My difficult return to the office after post natal depression

Why mental health awareness at work is crucial

 With my daughter, I suffered pre- and post-natal depression. The pre-natal was triggered by recalling that my previous pregnancy ended in a very premature birth and the death of my son, and this also led to post natal depression later.

In my family there is no history of mental health issues but a psychiatrist told me in an interview: “Some people don’t have any family history of depression at all, but suffer from it because they have had a very difficult pregnancy, or complications. There is a genetic link between severe depression or mood disorder, that is activated for the first time during pregnancy. It is the interaction between the genes responsible for mood disorder and physiological changes in pregnancy, the reproductive hormones, because we see the same in infertility treatment.”

 I became very ill a couple of weeks after delivering the baby. I couldn’t sleep for days due to the agitation, I stopped eating and this way I reached a suicidal stage. But not only that, when my baby was crying, I started to have very strong thoughts of harming her and that way have the courage to end my life. That is severe post natal depression.

I had to be hospitalised in a Mother and Baby Unit with my new-born daughter and I started the slow recovery process.

Almost a year after falling ill, my maternity leave ended, but I felt much better, I wanted a routine and I returned to the office. Quite shockingly I read in the contract a clause that said that if you were admitted to hospital for treatment for mental health issues, your contract could be terminated.

 Immediately I became paralysed with shame and fear of losing my job. That clause in the contract made me feel judged as inadequate for my company.

 Post natal depression has a high rate of suicide and infanticide. In the UK one in 4 late maternal deaths is due to suicide, but also this mental health issue is associated with a high rate of infanticide, and we sometimes read about these sad stories in the newspapers.

This disease can be quite serious, and hospitalisation can save the mother’s and the baby’s life. But to be hospitalised was seen, by my employer, as a problem rather than a solution.

If you suffer from coronary issues, maybe you will need to be hospitalised and have a heart surgery. The same happens when you have a brain illness.

Anorexia, binge eating, addiction, acute anxiety or severe depression may require hospitalisation to save the person’s life and your job shouldn't be under threat for that. But there is a straight line between stereotype, prejudice, bullying and discrimination about mental health issues, and worse yet, about needing hospital care.

Stereotype is when you make good or bad assumptions about something like thinking “People with mental health issues have a character defect”. Prejudice is when you have a negative received idea and opinion about something: “I don’t trust people with mental health issues”. Bullying is when you know the person’s vulnerability and use it against them at work. Finally comes the worst one: Discrimination, when you might terminate a person's contract because they require hospital care on the ground of a specific disease (mental health).

 If those types of clauses are legally right or wrong, I don’t know, I don’t want to go into the legal technicality, but these problems are making people experiencing mental health challenges, remain silent.

 However one thing is individual discrimination, which is the action or belief of a single person. But quite another is company discrimination, because they have to do with like-minded people located at the top, or where it is institutional (within a whole organisation).

If you have a large female workforce you also need to understand more about the other types of mental health issues that can affect women during maternity leave like postnatal psychosis, postnatal anxiety, but also as the psychiatrist said, the side effects of infertility treatments.

 When you have a child you need to work, therefore you need to recover, but also you might need support from your company. According to the World Health Organization in 2018 depression has become the leading cause of disability worldwide, there are too many people who stay in silent and I do understand the reasons. 

 Robertson Davis said:

“The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend”.

Stigma, Stereotypes, Prejudice, Bullying and Discrimination can’t survive in a place where there is empathy and compassion, but they don’t come by default, they require understanding and hard work in Company Culture. We can apply the law, but we have the option to apply humanity first.

 It took me almost 2 years to recover fully.

Doraliz Aranda (Writer). I write from Derby-England. I have two published books about mental health. I advocate for greater awareness about Wellbeing and Mental Health at work. Access to my books at products online or get in touch at www.doralizaranda.com