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.
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.
I agree with this.
One of the issues I face, with my family member, is that they can’t handle stress, well.
I have found that we only advance, when we are outside our “comfort zone.” As long as everything is copacetic, there’s no need to improve.
But a “comfort zone” is a “fuzzy” quality. Too far out, is “trauma.” Different folks handle discomfort and trauma, in a variety of ways. I do think our families and support systems, can make a huge difference.
For myself, being “on the spectrum” has really been an asset, in many ways. I have always learned technology quickly, but I’m a high school dropout with a GED, and almost all my education has been self-directed. Most of my life has been spent “outside my comfort zone.”
Yeah, that's complicated. I guess from my own experience related to stress and going out of comfort zone what I can speak to is that I have trouble going out of comfort zone when I'm doing something I'm not interested in and when I feel like I have to pretend that I'm someone I'm not. E.g. normal social situations where I have to pretend that I have favourite food, favourite place to go, or I even know places. I zone out on 90%+ topics, and I can't understand why on earth people are talking about these things.
But if I'm passionate about something, I will be excited to present to a large audience, to go through things that you might consider going out of comfort zone, be competitive etc.
Now in school I had so many situations where I had to "be out of comfort zone" in things I wasn't interested in. Social situations I didn't enjoy. I left things to last minute, then stressed, lost confidence, massively. Eventually dropped out of high school.
Luckily managed to get a successful career going where I've been passionately moving forward, and this has massively boosted my confidence too. Now I'm a successful member of society, make quite a bit, pay taxes, etc, and can build the exact life that I want and works out best for me.
Sounds like we share some things in common.
Thanks for sharing.
Yes, not sure if you entered the high school drop out immediately and I missed it or it was edit, but yes, looks very similar! Thanks for sharing too.
Sorry. I tend to "edit and review" for a little while, on my lonform posts. My bad.
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.