Mental Health and Wellbeing

#staffrepresentationmatters A critical issue we have been pushing for as staff representatives is ensuring that our staff have their mental health and wellbeing taken care of. My mantra as the Federation of International Civil Servants' Associations (FICSA) President is modeling the principles we espouse.

Many humanitarian workers feel indispensable. Some say we have a rescuer personality in that we love to help. Rescuers take on the responsibilities, burdens, and problems of other people, and they concern themselves with other people's lives, problems, and decisions, more than their own. Being a rescuer is a somewhat unhealthy trait. I learnt this in therapy and it's about Karpman's drama triangle. Rescuers help at the expense of their own wellbeing and it's characterized by much anxiety and passive aggression when people don't acknowledge or accept help in the way the rescuer perceives it.

Humanitarian workers are not indispensable. Our mental health and wellbeing is paramount and to this end we need to take time off. We need to switch off and regenerate and recuperate because we deal with some very heavy issues. Many times we feel as if we cannot leave or else things will not get done, but guess what, when we are forced to leave due to burnout, ill health and/or addictive behaviors that lead to incapacitation (alcohol, drugs, sex, and many others) that seat we thought we could not leave is filled by someone else.

I speak from experience. I worked myself into a psychiatric institution called "The Priory" in Woking, Surrey, United Kingdom from Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD). CPTSD never really goes away because I can get triggered by many things. What this experience taught me was to Attend to my Basic Needs with Compassion (ABC). I have learnt to set very clear boundaries and articulate them. I walk away from toxic people, situations and places. I learnt to stop rescuing people and instead try to coach them. I have stopped enabling the victim and instead coaching and mentoring the creator.

I am passionate about walking my talk. Mental health and wellbeing is a priority for me and ensuring that we prevent mental illness and malady. Prevention is better than cure believe me and achieving a sustainable level of wellness and wellbeing for me took from 2019 to 2022 at great personal expense to my physical, financial and mental wellbeing. I spent a lot of time in therapy, physiotherapy, with medical doctors, practicing mindfulness and yoga to achieve this level of wellness. Then of course I broke my ankle in 2023. The lessons I had incorporated from my mental health journey stood me in good stead. I completely cut off overwhelm from social media and went inward to heal. I was off whatsapp, facebook and all social media for 4 months while I concentrated on healing. I was on sick leave and I made sure I slept and recuperated. I took up crocheting and watched my favorite true crime documentaries.

It's really important that as staff representatives we model the behavior we want our organizations to embrace and incorporate. If one fails to take time off when one should, one actually increase the costs to oneself and one's organization. A study concerning the "Economics of mental well-being: a prospective study estimating associated health care costs and sickness benefit transfers in Denmark" concluded: "Our results suggest that investing in the promotion of population mental well-being, while being desirable in its own right, would have the additional benefit of curbing a wide range of costs. Universal mental health promotion initiatives that focus on moving all segments of the population towards higher levels of mental well-being could?free up resources and reduce costs in the short term, potentially being cost neutral, as well as generate cost savings for society in the longer term." https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10198-021-01305-0

The "United Nations System Mental Health and Well Being Strategy for 2024 and Beyond" states that in 2021, nearly 20 per cent of all sick leave taken was attributable to mental health, up from 16 percent in 2017 and the proportion of disability benefits granted to United Nations system staff for mental health reasons has increased, from 37.5 percent for the biennium 2016–2017 to more than 45 percent for the biennium 2020–2021. Moreover, from the biennium 2010–2011 to 2020–2021, the number of disability cases with a psychiatric diagnosis increased by more than 158 percent.

Let us achieve a sustainable level of wellness and wellbeing by ensuring we are mentally and physically healthy. I ask that people remove their emails from their personal devices, only respond to emails during working hours (except of course in emergencies), set clear boundaries about the use of whatsapp as an informal tool and take time to smell the roses. Nature is paramount to wellbeing. Spending time hugging and talking to trees and animals keeps me sane. I have deep conversations with our lemon and orange trees and guess what they have abundant fruit. They are also traumatized I'm sure by some of my outpourings. My dog and cat are my confidantes and they give me ample licks and hugs.

I am obsessive about mental health and wellbeing because it's important. I will insist on people taking their holidays and time off. I will insist on flexible working for staff so that they can perform their tasks with joy. I will insist on being the best possible manager I can be in order to ensure that a healthy workforce is a wealthy workforce in all senses of one's definition of wealth.

Let's mind our ABCs - Attend to our Basic Needs with Compassion!