Living as a Working Professional with a Mental Illness

By Melina Saliba 

When your livelihood depends on whether your brain will let you get out of bed, wash your face, and take the 7:20 a.m. train to work, you begin to realise how little control you have over your life. Everything seems too bright, too loud, too close. You rehearse your good mornings, map out the closest route to the bathroom, the front door, a safe space. You calculate how many minutes you can get away from your desk without seeming suspicious. Or worse, lazy. 

The stigma surrounding working professionals with mental health problems stems from years of internalised language about how we get to choose how we feel. Chemical imbalances are a myth, and we all need to grow up and do our jobs. Stop being so selfish. Stop being a child. 

I still can’t put into words the shame I felt waking up every day terrified that I would have to email my boss that I couldn’t come in because of a family emergency, or a trip to the hospital, or an unexpected stomach bug. All these lies sounded better than the truth: I’m having an anxiety attack. How embarrassing. An anxiety attack isn’t supposed to happen every day. They’re meant to be reserved for especially horrible occasions, not the thought of having to commute to work or speak in front of a group of people. 

Most days, I went to work with these thoughts bubbling just beneath the surface. I memorised my route to the bathroom, which stalls no one used, which corner of the building had the least traffic. I would press my face into my knees, the stopwatch on my phone doing its daily job, waiting until it hit zero. When it did, I would be forced back to reality. I would walk back to my desk, my palms decorated in jagged half-moons from where my nails sank into them. 

Pills doctors prescribed to ease my mind were tossed into the trash, buried beneath used tissues and wrappers so that they wouldn’t serve as a reminder of my failure. But this was wrong. Refusal to admit that we need help isn’t healthy. Our body’s warning signs that this is not how we’re meant to feel should not be ignored. When they are ignored, the war waging in our minds will eventually manifest itself in a more obvious space. It creeps out of your brain and takes hold of your skin and your stomach; you’ll get ulcers and clumps of your hair will fall out. 

I waited as long as I could to verbalise what was happening. I realised that this wasn’t my fault. I realised the conversations I was having with friends weren’t normal. I only slept 3 hours last night. Yeah? I only slept for 2. 

When did it become a competition of who was more tired, hungry, weak, who was hurting the most? The sad reality is that this is what I and many I know in professional environments have been conditioned to deal with. But once we realise this pre-constructed, outdated mode of operating in our day to day lives is simply not sustainable for a great deal of us, the chain begins to break. 

One of the most difficult parts of my journey of tackling my mental health was learning that it’s okay to need a break. It’s okay to feel overwhelming, all-consuming feelings. We can’t be rational all the time, and that’s okay. Prioritising yourself – and yourself alone – is freeing. We’re ultimately meant to live for ourselves, not to paint on a version that tricks the world into thinking that we’re okay, that we’re not a liability. 

The notion that women are shrill and dramatic and cannot physically contain their emotions is, for lack of a better word, absolute bullshit. When mental health problems manifest in a more visual way, women are immediately deemed unstable. We have to start learning what our bodies and brains do. Anxiety is your brain telling your body that there is danger present. It’s innate in all of us. We can’t flip a switch and turn our anxiety off. We have to work through it – as dirty, ugly, and uncomfortable as that process may be. 

I implore you to look within yourself. How are you feeling, really? If the answer isn’t great, that’s okay. Put yourself on the top of your list and focus your energy. You deserve peace. Having a career and anxiety are not mutually exclusive, so it is time we normalise talking about mental health in professional environments.