I'd be surprised if the people I worked with would think twice before working with someone that's been in psychiatric care, though I can't be sure, because I don't know that any of them did. I know that I wouldn't care. I have friends that stayed in hospitals for psychiatric reasons: they'd be great to work with, I think.
It’s still definitely a big deal. Note that the CIA and the NSA routinely declare ex-employees that whistleblow or leak as “mentally ill.”
It depends on the company. I worked for fairly “stolid” companies, for most of my career, and I suspect that they would treat mentally-ill people badly.
Mental illness is something that, unfortunately, I have a lot of experience with. I have severe mental illness in my family (I deal with it every day), and I spend a significant part of my life, interacting with folks at various stages of recovery from it.
I have been seeing therapists for much of my life. When I was a kid, I was diagnosed with autism, but was never told, so I spent decades, trying to “fix” myself, before finding out. Once I found out that I was “on the spectrum,” I realized that it can’t be “fixed”; only mitigated, and things started improving quickly, at that point.
That said, I think “mentally-ill” means “diagnosed and professionally-treated,” to most folks. It’s my opinion, that there’s a lot of undiagnosed/untreated mental illness out there. Just looking at the threads of interaction, on any Internet community, makes that clear. One “tell,” that I have encountered, is when someone has extremely strong opinions on psychiatry. It’s not something most folks even think about, so it’s unusual, when it’s a big deal to someone.
Mental illness also tends to get worse, as we get older, if untreated. An “eccentric” young man, may become an old hermit, flying around, keeping his piss in canopic jars.
Much of what we call “mental illness,” is actually self-developed coping mechanisms, in response to trauma, or brain-chemistry imbalance. That’s why getting medication doesn’t just “fix” us. We need to seek help in defusing the habits and rituals that were developed to help deal with the problem.
Thanks for sharing. To be clear, I don't doubt that there are people that would make a problem out of a history of mental illness. But, it's definitely not everyone and someone with such a history shouldn't be discouraged to get out there and be open about it. Or, at least I'd like to see this stuff talked about without stigma.
I think the problem with "mental illness" is that I think in many cases it's the environment that is not suitable. In modern times we've created this environment that just doesn't fit all archetypes of people and those who it doesn't fit well with, we declare "mentally ill". There are obviously actual serious issues, but I believe a lot of it has to do with environment. It's not a clear illness like diabetes, etc. For instance I couldn't handle going to school, people can label it ADHD or Autism, but does it make sense in the first place to force me to study specific things that I don't care about as opposed to playing into my interests and strengths. I'm glad I'm grown up now, and can decide to learn what I'm actually interested in and do it 100x more effective per unit of time, as opposed to in school.
Yeah, I have a number of coworkers that have shared with me that they are on psychiatric medications, and have discussed mental health with. It's becoming normalized, and that's a good thing.
I think in many places there's now enough of critical mass where people are understanding enough and call out anyone who uses that information negatively towards the person.
I'd be surprised if the people I worked with would think twice before working with someone that's been in psychiatric care, though I can't be sure, because I don't know that any of them did. I know that I wouldn't care. I have friends that stayed in hospitals for psychiatric reasons: they'd be great to work with, I think.
It’s still definitely a big deal. Note that the CIA and the NSA routinely declare ex-employees that whistleblow or leak as “mentally ill.”
It depends on the company. I worked for fairly “stolid” companies, for most of my career, and I suspect that they would treat mentally-ill people badly.
Mental illness is something that, unfortunately, I have a lot of experience with. I have severe mental illness in my family (I deal with it every day), and I spend a significant part of my life, interacting with folks at various stages of recovery from it.
I have been seeing therapists for much of my life. When I was a kid, I was diagnosed with autism, but was never told, so I spent decades, trying to “fix” myself, before finding out. Once I found out that I was “on the spectrum,” I realized that it can’t be “fixed”; only mitigated, and things started improving quickly, at that point.
That said, I think “mentally-ill” means “diagnosed and professionally-treated,” to most folks. It’s my opinion, that there’s a lot of undiagnosed/untreated mental illness out there. Just looking at the threads of interaction, on any Internet community, makes that clear. One “tell,” that I have encountered, is when someone has extremely strong opinions on psychiatry. It’s not something most folks even think about, so it’s unusual, when it’s a big deal to someone.
Mental illness also tends to get worse, as we get older, if untreated. An “eccentric” young man, may become an old hermit, flying around, keeping his piss in canopic jars.
Much of what we call “mental illness,” is actually self-developed coping mechanisms, in response to trauma, or brain-chemistry imbalance. That’s why getting medication doesn’t just “fix” us. We need to seek help in defusing the habits and rituals that were developed to help deal with the problem.
Thanks for sharing. To be clear, I don't doubt that there are people that would make a problem out of a history of mental illness. But, it's definitely not everyone and someone with such a history shouldn't be discouraged to get out there and be open about it. Or, at least I'd like to see this stuff talked about without stigma.
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I think the problem with "mental illness" is that I think in many cases it's the environment that is not suitable. In modern times we've created this environment that just doesn't fit all archetypes of people and those who it doesn't fit well with, we declare "mentally ill". There are obviously actual serious issues, but I believe a lot of it has to do with environment. It's not a clear illness like diabetes, etc. For instance I couldn't handle going to school, people can label it ADHD or Autism, but does it make sense in the first place to force me to study specific things that I don't care about as opposed to playing into my interests and strengths. I'm glad I'm grown up now, and can decide to learn what I'm actually interested in and do it 100x more effective per unit of time, as opposed to in school.
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Yeah, I have a number of coworkers that have shared with me that they are on psychiatric medications, and have discussed mental health with. It's becoming normalized, and that's a good thing.
I think in many places there's now enough of critical mass where people are understanding enough and call out anyone who uses that information negatively towards the person.
> because I don't know that any of them did
This is telling in itself.
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>huge taboo to have your employer or your fellow co-workers know that you have been institutionalized in the past for mental health problems
Depend if you have the right trendy label that HR is in love with then you will get more and better jobs because if it.