WORK BY SHIFT COLLECTIVE

Mental illness is hard to describe. It’s so experiential that words rarely do justice to what it is - living hell. But two statements have recently stuck out to me as accurate descriptors of the exhausting depression-anxiety combo that I’ve dealt with on-and-off the past four years of my life.

Anxiety is the torturous pain of burning alive while simultaneously drowning.

Depression is the feeling of all happiness draining from your body, leaving you only with the cold numbness of dread and hopelessness.

Cliché and melodramatic maybe, but these two statements sum up my personal experience in the fight against my own mind - both inside and outside the workplace.

My first experiences in the workplace were terrifying. Beginning the first (of many) attempts with anti-depressants, sitting at my desk going through spreadsheets, contacting impatient customers and constantly fearing the judgment in my manager’s eyes. My hands shook and my head screamed in pain from the medication’s side-effects.

I spent the next two months working there, fumbling my way through the nine-to-five as best as my incredibly anxious mind would allow. Nearly every day was a momentous challenge and I felt near hollow by the time people started clearing out of the office. In a workplace where a projection of confidence in the face of every challenge was most sought after, I didn’t last particularly long.

Thus began my series of short-lived jobs, all of which my mental health inevitably brought to an embarrassing termination.

It’s taken me a long time to recognize the legitimacy of mental illness, to stop reducing it to a mere weakness of character, and accept it instead as a disease that can be as debilitating as any other physical impairment. Had I walked into work the first day arm in a sling or leaning on crutches, I might still be employed there.

Regardless, the past is the past and I shouldn’t waste any further space on self-pity.

Approximately one in every five Australians experiences some form of mental illness. That’s a large proportion of people in pain, expected to go to work every day and perform to a standard that ignores their disability.

The answer is to talk to your workplace union representative, and go to work from a position of power, not vulnerability. Mental illness is union business, as are the workplace factors that make your mental health worse: stress, bullying, and overwork. The way work is, people are often divided up and cubicled off, and lots of the time they don’t feel like they can turn to the person next to them and ask for help. Let’s face it: a lot of the time, work is not the most supportive place for people with mental illness. You have to put on a front, and maintain it, by conveying the impression of self-control, calmness, happiness, friendliness, and optimism pretty much constantly. This applies whether or not your anxiety is making you feel your airways are closing, and your heart is palpitating you into a painful, stressful death. Employers expect their workers to be productive, alert, co-operative, and positive when they’re on the clock. But depression doesn’t work in shifts. You can’t flick it on and off, and the rising insecurity of jobs stacks another stress on top of the pile: if I don’t cover up my mental illness, will I get enough shifts next week? Will my contract be renewed? Am I putting in enough effort, to please the boss? Or can people see through the façade, and see how desperately unhappy and anxious I really am?

Getting together with the other people in your workplace is the only way to fight your way out of this dynamic. Alone, a single sufferer has little bargaining power to push back against the boss. If everybody’s individualised, the workplace becomes even worse for people with mental illness: higher targets, less breaks, more bullying, less support, more competition, more overtime, and the collapse of the work-life balance. Individual employers may even have sympathy for your particular needs, but the profit motive has no such scruples. The game isn’t based on sympathy. There is more money to be made by squeezing out people with mental illness, and replacing them with somebody who doesn’t have those issues, or somebody who can hide those problems better.BUT: if everybody’s together, it’s like a lot of previously-shameful social phenomena -  it’s all out in the open, so there’s nothing to be ashamed about. Mental illness is increasingly recognised as an OHS issue – but like other safety practices, this will only become normalised if people organise to get it. If we want workplaces that respect the rights of people with mental illness, we need to fight for it together. Young workers need to organise, and build networks of solidarity within and across workplaces. Solidarity means that we can depend on the person in the cubicle next to us, or standing by us on the factory floor, working the till or the grill, stacking the shelves and mopping the floors. It means we can rely on those people as allies, who will stick up for our mental health. Chances are that lots of your workmates are doing it tough, just like you.They can ask us – and we can ask them – whether things are okay at home, whether it feels like it’s all too much, and what we can do to help.

The fight against yourself is an inherently lonely, isolating battle, but you’re not alone and the support is out there if you seek it out.

If you are experiencing mental health issues and need help, you can:

Call Lifeline on 13 11 14

Call beyondblue on 1300 22 4636