[MUSIC]
It's summer 2018, I'm sitting at my desk and one of my clients walks in.
He drops his bag on the floor and turns to the others in the office,
asking what they think of the latest headline
about Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court.
As the ten men around me casually debate whether he had actually assaulted Dr.
Blasey Ford, I feel my chest tighten.
I see them speaking, but their voices drop off and I can't hear anything.
I stumble to the bathroom in search of privacy.
As the memories begin to flood my brain, I bury my face in my palms.
I can't stop them.
Suddenly, someone walks into the bathroom and
the noise is enough to jolt me back into the present.
I take a deep shaky breath, and walk back to my desk as if nothing happened.
These episodes continued and became unbearable.
I knew I needed help, and
finally made an appointment with a therapist who would change my life.
She helped me see that these were PTSD-like flashbacks common among trauma
survivors.
I had thought these were work-related anxiety attacks.
I had no idea and I hadn't even realized that my client's comments where triggering
flashbacks to my own experience with sexual assault.
An experience I'd suppressed for years, now rearing its head.
It was clear I would need to make time for consistent regular therapy to address
these flashbacks and their underlying cause.
Unfortunately, the only time available in my therapist's
practice was Tuesday mornings at 9:30 AM,
right in the middle of the weekly update to our clients that I usually lead.
I dreaded bringing this up with my boss.
I didn't want him to think I was weak by disclosing that I was dealing with
a mental health issue.
I decided to frame it vaguely around a medical issue.
Surely he'd understand that.
I approached him one day on our way out of work,
stumbling over my words as I tried to blurt them out as quickly as possible.
I need to see a doctor weekly for treatment, and
the only time available is Tuesdays at 9:30 AM.
I know that conflicts with our weekly client meetings, but
this is a priority for me and I'm hoping you can help me.
He looks concerned.
Is this a serious medical issue?
Would extended medical leave be a better option?
No, now he actually thought I had a serious medical condition.
I decided to backtrack and tell him the truth.
No, no, it's nothing serious.
Well, it is serious.
I'm going through a tough time and I need to see a therapist weekly.
He nodded slowly, are there any other days of the week you could see your therapist?
Could you see them before or after working hours?
I shook my head, no, this is the only time available.
Maybe you could go every other week.
No, I need to see this person every week, that's non-negotiable.
He looked at me for a beat and I saw something shift in his face.
You know what, do what you have to do, we'll make it work.
As I reflect back on this experience, it makes me sad to realize that the only way
I thought my mental health would be taken seriously was to claim a physical illness.
If in 2018 I'd torn my ACL and needed physical therapy,
I would have had no problem going to my boss.
So why did it feel so much harder to share my mental health needs?
One year later, I myself was leading a team on a high profile,
high stress project with one of our largest clients.
And I could tell something was wrong.
One of the associates on my team, we'll call her Rachel, usually very focused and
high-performing, seemed distracted.
I checked in with her one-on-one and
she shared that she was struggling with depression, but
unable to consistently see her therapist because of our travel schedules.
As consultants, we typically traveled to be on site, at our clients,
Monday to Thursday, spending three nights on the road.
My heart ached for Rachel when she told me this.
I thought back to my moment of crisis here earlier and
I wanted to help her get the support she needed.
But again, I was nervous to bring it up with my boss.
I was concerned he might think that I and the team couldn't handle the pressures of
the job, which we'd signed up for knowing involved travel.
And I was up for a promotion, and I was worried my manager might doubt my
leadership abilities if I didn't tell Rachel, no, we have to be there.
This is what the client wants.
But I wasn't willing to tell her no,
I wanted to help her get the support she needed.
I knew firsthand the impact that an hour a week with my
therapist had made on my mental health, and I wanted the same for her.
I set up time with my boss and
I told him the team wanted to reduce our number of days on the road.
He initially pushed back saying, the clients aren't paying us to sit at home.
But eventually, after I emphasized the physical and mental toll this
was taking on the team, he agreed to try out a three day a week travel schedule.
The team stuck with it, and Rachel was able to see her therapist every Thursday.
Now, I don't claim to be the model of effective management, after all,
this was before my MBA.
>> [LAUGH] >> But
the impact that my personal experience had had on me allowed me to empathize with
Rachel and help her get the support she needs.
I recognize not every work environment will be this flexible.
But in the white collar, salaried work environments many of us will go into after
we graduate, why is it so hard to imagine a work environment where employees can
prioritize their mental health, even if it's just an hour a week for therapy?
My view is that making space for
mental health at work is hard because the stigma around mental health still exists.
80% of employees reported stigma in the workplace about
mental health in a recent survey from April 2021.
Which is astounding when you realize that in reality,
20% of American adults struggle with mental illness.
Let that sink in.
One in five American adults you walk by on the street, see in the grocery store, and
who are even sitting in this room,
are struggling with their mental health on a daily basis.
And to make matters worse, less than half of those people get the treatment or
support they need.
To put it into context, one in five Americans has been diagnosed with
COVID-19 to date, the same prevalence as mental illness.
Mental health is the pandemic we're not talking about.
Our deprioritization of mental health isn't a new challenge.
However, we have structurally valued mental health to a lesser degree
than physical health.
Mental health benefits are less likely to be covered by health insurance plans, and
are reimbursed at lower rates when they are.
The number of federally funded residency positions in psychiatry has
remained flat since the 1990s, even as the population has grown and
demand for mental health services has soared.
These are just a few of the systemic barriers preventing access to affordable
mental health services.
Today, I want to focus on what we all can do in our everyday lives to
break down the stigma around mental health, and
help people take that first step towards seeking care.
I believe we can accomplish this by shifting our perspective around mental
health to be equally as important as our physical health.
Prevention, trauma, and recovery exist in both realms.
Why should we think differently of either?
We can start by normalizing mental health at home, in our private lives, and
in conversations with friends and family, and also in our public lives, at work.
It's at work where I see the greatest potential for
a shift in stigma around mental health.
Now, much has been written about what corporations can do at an organizational
level to support employee mental health.
I want to focus on what we all can do in our everyday interactions at work to
support those struggling with mental health.
We can start by checking in on our people and
asking those on our teams what they need to be at their best.
Hear your employees and respect their needs,
without judging whether their needs are worth investing time into therapy.
Ask yourself if an employee or colleague of yours needed physical therapy,
would you respond differently?
And don't underestimate your role in creating a supportive work
environment through small changes to your daily schedule.
I challenge you to ask these questions of yourselves to better support those
struggling with mental health at work.
Can you be the one to role model what it looks like to make space for
mental health at work?
It might make a world of a difference to someone on your team, as it did for me.
I still see a psychologist every week, four years later, and
I am still working through the effects of the trauma I experienced.
But the impact of managers who respected the boundaries I set at work
cannot be overstated.
They took my mental health seriously and respected my needs when I made them known.
My team was fine without me at that weekly client meeting.
All I needed was a compassionate manager who was willing to step in for me.
I challenge you to be that compassionate manager for those on your teams and
in your workplace.
Thank you.
>> [APPLAUSE]
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