Because my bullshit is your bullshit, & your bullshit is my bullshit

It’s a glorious moment when you read or hear something that completely restores your faith in humanity. And, I had one of those moments today!

*Scrolling through my Facebook newsfeed* Oooh, what is this?

One Woman’s Brave Email is Helping to Break the Mental Health Stigma

A woman had put an out of office reply that read she was taking a few days off to focus on her mental health. That alone is such a brave action: bravo! But what made me have an “aww” moment was when the CEO of her company had responded to her out of office reply in the most positive way.

I strongly believe that we need to collectively remove the stigma of mental health in all of our workplaces. In a time when diversity is front and centre, we need to harness this snowball of positive influence and direct it at mental health.

There have been so many days where I have literally thought “I cannot do today. I do not have the brain capacity to function” and yet, have still straggled myself out of bed and rolled off to work. There is always that small thought in the back of my mind where people “wouldn’t believe I need to take a sick day for this” or feel like I would need to prove I was physically sick in order to justify taking leave.

I’m not proposing to have “mental health leave” as its own. Instead, just let us take it as bloody sick leave without having to feel invalid!

We need to stop viewing mental health issues as weak especially in the male-dominated industries. Men are conditioned to hide their emotions and as a woman working in a male-dominated industry, it makes this topic that bit more harder to express. These moments are very real and need to be treated with the same respect as if we had broken a bone. #itaintweaktospeak

Kudos to the CEO for his wonderful, positive response!! And for also acknowledging that moments like these tend to make us reflect on our own situations and understand just that little bit more.