Last Friday I had my first day back at work after an almost 3 week break I took for my mental health. I work as a support worker in a secure mental health facility. It’s a very demanding role which keeps me on my toes and requires me to be fully alert at all times. I work long shifts also.
I was so nervous about returning that I spent the day before listless and sobbing. I was feeling the fear of my colleagues and the patients finding out the real reason I had to take time off. I put a lot of effort into wearing the mask of a well put together and stable individual, which feels like a huge lie to me. I was worried the mask would crack and break and that the whole world would be able to see the real me. We live in a society where we can edit the way the world sees us. I mean who really puts all of their life on Facebook? For most of us we only put the interesting or nice parts of our lives out there. How many of us share every intimate detail of our misery for everyone to see? We find other more anonymous platforms for that.
So I turned up for work on my first day back, scared stiff of what people were going to think. I’m not really sure how I got myself so worked up. Most of the staff simply welcomed me back and asked how I was feeling. No prying questions about why I was off and certainly no one knew that I’d been in hospital. The patients were lovely too. Most were simply happy I had returned. We have quite a high turn around of staff due to the stressful environment we work in. Since I started 11 months ago we’ve had countless support workers and nurses come and go. Some of the patients were simply worried that I’d left to go and work somewhere else.
I was fortunately on shift with a nurse in charge that I get on pretty well with. She was the only person that asked me what had happened. She knew I had been in hospital because it was her that answered the phone when my partner had to call in sick for me. I know she has struggled in the past with with her own issues and so I felt a little more comfortable about her knowing the truth. She was shocked when I explained to her I had taken quite a large overdose. We talked for a while about the stresses that lead me down that road. She shared her own experiences with suicidal thoughts. It felt nice not to be alone.
Slightly unrelated, but I had a very in depth chat with another support worker about personality disorders. We both agreed that the way professionals view people with this sort of diagnosis is uninformed and prejudicial. She was really passionate about it and confided in me that she has someone close to her who had Borderline Personality Disorder. I felt connected even though she didn’t know that I suffer with the same condition.
Having these discussions really opened my eyes to the fact that people working in a mental health setting are often closer to the issue than we know. If only we could find more ways of connecting to each other on an emotional level. We could hold one another up and strengthen ourselves in the process. It just goes to show, when you start conversations about mental health the world doesn’t seem so dark.
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