Category: Disclosure

Disclosing Without Realizing You Have

I’ve published Working Assets: A Career Guide for Peers. My target market is individuals living with mental health issues who have the desire and ability to work at a job.

Those of us with bipolar or schizophrenia or other illnesses have unique needs. In my new book I devote a whole chapter to Managing Your Mental Health on the Job.

The fact is that those of us with emotional issues who are employed often “disclose” without being aware that we’ve done this.

The host of a podcast (a woman living with schizophrenia) revealed that she can appear “spaced out” and this can make others think she’s on street drugs.

The woman jokes to the person she’s with that most likely they’d like her “to share” (the drugs) yet she is straight not high.

The fact is an impression is formed of a person within 7 seconds (yes!).

It’s a dual-edged reality: we want coworkers to have empathy for us when we appear “a little off” on the job. But will saying you have schizophrenia thus momentarily draw a blank elicit a favorable response from a coworker?

My guess is that we’re still not “there” yet in society. As a high numbers of peers with mental illnesses are unemployed to begin with.

How can we get “there” to where talking about our experiences helps us perform better on the job?

In my view disclosing on the job can make it harder to do our jobs when we then need to spend time navigating the after-effect of how coworkers responded.

The bottom line is: employers are concerned with their bottom line and how doing our jobs helps them earn money or whatever they’re in business to do.

How can we start to have an easier time at work while also fulfilling the duty we have to satisfy our company’s mission? Will being open and honest make it easier for us to do our jobs?

In coming blog entries I will talk about this in more detail. I take guidance from the 2022 DEI business books I’m checking out of the library and reading.

Working at a Professional Job

In the 1990s I worked in corporate and legal offices. That’s why I don’t think a person should feel like their goal should be to get an office job. How can a person thrive in a 5′ x 7′ beige box with no color light and sound?

In July 2000 I fled my last office job to work in a public library. This new job was in a “pink ghetto” with low pay (even with a Master’s degree). I had the ability to wear hot pink Converse on the job. And no one raised an eyebrow.

Like I’ve said before the corporate world isn’t often appreciative of workers that think outside the narrow boxes we’re supposed to fit in

What if employees with disabilities like mental illness were routinely hired, sponsored (not just mentored), promoted, and so on. The GDP would skyrocket.

I was denied a promotion because I spoke out against harassment on one of my jobs. Management turned a blind eye to what was going on. Fearing I would be retaliated against I didn’t go to HR. That was a big mistake. The first route should’ve been to go to HR.

My disability was a matter of record at that job among people who found out. Was there a connection between this and the fact that I wasn’t promoted?

For those of us with mental health issues that work in a professional office job I still don’t think random full-on disclosure of your medical condition is the way to go on the job. This was my approach that I talked about in Working Assets: A Career Guide for Peers.

In a coming blog entry for Resources to Recover website I’m going to offer three cons and three pros of disclosure.

In the next blog entry here I will talk about different types of “disclosure” on the job.

Disclosure Revisited

In my book Working Assets: A Career Guide for Peers I give clear-cut pros and cons of disclosing on the job.

In a podcast I viewed today titled Inside Schizophrenia the person talking said you most likely would not disclose to your coworkers on your first day on the job. Nor would you have to disclose at all given how the workplace is.

In the Inside Schizophrenia podcast the woman who was hosting the topic on dating with a mental illness told listeners point-blank that your personal style can elevate what people think of you.

I’ve been attacked for focusing on fashion and how dressing in style helped me recover in my memoir Left of the Dial.

The Inside Schizophrenia host was clear that how you dress can impress others. It can also help you feel great when you dress in stylish outfits.

For her she couldn’t wear prints or patterns because they set her off.

Fashion and style have long been ridiculed when women talk about these topics.

I urge you to reconsider using how you style yourself in clothes to help you come across as poised and professional on a job.

In the coming blog entries I’m going to talk more about disclosure and creating outfits to help you perform better on the job.

I will also talk in detail about something I wrote in one chapter in Working Assets about what to wear to work.

In my life I was the victim of an accidental disclosure on one of my jobs. Coworkers congratulated me when they found out I won a Volunteer of the Year award for my Mental Health Advocate work.

Not only that they discovered exactly why I won the award. This wasn’t my intent.

I still don’t think random disclosure to everyone everywhere is the way to go. And I stand by my assertion that the clothes I’ve worn have enabled me to get where I am today.

Coming up: What to wear on the job when you want to make a positive impression. And exactly how this can help you when you’re having a hard time on the job.

Covering Versus Being Candid

The concept of “covering” is one I will examine in detail in my second career book I’d like to publish within two years.

The question is whether someone with an “invisible” disability should be okay hiding in plain sight.

In Working Assets I examine the emotional cost of “living in a closet”–whatever it is you’re closeted in.

My story is out there in my memoir Left of the Dial, in my blogs, and on my author website.

I find it’s less of an issue to have people find out on their own. Rather than telling them outright.

My diagnosis in fact is an open secret. And I’m OK with this because “what you can’t see you can’t be.” My aim is to give others hope for healing.

All along since 2002 when I started my Advocate career I’ve believed that recovery is possible. In the face of being told that no one can recover at all.

What do you think? Have you disclosed and where and when and to whom?