Not for the first time in recent years, a young member of the royal family, this time Prince William, has seen to be leading the national debate on mental health. Referring specifically to mental health at work, William said: “It should be so much easier to go to HR and talk about it.” Yes it should, but it isn’t.
For many years in my civil service career, I hid my depression and anxiety for the usual reasons. I didn’t want to appear weak, I didn’t want it to be used for my employer to get rid of me (this was in my imagination), I knew there was a massive stigma about mental health. There still is.
In my final years in the civil service, I came out as mentally ill. I had somehow managed to muddle through for some 30 years but there came a point when I could continue to pretend all was well. To my surprise, my managers were hugely sympathetic and better still supportive as were my close work colleagues. I suspect they had been well aware of my wildly fluctuating moods and my regular inability to retain information but, perhaps, put it down to something else, like not being very bright or easily distracted. In fact, my school reports all said I couldn’t concentrate on anything and was easily distracted. But then mental illness didn’t exist when I was at school.
Having finally left an empathetic and caring employer, I eventually found one that was the opposite. Having had a dream of a manager in my first year at the British Red Cross, for my second year I had a nightmare for my second. Experiencing bullying and abuse for the first time in my life, my mental health suffered terribly to the point where I suffered a full-on breakdown. The point here was that I could not go to HR to talk about it since they were based at the other end of the country and no one believed me. Indeed, the CEO of the British Red Cross himself, one Mike Adamson, actually wrote to me confirming that the bullying and abuse I suffered did not actually happen. There is not much you can do when the CEO calls you a liar.
As a victim of bullying and abuse, the British Red Cross decided that it was clearly my fault, so I was moved to the equivalent of a broom cupboard in the refugee centre in Easton to work completely on my own. What could I do about this? Complain and then get the sack? I suspect they moved me in order that I leave of my own accord. Oh, and they sent me to the Occupational Health Officer at an office by Bristol Temple Meads station.
I was a wreck at the OHS and boy did she confirm it in her report. I was “emotionally weak”, she declared. That really boosted my confidence, I can tell you. There was me, bullied to the point of breakdown, being described as “emotionally weak”. I had seen myself more as a survivor, following a complicated childhood, dominated by poverty, punctuated by poor mental health and compounded by a shortage of parents. If she had sat there and told me to fuck off and jump off the Clifton Suspension Bridge, I wouldn’t have felt much worse.
My story is anecdotal, I know, but remember that the British Red Cross is an intentionally renowned humanitarian organisation. They knew all about my mental health issues. They were in my CV and I discussed them openly at my job interview in 2015. However, when push came to shove, they took the side of the bullies. In fact, after one instance of bullying they asked ME to go on an anger management course.
I have changed as a person since my time with the British Red Cross. I now work for another employer that treats me like a hardworking human being. But more than ever, I watch my Ps and Qs, I am extra careful in everything I say and do, I rarely speak unless spoken to. And I still have nightmares about it.
Ten years before I started working for the Red Cross in Bristol, Princes William and Harry spent a day at that very office, helping to pack supplies for the effort to help the Maldives following their devastating tsunami. If only they’d been around when I was having my breakdown. They’d have seen for themselves why mental health at work remains such a stigma.
