Mental health is and can be positive. Mental illness is just that, an illness, sometimes mild and sometimes severe like many physical conditions. The more we educate ourselves and others with facts rather than perception and stigma, the more we normalise mental illness and mental health.
It is however, an emotive subject and we need to recognise this individually and collectively. Not everyone thinks or feels the same way about mental health issues or conditions and that’s ok. We must be empathetic to those who don’t necessarily share our personal views on ending stigma and creating open and trusting work environments. We need to enter into dialogue remembering that phrases and language of the past such as “psycho”, “nutters” and “crazies” are no longer acceptable.
Progress has been made. The many social media and televised campaigns featuring Royalty for example, have certainly not hampered progress in de-stigmatising mental illness.
In the workplace, we can remind ourselves that just because we find something easy, not everyone does. Just because someone is having a good day today, they may not be tomorrow.
It’s important to remember that The Equality Act 2010 makes it illegal to discriminate directly or indirectly against people with mental health problems. In the workplace it is our collective responsibility to make sure that we call out stigma and discrimination when we see it.
Where appropriate we must also be calling out to leadership when we see practices or policies at work that increase the stress risk. Organisations have a legal responsibility to document and mitigate as reasonably possible the risk of stress in the workplace, therefore where appropriate we must be calling on leadership to address those policies practices.
Think about what you can do today to reduce the stigma just a little.
