The Workplace Catch-22

Workplace accommodation for people with mental illnesses is a real Catch-22.

Say you have an accident and lose a leg. You need to heal, be fitted with a prosthesis, go through rehabilitation and learn to walk again. Perhaps you’ll learn to use a wheelchair. Eventually, you’ll return to work – probably be welcomed back – and receive accommodations.

No questions asked. Everyone will bend over backwards to ensure you transition well into your new life, help you adapt to your new way of doing things and adjust to your new challenges.

Say you’re applying for a job. If you’re well qualified and in a wheelchair, why shouldn’t you have as good a shot as anyone else at landing that job?

But what happens if you have a mental health issue? If you’re good at what you do, well educated and trained, what do you do?

Announce in a job interview that you’ve had some emotional problems and may need some accommodation from time to time? Try that, and you’ll probably be shown the door before you have a chance to whip out your resume.

All colleges and universities offer students with any number of physical, developmental and emotional issues accommodations, but that simply doesn’t happen in “the real world.”

That’s wrong. Unfair. Unjust. Discriminatory.

You rarely hear the thousands of success stories about people thriving with their mental health issues because people simply don’t talk about them. They hide them. Pray nothing happens. Live with their secrets in fear.

How many CEOs drink excessively? How many managers white knuckle their way through a workday and fall apart at night?

It’s easier to hide a mental health issue than a prosthetic leg or a wheelchair, but no less important to ensure that talented, well-educated, creative people be given equal opportunities to contribute to society in any way they can. That means in the workplace.

This is the great Catch-22 employees must face.

You can’t receive appropriate accommodation unless your employer knows how you need to be accommodated. And how will they know if you don't tell them?

This is a human rights issue.

You should be able to be honest about a mental health issue without fear of never being hired. Or worse, being fired. And employers should be able to look beyond it. There are so many people with gambling, drinking and drug abuse problems who slip through the cracks because these addictions – and they are serious, dangerous mental health issues – are for some reason considered “acceptable.”

Why should a mood disorder, an anxiety problem or any mental illness that’s well controlled be less acceptable?

It's wrong. Unfair. Unjust. Discriminatory.

Someone who’s worked hard to recover and maximize their health – physical and mental – is a better bet in the workplace. Better equipped to cope, communicate, listen, empathize, work hard and be a great team player. If given a chance, loyal to the end.

Try telling that to an employer. Most of them see only potential problems. Never potential successes. The Toronto Sun hired me, knowing I had a mental illness, because they saw my potential and wanted to give me a chance. Now Seneca College has done the same thing.

I didn’t hide anything. Why should you have to if you’re applying for a job? Be honest and up front. Explain what you need to help you do the best job you can do. A good employer welcomes such information.

There is no question that a healthy workplace - mentally and physically - is a more profitable workplace.

Nobody's perfect. We’re all vulnerable. Life isn't a linear path. Things happen. There are bumps along the road. We all have problems, and we all deserve a chance to prove ourselves. To work hard and succeed.

Emotional and physical health issues should be treated equally in the workplace. Everywhere.

How can we make this happen? By opening our minds. Overcoming our own fears and ignorance. Educating ourselves. Throwing out the old stereotypes and myths about mental illnesses – and treating people as individuals. As human beings. With enormous potential.

And beautiful minds.

Try This Survey on Mental Health

I don’t understand why anyone cares about the views on mental health, mental illness and addictions of a small random sample of Canadians – 1002 - in the Canadian Medical Association’s National Report Card on Health.

Furthermore, I don’t understand why these views were showcased on every major media broadcast when this “Report Card” was released a few weeks ago.

Like who cares?

Are these 1002 randomly chosen Canadians experts on mental health and wellness? Do they deserve to have their opinions – mostly uninformed opinions, no doubt, publicized widely?

Looking at this 35 page document in its entirety, I am completely baffled by what this survey commissioned by the Canadian Medical Association proves.

Nothing new. Some rather damaging and discriminatory opinions were given media attention. Sadly, when people see something in print, or hear it on TV or the radio, they tend to believe it’s true. So what does this survey do? Spread misinformation and increase society prejudice, discrimination, fear and ignorance about people who may have diagnoses of mental illnesses. Or mental health issues. That’s just about everybody, these days.

For example, take this statement from a section in the report on the “Likelihood of Interacting with People Who have Had a Mental Illness or Addiction.” My first question is, why bother even asking the question?

Here’s what the report, on page 28, said:

“Canadians were asked on a scale of zero to 10, where zero means not at all likely and 10 means very likely, how likely they would be to interact in any of several ways with individuals who have a serious mental illness, a mental illness, clinical depression, alcohol addiction or drug addiction. 

“A majority of respondents say they would socialize with a friend who has a mental illness (58%) or is clinically depressed (56%), while just fewer than half (49%) would socialize with a friend who had a serious mental illness.”

What is the point of even asking this question? Who cares?

No one has ever not socialized with me because of my diagnoses of schizophrenia and then bipolar disorder. Instead of asking such questions that inflate the already far-too-prevalent level of ignorance and fear in our society about people with diagnoses of mental illnesses, don’t you think it’s about time people started hearing positive stories about people with mental health issues? And frankly, do you know anyone who hasn’t at some time in their lives, faced depression, anxiety or stress, to name but a few?

My friend Harold A. Maio of Fort Myers, Florida, the former consulting editor of the "Psychiatric Rehabilitation Journal" and sits on the advisory board of the "American Journal of Psychiatric Rehabilitation", spends his days as a media watchdog, especially on matters of linguistics and mental health. Here’s the survey he would like to see.

I couldn’t agree with him more. So ask yourself these questions:

1. Are you aware that 1 in 5 people will personally experience a mental health problem?
2. Are you aware that the vast majority are, and will remain, employed? (You never hear about them, because they are so frightened of disclosing their issues.)
3. Are you aware that mental illnesses exist in numbers similar to physical illnesses?
4. Are you aware that mental illnesses, like physical illnesses, vary in degree from mild to severe?
5. Are you aware there are treatments for mental illnesses?

I would add:

6. Are you aware that you can recover from serious mental illnesses? This doesn’t mean there is a cure, but there is recovery.
7. Are you acquainted with a family member who is dealing with a mental illness?
8. Are you acquainted with a friend who is dealing with a mental illness?
9. Are you acquainted with a co-worker who is dealing with a mental illness?
10. Are you yourself dealing with a mental illness?
11. Describe your interactions vis-à-vis any of the above.

I would answer yes to all 10 of those questions and would respond to number 11 by saying that I interact with people in a multitude of ways, regardless of their mental or physical issues. Every human being is unique and I love to celebrate difference. I enjoy people and treat them as they treat me. I always begin as positively as I can and often that positive energy is returned to me. I have a remarkable relationship with my psychiatrist, who supports me in everything I do and who is happy to agree to disagree with me on certain matters.

We both agree that mental health recovery means maximizing one’s wellness.

It’s about time the media and the Canadian Medical Association started surveying Canadians about the advances people with mental health issues are making.

The “Good News” stories.

If the media stopped blaming us for every random act of violence that cannot be explained, that would be one major advance in fighting the innate prejudice, discrimination, fear and ignorance that still pervades the collective consciousness of our society.

It’s about time!

The Stresses and Joys of Living with a Nursing Bitch

When it comes to babies, puppies are the opposite of people.

One healthy baby is a blessing. More, are more blessings, but you need more than two hands to handle them.

With puppies, you want lots. The bigger the litter, the better. Puppies don’t open their eyes until they’re two weeks old, nor can they shiver. They cannot regulate their body temperature and must be kept very warm.

With three, four, five or more siblings to snuggle up to, keeping toasty is much easier.

The last thing you want is a singleton.

Dandie Dinmont Terriers have small litters. Two or Three. That’s why they’re on the endangered list.

At 3:58 a.m., on Monday, August 4, Lucy had her puppy.

A singleton male.

My breeder broke her vow of silence and emailed me this news.

She also nicknamed him The Phantom because she never saw him eating.

The first 48 hours are critical. He must thrive to survive. Neither she, up in Stouffville, nor I, down here in Thornhill, slept those first two days.

Then, The Phantom fooled her. He started suckling. Lucy, it turns out, was a very good mother and took extraordinary care of her little baby.

When my Breeder was convinced the puppy was safe and strong enough, she brought him home in a shoe box. Lucy seemed lovelier than before her baby was born. Motherhood suits her. They’re now living in my study, the warmest room in the house. No windows or doors are open. I'm working in The Tropics in here.

He’s growing as fat as a piglet. Mind you, Lucy is bored stiff. Not much to do with one puppy. To help her stay focused, we’ve installed an Ex-Pen around the whelping box. Jail, as far as she’s concerned.

Meanwhile, I must keep my male, Riley, far away. If Lucy senses him anywhere close to her baby, she’ll attack.

A baby gate at the bottom of the stairs prevents him from coming up to the second floor. I must climb over it every time I go downstairs. As a result, I have made one-tenth the number of visits to the fridge that I normally do and lost 10 pounds.

Yes, the Baby Gate Barricade Diet definitely works.

Yesterday, at 16 days old, the puppy opened his eyes, which are blue. They’ll change. This means, he’s able to shiver, so any fear of his freezing has evaporated.

We feel reasonably confident he’ll survive, as long as Lucy doesn’t jump on him as she is wont to do. We’ve named him, Auggie, short for Augustus, after my maternal grandmother, Augusta. His new owners will change it, but for the next nine weeks, while he’s with us, Auggie the Doggie, he is.

Why I have told you this little tale?

Simple. The last three months of living with and worrying about a pregnant bitch and now a nursing bitch and her initially fragile singleton puppy have taught me the miracle of nature. Childless, this is as close as I’ll ever get to motherhood.

At the same time, it puts things into perspective. Every morning, when I open the door to my study, there they are together. Mother suckling child. A perfect nurturing system. She’s his whole world. She feeds him and cleans him and cares for him.

I haven’t had time to worry about my own mental state. I’m too focused on a little dog and her baby. It’s been a refreshing change. Exhausting, but thrilling, too.

Better than a holiday.

Today, my husband and I celebrate our eighth wedding anniversary. Another miracle of nature, but that’s another story.

We’ll be spending the evening babysitting our little brood, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Have a great weekend!

 

The Stresses of Living With a Pregnant Bitch – A Cautionary Tale

My husband Marty and I belong to the Dandie Dinmont Terrier Club of Canada which has one mission – to preserve and promote this unique, endearing, but endangered breed of Terrier.

We brought home our first Dandie, Riley, in 2003 at age 13 weeks. He was so calm and lethargic, someone accused me of drugging him. He’s easygoing, undemanding and sweet-natured. The perfect dog. Marty nicknamed him, “Galumph, Galumph.”

Now, four and a half years old, Riley is a Canadian Champion and a sensational stud. His progenitor's role was child’s play.

We drove to our breeder’s home where Riley was promptly taken downstairs to the “sex room.” I sat  sipping tea with the charming owner of Lily, his female consort. Painless.

In nine weeks, Lily produced three puppies. One, Charlie, went on to fame and fortune as a Canadian and British champion. He’s also prolific stud.

Then Lucy came into our lives in 2005 with a sensational pedigree. We knew, some day in the distant future, she would be bred... but who can think of that with a scrumptious little puppy in your midst.

Furthermore, we couldn’t imagine Lucy being a mother.

She’s a typical second child. Demanding and delicious at the same time. She takes after her father, a British Dandie named Dazzle. Small, perpetually puppyish, aggressively friendly. She attracts trouble. We call her “Miss Chiff.”

Well, her day came.

I’ve never been pregnant, so I didn’t think much about life with a pregnant bitch.

Also, I must stress something right now, if you’re wondering why I’m telling you this.

For me, sleep deprivation very quickly triggers mania. During the latter half of Lucy’s pregnancy, I teetered between madness and sanity.

A canine’s gestation period is 63 days – nine weeks. For the first five, nothing changed. Except Lucy calmed down. It was heaven. Normally, the alpha male, now, she wouldn’t play with Riley, frustrating him no end.

She just licked my feet, gazed up at me longingly with her huge dark brown eyes, bonding with me as her hormones kicked in.

Our vet confirmed Lucy’s pregnancy at five weeks, so we added hard boiled eggs, cottage cheese and Green Tripe to her increased portions of kibble.

There was major mammary action happening, too. Her seven breasts started bulging and hanging down. Her nipples were huge. We began calling her “Dolly.”

And now she was peeing all the time. Squealing to let us know. At 4 a.m. or earlier, she had to go.

I began feeling tired all the time. The odd curious thought flashed through my mind.

Our days began before dawn and ended after midnight.  As her puppies grew, pressuring her bladder, she need to pee every half hour.

I needed Benzodiazepines to sleep.

By Day 49, we were taking her temperature with a child’s flexible rectal thermometer and charting it. A sudden drop would signal when she is going to whelp. She was ravenous. Eating three meals a day. By day 53, her temperature was taken and charted three times a day and her urinary demands were running our lives.

Nervous. Worried. Excited. A little scared. We felt like Lucy’s hostages.

On day 58, I delivered my beautiful bulging bitch to the breeder. Her due date was between day 59 to 63. I couldn’t face this. I was a zombie.

I needed sleep and all I wanted was congratulatory email and healthy puppies.

Next: The stresses of living with a first-time mother and her new born offspring. Lucy's pregnancy proved carefree by comparison.

Fighting The Language Wars

Recently, Philip Dawdy posted Notes on Language on his Furious Seasons mental health blog.

I have enormous respect for Dawdy. He’s an intrepid Seattle journalist who challenges the corruption of Big Pharma and the injustices of the U.S. healthcare system, defending the rights of people everywhere who struggle with mental health issues. His powerful, passionate and eloquent writing breaks important stories faster than anyone else, anywhere.

He also takes his readers' concerns to heart and helps them find their voices.

This was the first time I've seen him wade in on language, which, as you know, is one of my passions.

Philip and I share a distaste for political correctness but differ on whether we can control language in our culture.

He doesn’t think we can.

I do.

I’m fully prepared to wage a language war around mental health issues because language and linguistics determine how we think, perceive and communicate.

Changing language changes our reality. In mental health, tragically, the reality is still very sick.

To inspire a dialogue on what has far too long been a taboo subject, for more than 10 years, I've done public speaking and advocacy. Lately, my talks often touch on "The Power of Language and Madness," a word I prefer to all the labels doctors have given it since they started running asylums a few hundred years ago, and renaming, inventing and cataloguing different disorders in 1952. That’s when the American Psychiatric Association published its first Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders or DSM.

The DSM isn’t only a diagnostic handbook, it’s used for billing purposes, too. In Canada, to be covered for a psychiatric visit by our so-called universal health insurance plan, you need a psychiatric diagnosis.

“Back in 1994,” Dawdy wrote, “the nice folks who make the DSM changed manic depression to bipolar disorder. The thinking was that a new term would clear the decks for patients and reduce social stigma and the general public wouldn't react with fear upon hearing the term bipolar disorder the way they did when they heard manic depression. We know how that worked out, right?"

Sure didn't help.

I think, "Manic Depression" is a much better descriptor than "bipolar disorder." I lived through that linguistic transition and it was really confusing.

At 18, I found out I was diagnosed with schizophrenia at age 12, and then catatonic schizophrenia at age 17.

I had to look those two words up. It was devastating. Took me years to overcome the damage they inflicted on my psyche. I internalized those labels. Believed deep down that there was something terribly, terribly wrong with my mind, my being. Me.

That’s the power of language.

So give me madness. It’s a good umbrella term. Short. To the point. It carries some baggage, but remember Shakespeare. He had it right. All his “Fools” were mad and spoke the truth.

As a kid, I was name-called. “Mental,” was one. Ever since, I’ve had an aversion to that word, especially when it’s coupled with "illness."

How can the mind become ill or diseased like a body part?

Broken bones? Sure.

Broken minds? I don’t think so.

Language is living. Never static. I use it as I like. It's my signature.

The best way to fight prejudice, discrimination, fear and ignorance is to use language honestly, accurately and thoughtfully. Responsibly.

Political correctness is a crock. It muddies the discourse.

So do silly labels that don't mean anything, need to be defined, and are really there so doctors can bill.

Manic depression is an ancient term rooted in Latin. “Manic” means madness. Depression or "depress" means to feel utterly dispirited and dejected. Also rooted in Latin.

It doesn't need to be defined. It's universally understood.

There's no etymology for the word "bipolar."

When psychiatrists started changing the language, I think they blew it.

I get manic. Very high. Never depressed. I'm unipolar. People think I'm lucky.

Until I add, "No, manic, for me, means psychotic, insane. I need to be hospitalized to come down."

Then they get the picture.

See what I mean about language?

Jumping for Joy

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been guilty of two of the seven deadly sins.

Gluttony and Sloth.

Well, I guess that’s exaggerating a bit. I just love to eat and I hate to exercise. Deadly combination.

This is typical of me. I’m an all-or-nothing-kinda-gal. I’m either losing weight, at which I am very good, or gaining it back, at which I am even better. And lightning fast. I’m a Lifetime member of Weight Watchers, with about 80 lb. to lose. I have never, ever maintained a weight loss for more than a weekend.

I’ve run a 10 K though I came in seventh from last. I’ve pumped all kinds of iron. Walked and run on treadmills and elliptical machines. I’ve boxed. Stretched. Skipped. Power-walked. With trainers and without trainers. I've lapped 44 lengths of an Olympic pool every morning at 5 a.m. before work. My wardrobe spans size six to infinity.

I’ve also wasted more money than I care to imagine on lapsed, unused gym memberships.

Conservatively, I’ve gained and lost at least 2,000 lb. in my lifetime. More than 907 kilograms.

If Yo-Yo dieting was an Olympic Sport, I’d be a multiple Gold Medalist.

So, why am I telling you this? Why am I jumping for joy?

This week, Liz Spikol, Philadelphia Weekly senior editor and one of my favourite bloggers, alerted her readers to a Vital Signs item in the Health section of The New York Times.

Exercise, it seems, isn’t all its cracked up to be when it comes to alleviating the symptoms of depression.

Now, you know, depression isn’t one of my problems. Mania is.

So this shouldn’t matter to me, but I’ll tell you why it does.

In my addled mind, it simply proves that the medical establishment doesn’t really know what causes depression or how brain chemistry really works.

It shows me the brain is not necessarily where the mind is located or vice versa.

Psychiatrists hate it when I suggest this. But, since I've been in psychiatry longer than my psychiatrist – Dr. Bob was finishing Grade 13 when I was first sent to a psychiatrist in 1960 – I figure my close to 48-years of experience has validity.

Psychiatry has been the through-line of my life. I have my ideas. And I try to follow the research, but at the same time, keep my eye firmly in the Recovery camp, too.

I do not believe psychiatric diagnoses equal Brain Disease! I do believe the mind is a holistic concept that encompasses all one's life experiences, feelings, traumas, perceptions, emotions, education. Everything.

I do not believe psychiatry is very scientific. Psychiatrists would love this to be so, but it really isn't. Yet. At one time, psychiatry and neurology were one branch of medicine — neuropsychiatry. Then, in 1948, that specialty was split into neurology, the science. And psychiatry, black magic, I like to call it.

There has been progress, and I'm not an anti-psychiatry advocate. I do not believe in throwing the baby out with the bath water. Freud introduced the practice of talk therapy.

I am critical. And I have an open mind.

Also, I know that prescribing of drugs to control behavioural symptoms proves nothing about the cause of these symptoms. It just controls behaviour.

Tylenol can soothe the pain of a headache, but does it tell you what the cause of that headache is?

The other reason I'm jumping for joy is that it seems what I've always believed is actually true.

Being fat doesn't necessarily mean you're unhealthy.

And being thin doesn't always mean you're healthy.

This week, this is big news everywhere, but Liz Spikol's blog The Trouble With Spikol, about mental health links to another of my favourite bloggers, Well, also from New York Times health writer Tara Parker-Hope. Liz posts a great picture, so have a look.

We're all different. I think that psychiatrists are desperately afraid of difference. They read it as "abnormal," which means nothing to me. I've never conformed.

I wish everyone could celebrate their "specialness," instead of trying to "cure" it. Forget what the psychiatrists tell you and their gobbledygook labels and language.

It's all madness. I like Shakespeare's take on it. All his Fools were mad and spoke the truth in his plays.

Be yourself. Try to find something that makes you feel good. Even if it's a walk in the park in the sunshine.

Licking an ice cream cone.

Simplify. Simplify. Simplify.

Taking a break...

I’m taking a vacation. One week. I feel I need it.

My two recent posts on ECT, DBS, VNS, rTMS for TRD required a great deal of research and generated some very heated reaction in my email box – but not in public comments.

I spent the whole weekend writing personal emails and fielding insults from angry and hurting people who don’t agree with what I wrote, and have had very different experiences from mine.

Disagreement is fine. I want you to disagree with me. That’s what comment boxes are for and what blogging is all about. It’s turns an opinion into a dialogue or as the headline said, “A Charged Debate.”

This was different. The public debate I expected fizzled. It went into my in-box where it dies.

Only one person, Susan, had the courage to comment. She is an award-winning journalist from New jersey, with her own excellent blog and her own horror story about ECT.

Yet she thought my story “was good” and that I “did a good job,” she wrote in her comment.

None of the others would post publicly, and what I really couldn’t understand is how they refused to acknowledge my own personal experience with ECT. In the 1960s and 1970s I had several courses of between six and 12 treatments of bilateral ECT administered at The Clarke Institute of Psychiatry.

Here's the problem I think these people had with me. Those ECT treatments did not damage my brain.

It was all on the record.

I always joke to my husband, that if it had damaged my brain, beforehand, I must have been absolutely brilliant – and I wasn’t. My only side effect was a tiny bit of temporary memory loss. It all returned within a few months.

One person, who will remain nameless, insulted me, attacked my journalism and then in his response to my email to him, admitted that he had never even read my blog.

This man is a leader in the anti-psychiatry movement. I’m speechless.

I asked my good friend Tanya Shute her thoughts on all this.

Tanya is an activist, “survivor” – a label I don’t like but will settle for here because it’s relevant – and executive director of The Krasman Centre for Community Mental Health in Richmond Hill.

Here’s what Tanya said: “ECT is one of those topics that really fires people up. I think that people think the consumer survivor movement is all anti-ECT. The people who I have a lot of respect for in the mental health community have spoken about the positive outcomes for them with ECT, as well as many who have had negative experiences.

“The point for us is that people have informed consent and choice, not whether we agree with the modality. Many people who I have seen have serious criticisms of the mental health system but are positive about their experiences of ECT.

“I think it is one of the most controversial topics in our field – and you became a scapegoat for this guy’s anger about ECT. Don’t forget, just because people are psychiatric survivors doesn’t mean that there aren’t assholes among us. Recovery is about dissent, resilience, rebellion -- keep yours up, and your chin too just in case you get sucker-punched again.”

Thank you, Tanya. I knew I could rely on your support and wisdom.

One more thing… I made a mistake in my July 25 post when I wrote that ECT was invented in Germany in the 1930s. It was invented in Italy in 1938. I spotted it yesterday.

Curiously, in all the criticism I received by email, no one pointed this mistake out to me.

Have a great week and stay well.

Cheers,
Sandy