Shame | The Enemy Within

You have green hair.

No, you do. 

It’s as green as a Granny Smith.

Don’t believe me? Read on.

Once upon a time, long before I worked up the nerve to follow my passion and become a copywriter, I worked for the public sector. 

And yeah, it was tough. 

With dwindling budgets, squeezed resources, secondary trauma, and blame culture; poor mental health spread through the workforce like wildfire.

I worked in a caring profession. But the cobbler’s children have no shoes as the saying goes. And at times, our lack of compassion for ourselves and each other highlighted a terrible hypocrisy. 

In the name of professionalism

There’s a terrifyingly fine line between ‘how are you doing?’ and ‘I’m concerned about your capability’.

In many of the organisations I worked in, if you were bold enough to discuss any mental health issues with your line manager, there was a good chance you’d hurt your chances of promotion. At the very least you could expect much of what you do from that point onwards to be perceived through the lense of ‘she can’t cope’.

Was I being paranoid?

Sure, I asked myself that question.

Then I got my confirmation. Hard as concrete and just as crushing.

A few years into my management career, I was hiring internally for a secondment in my team. I was approached by a member of staff from another part of the service. She was enthusiastic, and she definitely had the right experience and skill set.

We had a lovely conversation and I encouraged her to apply.   

Later on that week I mentioned to a colleague that this person had approached me and I was looking forward to interviewing her. 

My colleague’s response shocked me to my core.

‘Oh, you don’t want her.’ She said. ‘She’s got mental health.’

I didn’t know where to start. 

First of all, mental health? Is it 1902? 

Everyone has mental health, just like everyone has physical health. I’m going to assume that my grammatically challenged colleague meant this person had experienced poor mental health. 

At some point. In some way.

You know, like a person can experience anything from a mild headache to a full blown migraine. Or a brain tumour. 

Or a broken leg. 

But here’s the thing.

While I was shocked by this exchange, selfishly, I also felt a stab of fear.

At the time no one knew about my own struggles with post traumatic stress. 

No one knew that being in a room with too many people could leave me physically exhausted. 

A meeting invite without an explanation would feel like a death threat. 

And a neutral face could send me into a state of panic.

Side note: for people like me, working from home is a life saver. Don’t get me started on how the drive to ‘get everyone back into the office’ is about as inclusive as a private members club in the Square Mile.

Reasonable Adjustments?

Years into my career, summoning much courage, I asked my boss if he could let me know in advance the purpose of any call or meeting. Rather than just firing off an invite with no explanation. 

For a meeting two days away. 

Sending my hypervigilance into overdrive.

He didn’t take it on board. 

So I reminded him.

By the third reminder he looked exasperated. ‘Jesus’ he said. 

Yeah, my thoughts exactly.

He wasn’t a bad guy. He just didn’t know what he didn’t know. 

But for my part, I could have insisted. I could have helped him to understand the rationale behind my request. 

I could have explained that my brain works differently to his. That due to very normal biological changes in response to trauma, I could be distressed by things that might not bother other people.

But I didn’t. 

Because I was afraid of the reaction I’d get? There was that. 

Because I didn’t want to come off as needy? Sure. 

Because I was worried about how it might hurt my career? Of course.

But there was something else. 

Something that lived deep down inside me. Something I didn’t want to look at. Something that had grown and festered in a bias that had been handed down to me by our mental health phobic culture.

Shame.

Shame told me he was right to ignore my request. Shame told me that my brain should work like everyone else’s. Shame screamed at me to try harder.

If not for Shame I might have responded differently to my clueless boss. 

I certainly would have handed the ignorance back and refused to carry it for him.

Because I would have known, without a doubt, that it wasn’t mine.

Let’s go back to my statement at the start of this blog where I told you that you have green hair. 

When you read that, you might have thought ‘no I don’t’, ‘this is a weird blog’ or even, ‘this writer is peculiar’. 

But I very much doubt that you looked in the mirror to check your hair colour. 

Because to quote the great and wonderful Gabor Mate, ‘if I told you that you have green hair, you wouldn’t believe me. Because you know it isn’t true’.

What if you knew without a doubt that Shame around mental health isn’t yours to carry?

Well, spoiler alert, it’s not.

The truth is, when it comes to mental health many organisations are a little like champagne socialists. In support of the cause, as long as it happens behind closed doors, far away from them.

And of course this needs to change. 

We need to keep having conversations. We need to make space for each other.

But in the meantime, we can root out the monster within. 

Because it thrives on the fact that we don’t know it’s there, whispering in our ears, driving our decisions and actions. Replaying the tape that says ‘any minute now, they’ll find out’.

So take a look inside, see if there’s any Shame lurking. And if you spot it, drag it out into the daylight. 

Look it in the eye and tell it to do one.

Do that enough times and the next time you come up against ignorance, you’ll be less likely to pick up the burden. You might even hand it back. 

You might say ‘no thanks, I think this is yours’.

Because you’re a human, having a very human experience.

To suggest there is anything wrong with you, is just like saying you have green hair.