Self-Judgement & Mental Health

Burnout is at an all-time high. Employers continue to make cutbacks and what was once a workload shared among 4 or 5 people, is now the job of 1. Employees are expected to work early and rewarded when they are the last to leave. It is now a norm to work through lunch breaks; we have work mobiles so we have access to our emails in the evenings and at weekends. Downtime is rare, if not completely non-existent, and this is what we are teaching the younger generations. We are teaching them that their time is not their own, they are not free; their time and life are owned and duty bound to line the pockets of another.

We live in constant fear that our jobs are not safe, and our KPIs continue to rise to match the continuous rise in the cost of … well everything! Yet our pay stays the same. How many of you feel any of the below, honestly?

• Sense of failure and self-doubt, lack of confidence
• Feeling helpless, trapped, and defeated
• Detachment, feeling alone in the world
• Loss of motivation
• Increasingly cynical and negative outlook
• Decreased satisfaction and sense of accomplishment
• Headaches, migraines, skin problems or general lowered immune system
• Lack of sleep, difficulty getting to sleep, insomnia
• Irritability and mood swings
• Difficulty concentrating and being less efficient
• Running late when you never used to be or being forgetful

Even three of these mean you are potentially suffering from burnout. A certain amount of stress can be energizing. For example, an urgent deadline can sharpen your concentration and push you to keep on going. Too much stress, however, especially over long periods of time, has the opposite effect.

When we reach that burnt-out stage, usually with a tremendous amount of urging and validation from others we might take some time off because we are sick. Usually, it will come down to the GP signing you off sick for stress, depression, and/or anxiety. When we have been signed off, how many of us truly feel we have the ‘right’ to be at home, recouping? Personally, I know I don’t. Goodness, why do we feel the need to let it get to a ‘diagnosis’ stage before we act?!

I have taken time off to recoup before and I have felt so damn guilty about it, that I have gone back to work when I was in a terrible headspace. Instead of using the time my GP had validated I needed, I sat there terrified my handover wasn’t good enough or whether my clients were being taken good care of. What if I had made a mistake and someone else has to pick it up and deal with it? Would I even have a job to go back to?

I was signed off because I was stressed, but not being at work, was making me more stressed! So incredibly counter-intuitive is it not? I sat trying to unwind, but instead of actually succeeding at this, I was worrying incessantly about how my being off would affect my team, my clients, my students, and my standing with the boss. I’m a hard worker, known as a person who digs deep and shows grit and resilience. Yet, instead of focusing on my health, I worried if this ‘spin’ would undo the good reputation I had built for myself over the last several years. Would I go back to work and be seen as a flakey or even an unreliable team member?

It’s bananas. We are raised, taught, and shown that self-care is selfish and boundaries are not fair to other people. We are worked into the ground and told to keep grinding no matter the cost to our health or relationships. Taking time off for ourselves makes us an unreliable colleague, unfit to carry out the thousand and one duties of our role, one of those colleagues.

To hell with that!

It’s a lesson I learned the hard way. All of us are replaceable in a work setting; none of us are irreplaceable. Family, our own mental health and well-being, friends, our own life, these things are irreplaceable. If we let our mental health suffer too much and for too long, there’s a real possibility of doing ourselves some very deep harm psychologically.

We don’t need a piece of paper, signed by a GP that most people never get to actually see in person. We aren’t in school, college, or university; we don’t need a letter from parents to explain why we can’t take part in physical education or to excuse us for a dentist appointment. If we’re burning too bright and our stress levels are through the roof, take time off. I know it’s hard, but don’t judge yourself for all the things you “should” be doing. “To-do” lists are a self-fulfilling prophecy. The point of them is to write down action points to consider and take next – it’s never going to be blank for long (if ever!).

The Maori tribes in New Zealand have one of the highest rates of work-life balance and life satisfaction. They prioritise family, connectedness, culture, and health. The practice of the concept of Whanaungatanga within these tribes is exceptionally healing and certainly encourages positive, healthy attachments, alongside the promotion of self-empowerment. Yet on the other side of the globe, we have learned to internalise self-hate, guilt, anxiety, and a whole host of unhealthy concepts, and we suffer for it.

In the UK we are supposed to be better than in previous years at accepting “mental health.” Why then, do we still see it as a weakness to ask for help? Why is there still a stigma in attending therapy, depending on a network of good friends and family? Why do we isolate ourselves within our own family systems? Why is it “better” to hide our difficulties as opposed to sharing them?

Having a problem with your mental health is no different from having a problem with your physical health. Gallstones, heart attack, broken bone. They are no different from having a panic attack, a deepening depression, or a fugue state. Neither is more important than the other, all are deserving of time off work and all require assistance from more than one person. A GP, a nurse, a radiologist, a specialist; a counselor, a psychotherapist, your family, friends? None of these deserves a response of shame or guilt, not the physical and not the psychological. Time is required for both to heal. You wouldn’t keep walking on a broken leg, right?

So why keep working with a broken central-nervous-system?