Get involved in Mental Health Week, 6-14 October 2018 and show your commitment to positive mental health at your workplace.  Mental Health Week promotes the importance of mental health and wellbeing and helps to reduce the stigma associated with mental illness.

The Department of Health states on their website that almost half of the total Australian population (45.5%) will experience a mental disorder at some point in their lifetime. This is why we need to do more to reduce the stigma and support those in our workplaces suffering with a mental health disorder. One day it might just be us.

At Tyack Health we are hosting a morning tea for our team in Mental Health week to remind ourselves to take a break, breathe and connect.  Could you do the same at your workplace?

We really feel for our friends and co-workers when they share that they were so sick with the flu that they could not get out of bed for a week. So why is it that when someone can’t get out of bed because of a different illness like depression, anxiety grief or similar it’s not accepted as okay?

Here are some experiences from an article in the Guardian of others living and working with a mental health disorder.
 

 ‘Telling my manager went better than I thought it would’

I suffer from depression and anxiety, so it took me a while to get out there and start my career. When I did it was extremely hard. Many sick days were taken to avoid having to face people and the fear of needing to perform well. A little after a year into my job, I decided to take the dreaded leap. I told my Manager about my mental health, and it went better than I thought it would! Luckily where I work hours are flexible and working from home is permitted. I now work from home every Friday, which has made a massive difference.

- Amy Shelley, 20, Business and Administration Apprentice
 

 ‘It's hard to explain what it can be like to deal with on a daily basis’

I joined the Civil Service in 2013 and have had three or four major depressive episodes since then. Each Line Manager I have had, barring one, has been incredibly supportive. One, in particular, stands out as being exemplary in assisting me back to work, having gone through similar events themselves. It is difficult to explain to someone who has never experienced poor mental health what it can be like to deal with on a daily basis. Everyone has bad days, but to explain how it can feel almost impossible to get out of bed to someone who just doesn’t get it can leave you exposed and invalidated.

- Anonymous, Civil Servant