new options of connectivity and learning life skills, self-help and self-care. We can create respite centres, places of sanctuary for all levels of severity of illness – there will always be people who are so ill that they will need 24/7 care – but we can offer places where we open our hearts (and make lots of chicken soup), have pets around and give ourselves to help support vulnerable people in learning how to soar to their potential and to live their life full of adventures.

https://metro.co.uk/2018/09/11/prince-william-launching-project-to-improve-mental-health-at-work-7932619/?ito=article.desktop.share.top.email