How to get the corporate world to take mental illness seriously.

@Koi69 Welcome. I don’t have any suggestions, but I wanted to wish you all the best with such an important undertaking.

Thankyou for sharing your story, insight and courage.

The corporate world is based on ruthless people who achieve their ambitions of success. Good on them, they are not paralyzed by abuse history or psychotic paralysis. If youcan't succeed in that environment you need to find a new employment environment. Ruthlessness is great, it achieves results and mega financial gains. You gotta be in it to win it.

I do not partake in that. I work in an entry level role with minimal pay. I value it absolutely not for the hourly rate of pay but because my colleagues treat me me kindness and respect - I'v suffered 7 years of hell & workplace bullying, unemployment & unpaid volunteer work to find this employment and positive workplace culture.

@BryanaCamp It is misguided and ill-informed to presume that some of those in supposedly 'higher' or 'more-accomplished' positions have not suffered from abuse and/or mental illness in some form. It is also perpetating the stigma associated with mental illness in the workforce to suggest that someone should find alternative employment. The case that @Koi69 is putting forward is that there is a distinct lack of knowledge and/or empathy around mental illness in the workforce and that they have been party to both the stigma associated with that and very much a lack of understanding of what they have been through. The solution here should not be to change employment (unless that is a personal consideration for the person involved) rather how can we educate those we work for and with to gain a better understanding of mental illness, the effects it has on us personally and the subsequent education that needs to be given to all around us. Stigma around mental illness persists because we do not have the right conversations and so many still do not understand it. When mental illness begins to be considered as an illness like many physical illnesses then maybe it can also be more widely understood. The corporate world is no different to any other place of employment ...and 'success' is subjective. It is discriminatory to label or pigeon hole one section of society as being ruthless merely because they have achieved a higher level of what some call success and even more misguided to presume that abuse has not or does not happen within this same cohort. The reality is that abuse and mental illness can happen to anyone in any form - no matter what they do for work, where they live or who they are ...and the role we have as people who have similarly suffered from abuse and/or mental illness is to help provide a greater understanding of the difficulties we face, a knowledge of the warning signs, ways to support us and a much wider and greater knowledge to enable workplaces everywhere to be more aware and empathetic to it's employees in terms of their mental health as a whole. Every individual has the right to work and feel valued in their chosen field - and that field can be any type of employment whether it be working in a supermarket or running a large organisation ...abuse and mental illness does not discriminate and neither should we.

I think that everyone has valid points @Koi69 @Zoe7 @BryanaCamp @Maggie and that employment for people with mental illness is something that I am really passionate about and wish I had the health to be able to impact that area of social policy amongst others, but unfortunately my health has let me down.

I agree with @Zoe7 that abuse and mental illness most definitely do not discriminate and your position has no impact if you lose that one of life's many lotteries. But I will say that if you are on the other side, and you are violent and abusive, that yes, your status can contribute greatly to you being able to hide that you are. We tend to be hierarchical beings socially, and people seem to turn a blind eye or make excuses for people at the top.

But I also agree with @BryanaCamp . There is a scale of severity that hasn't been spoken of, and a scale of functional impairment as a result of abuse and/or mental illness. And I can understand your frustrations and sadness over only being spoken for by people that are very high functioning or have reached some of their potential. There's lots of variables at play, but yeah, there most definitely is a scale of severity. @Koi69 you said I spent many months travelling, spending time with my family and enjoying the "outside world" wildlife , walking and photography, which was great. That's incredible that your company gave you that much leave and that you did not require hospitalisations, but if you want to advocate for people with mental illness, you have to include everyone, otherwise we just end up helping the same people and ignoring the same people around and around.

Just my 2 cents. I could write heaps more but will leave it at that.

Corny