Tag: mental illness

Ep 10: Success at Work, Even After a Mental Health Breakdown — With Mike Veny

Successful corporate mental health speaker Mike Veny is this week’s guest on Snap Out of It! The Mental Illness in the Workplace Podcast with Natasha Tracy. Mike is now a Certified Corporate Wellness Specialist®, but just five years ago, Mike was suffering from a mental health breakdown thanks to depression and anxiety. While now, Mike talks to corporations about mental wellness for their employees, only a few years ago, it was showing them, personally, what it was like when that isn’t taken care of. This video podcast conversation will revolve around that mental breakdown and around Mike’s current thoughts about mental illness in the workplace.

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Ep 8: Hiring and Managing People with Mental Illness — What You Need to Know

This week, Snap Out of It! The Mental Illness in the Workplace Podcast with Natasha Tracy is talking to Gary Koplin, Founder, and President at HealthyPlace.com, a large consumer mental health site. Gary has a unique perspective as he specifically hires and manages people with mental illness. He’s worked with people who have had disorders from social phobia to bipolar disorder, from depression to dissociative identity disorder, and everything in between. If anyone knows the ramifications of mental illness in the workplace, it’s Gary.

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With Mental Illness, Pushing Your Limits Is a Mistake

Our society encourages people to push their limits, and there is no out for people with mental illness. Our society claims over and over that we must “push the envelope,” “take risks,” and “do what scares us.” There is no societal pressure to “respect your limits” or “live the way you feel comfortable.” And maybe that’s good for the general population, I can’t say, but what I can say is that it’s terrible advice for people with mental illness. With serious mental illness, pushing your limits is a mistake.

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When a Friend, Family Member Comes to a Doctor’s Appointment

Some of us are lucky enough to have really supportive loved ones and, sometimes, a friend or family member might come to our doctors’ appointments. If this is the case for you, consider yourself lucky because it can be very helpful. I’m not suggesting that you drag someone to your psychiatrist’s appointment by his or her hair or that you invite people with whom you are not comfortable, but if a friend or family member coming to a doctor’s appointment is an option for you, I say, take it.

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Mental Health Week? We Need Mental Illness Week

This weeks is mental health week in Canada – not mental illness week. According to the Canadian Mental Health Association, “We all have mental health, just as we all have physical health. Mental health is more than the absence of mental illness. It’s a state of well-being.”

This is true. We all do have mental health. And mental health is important. But what we need in society is mental illness week not mental health week.

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Mental Illness Failures are Really Inspiring Wins

Yesterday, I was fortunate enough to give a presentation on mental illness to a group of ninth-graders through the Bipolar Babe project. I spoke about stigma and my personal story of mental illness. I told them all about my bipolar disorder, my diagnosis, treatments, treatment failures, vagus nerve stimulator, electroconvulsive therapy and more. And at the end of the presentation, the kids had a chance to fill out feedback forms, and one of the words they used surprised me – inspirational.

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Generalizing Your Experience with a Bipolar Person

I get a lot of feedback on my writing. I like feedback. Some of it’s positive, some of it’s negative, but it’s always interesting to know what other people are thinking of my writing.

But one of the types of comments that drives me absolutely nuts goes like this, “I lived with a bipolar person for 20 years and I don’t understand why people with bipolar are so angry,” or they’re “so violent,” or “so manipulative,” or “cheaters,” or whatever.

Here’s what drives me crazy about it – living with someone with bipolar disorder does not make you an expert on people with bipolar disorder; it makes you an expert in one person. Not all of us.

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Why ‘Mental Health’ Can Be Insulting to the Mentally Ill

There is a bone of contention in the mental health world. Well, OK, there are many, but one of them is the terms “mental illness” and “mental health.” It seems more politically correct these days to say “mental health” vs. “mental illness.”

For example, people have mental health conferences, not mental illness conferences. There are mental health policies, not mental illness policies. And so on. I guess it’s the glass half-full theory. Mental health is more positive than mental illness (and don’t get me started about the term “behavioural health”).

But there is a problem with this whole rosy-colored view. It completely ostracises and further stigmatizes people with a mental illness.

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Mental Illness – It’s Your Fault

One of the frustrating things about having a mental illness is how often people say (or intimate) that the mental illness is your fault. Oh sure, they might not come right out and say, “You’re to blame for your bipolar,” (although some people do) but they might just say:

And so on and so forth pretty much until my head is about to explode.

But here’s a newsflash – mental illness isn’t your fault. My bipolar isn’t my fault. No illness is the sufferer’s fault and I’m tired of having to defend myself to others just because my illness is “mental.”

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I write a three-time Web Health Award winning column for HealthyPlace called Breaking Bipolar.

Also, find my writings on The Huffington Post and my work for BPHope (BP Magazine).

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