One of the valid points in Geoff McDonald’s article about the importance to businesses of being aware of their employees’ mental health is that the stigmas attached to mental health issues are enough to make some people hide what their experiencing instead of seeking treatment. Here’s an excerpt from Geoff’s article, and there’s a link below to the fill article on Virgin.com. If you’re a CEO in northeast Ohio who is interested in talking about ways to promote mental health amongst your employees, we hope you’ll give us a call. And if you’re someone who has been hiding struggles with panic, anxiety, depression or any other issue out of fear of mental health stigmas, we want to remind you that the things you share with your doctor while under treatment are confidential, so reaching out may give you a safe place to start opening up and seeing progress.
In 2008, I was 20 years into a career with Unilever. Then all of a sudden, at midnight on January 25th 2008, I had a panic attack. It was the start of a three-month battle with depression and anxiety. The following day, when I was diagnosed with depression, I made a decision that saved my life: not to be burdened by the stigma. Sure I was scared, but the response from others when I shared my illness was amazing. I had feared that people would see me as weak, but instead they told me I was courageous.
In October 2012 I lost a very good friend, Nico, who took his own life, leaving a wife and three kids aged 15, 11 and nine. Even though I knew the signs to look for better than most, I had never spotted his suffering. Why? Because he’d hidden it so well, as a result of not wanting to be stigmatised. Stigma killed my friend.
The evening of the day he died I made a commitment to myself: to go out into the world and help break the stigma around mental health and to give people the choice to talk about their illness. So many feel they have no choice. They fear it will impact their career, friendships, social status, etc. I know some will never choose to share their feelings but there are many who will if they feel they can do so without being stigmatised.