Mental Health Training

Some years ago, I was almost fired over my concern for not my personal safety at work, but my coworker's mental health. I had begun to notice my coworker had little odd changes in their personality over about six months which seemed out of character and worrisome.

Perhaps it was her muttering to her self and answering as well. Or her new found obsession with aluminum foil at lunch meetings we set up. But most definitely, I worried about her loudly yelling at me for staring at her despite my office and desk faced in the completely opposite direction from her office or desk.

I can still remember our stern Human Resources manager and my own boss blunt conversation with me twice. They both told me to basically ignore her behaviors and just focus on my own workload which could pick up in light of her efforts. My performance they summarized was being dwarfed by her astonishing energy and efforts to do it all. I should look at her as to where I could improve.

Over time, her odd behaviors morphed into more physical violence of slapping me from behind for no apparent reason. Or tell me I had eyes in the back of my head. And then the endless accusations that I was spying on her thoughts. She made sure nobody was around when she did this. It was I who began to sound crazy - but with cuts and bruises appearing from our encounters. To our bosses, it was glossed over as just coworker bickering over stressful workloads or rivalry in our desire for promotions from managing multiple projects.

Quick to her defense, her boss as well as other managers who loved her efficient, sunny personality defended her amazing dedication to staying as long as it took on projects. She stayed for hours, working on multiple things, sometimes staying up all night to do things. She seemed superhuman with her energy. Soon, I felt I was the one needing a mental and physical health vacation from my attacks at work.

Nobody believed that it was anything more than good old fashion work rivalry and her outperforming me. My boss offered time off to seek therapy to improve my performance and stop my exaggeration of the attacks. But to me, her ups and crashing downs seemed not right.

I felt confident with my performance meeting healthy life-work balances. Instead of therapy, I convinced my boss to send me to be trained on how to spot mental health issues or signs. I also took a short vacation to see if it helped me. While away, I felt a lot less stress and honestly thought, it might be me and I went for a few therapy sessions before the course began. I just wanted to be sure of my mental health.

The therapist was alarmed at my physical signs of abuse was much more concerned about my coworker’s actions than of my mental state. It was apparent that my mental health was not the issue, but my safety might be. My therapist confirmed it was not me and I started the course training with more insight.

The course was intense. The mental health training was filled with actual real-life situations along with role-playing actors who demonstrated various behaviors we might face. For a week I trained beside police, caseworkers, therapists, nurses, interns, and other first responders on how to recognize telltale signs and approach people calmly. I learned how to safely defend myself from mental health outbursts as well as defuse various types of escalated situations.

At first, I thought I was crazy to take the course but soon realized, I could return to work with new confidence. My training allowed me how to tell the difference between a bad day at work stress and a real mental health issue. It also taught us steps to take when calling for help and keeping calm in difficult situations.

I felt it was like learning First-Aid but for mental health situations. I knew I could not fix the situations myself, however, I could calmly explain my observations to professionals when an intervention was needed. I learned about all types of mental health crises and when just listening was all that was needed.

I became a much better listener, someone who heard the pain in a voice, or someone just who needed to vent frustrations. It helped to know arguments could be handled better by just listening and observing. And it was not long before that knowledge came in handy in both my personal life and at work.

A month after I returned, my coworker suddenly decided she needed to wear a hat lined with aluminum foil because she worried people were reading her thoughts. Her new hat was not very obvious, women do wear various scarves or wraps like hats. But she was more upset than previously. Next, she began to see things like bugs in various offices and on desks.

Convincing our bosses, she had us removed from the duel office suite we shared. Instead, we moved into a tiny room while fumigation took place. There she played static on a transistor radio so I could not read her mind. It was a long week together.

While no bugs were found, I began to note her increasing fears, easy agitation over little things, and long gaps of time away from her desk to go walk. She would often not recall where she went or why. Then she just disappeared one morning shortly after a weekly planning meeting. Her boss seem to think it was my fault.

Security was called and the building searched as she had told her boss she feared for her life because her husband was going to harm her. Police tracked down her husband at his job. Their house was searched. Hours passed as we went into a full search of the building and grounds. Local police put out an alert. I was questioned as were the others who had been in the meeting. I kept to just the facts of the morning and nothing else. I thought nobody would believe my observations.

Vanished, nobody could find her in our building – yet her car was in the lot. Her purse was in her desk and the coffee she had at the meeting sat cold on her desk. It was unbelievable. Cameras on the building’s security footage were checked and nothing pointed to any foul play. I and all the people in our section of the building were sent home. The police and security began to search even deeper in our building.

My boss called as I was leaving to tell me he had left a major file in a meeting room in another part of the company’s vast complex. I grabbed my keys and headed to retrieve it. I was to drop it off to a different building before heading home. As I got close to the door of the conference room, I heard odd sounds.

I believed it was a meeting and that I might disturb it in my retrieval of the missing file. I knocked, but nobody answered. The door was locked, which was odd. I had brought my keys which opened all the meeting rooms. Sometimes cleaning women were known to lock themselves in conference rooms and call distance lands.

Opening the door slowly as to not interrupt, I found my missing coworker naked except an aluminum foil covering her head and face, sound asleep on top of a huge conference table covered with pastries. I called the Human Resource manager who had told me originally it was me who had a mental problem and asked if she could come to the room.

Then I called security and asked for a blanket to brought with them. The missing file was chewed and had been for the most part destroyed. The walls had black marker scribbles of aliens and hate for those whom she believed was going to harm her. Her deep sleep made her look harmless. But once awakened, it took six strong police and security people to hold her until the EMT could calm her.

I was not the hero who saved her life that day. It was the EMTs who discovered the medications she had been taking to fix herself under the table. It was the Human Resource manager who helped her husband find help for his wife who had lost a baby and had not told anyone at work. It was the therapist who helped her find peace with her diagnosis of schizophrenia and manic disorder. And it was our management who made a space for her to return to our company in a less stressful position.

There is an importance in mental health wellbeing in the workplace and training employees as well as managers to recognize the signs before they get out of hand. It is particularly important to note that Human Resource professionals are not trained therapists, counselors, or psychologists. Nor should they be. However, according to various mental health associations, one in every five employees has been diagnosed or has suffered from some type of mental distress or condition.

Worse yet, one in every four employees will at some point in their tenure face mental stress, anxiety, or pressures that require some type of intervention. Despite this greater awareness, fewer people seek help due to the perceived stigma as a career or professional weakness. The untreated conditions often impact productivity and meeting expectations in performance, costing an estimated $100 billion dollars yearly.

So, what are Human Resources or Training to do?

From my experience, I suggest reaching out to various types of therapists, counselors, psychologists, and mental health support organizations to help create courses, workshops, webinars, offer groups, and other opportunities to make mental health part of the culture of employee learning. Open the conversations and make it available, normal, and easy to access thus stripping away any stigmas within the workplace. 

Offering such training and accommodations not only helps employees but builds a layer of trust and loyalty. Not everyone has extreme workplace stories of mental health issues with coworkers. But under these days of added family stress, added financial hardships, relational pressures, and job losses, concern for well being beyond just physical health should be considered too by your Human Resources and Training teams. 

Or at the very least, workers should know their legal rights and ways to find assistance. Perhaps by doing so, more people will be willing to notice and show their concerns before it is too late. Creating mental health training is the least we can do to help everyone feel not only safer but be able to actually care when coworkers or bosses sometime a little need help coping. And adding that acceptance of support will help everyone.