At the beginning, meetings were the worst part. If you put me in a room with a group of people who would notice if I got up and left, I was almost guaranteed to have a panic attack. I spent the majority of meetings waffling back and forth between furiously typing notes and trying to pay enough attention to distract myself from the heart pounding, hands shaking, and lightheadedness clouding my brain. I was so focused on seeming okay that there wasn’t enough brain power left to contribute to the meetings. I strategically sat as close to the exit as possible, and as soon as the meeting was over, I was out of that room so fast there could have been a cartoon puff of smoke in my wake. From there, I would retreat to the bathroom or outside around the corner and let the full panic attack wash over me. I did that almost every day for six months. 

Then the weekends would come along, and I’d spend the full two days in bed or on the couch, recovering from the anxiety of the week and beating myself up for not being more present and more productive at work. For me, depression was an exhaustion that wouldn’t lift—a fog that clouded my brain, hid my good ideas, and made my tongue heavy. Sometimes, even the effort of opening my eyes felt difficult. I felt like I was walking uphill in three-foot-deep rubber cement that was slowly drying as I made my ascent. And I hated myself for it. Though I would never look at another person suffering from depression and feel anything but heart-aching empathy, I couldn’t feel that same empathy for myself. The truth of the matter is that I know what depression does to my daily life, and I know what it does to my ability to perform at work. It’s not as productive as the anxiety. And there it is. The self-stigma.

Even though I was doing okay at work, I knew that more of my energy was going into the appearing okay than the actual working. Things got bad. The physical symptoms of the anxiety and depression became overwhelming. As it turns out, pretending to be okay at all costs didn’t work so well for me. To put it in business terms, it wasn’t sustainable, and it certainly wasn’t scalable.

I started to ask myself: What if I put the same energy into actually being okay, rather than just appearing okay? This moment was when I started to do the real work to get better mentally and physically. After a decade of trying everything under the sun to combat my clinical anxiety and depression, I started taking antidepressants and set up an arduous routine investing in my mental and physical well-being. We are talking about a full overhaul of my diet, my exercise habits, my sleep habits, and my social life. I started weekly acupuncture and what felt like endless hours of therapy. I did the work that I needed to do for me, and over time, things got better. The volume on the anxious thoughts that crowded my brain turned down a few notches, which let a few more creative ideas creep in. As the thick fog of depression started to lift, I began to feel the joy and love for the work I was doing, and I could infuse those feelings back into my work. I felt more like myself and more willing to share parts of my brain with those around me, because I wasn’t afraid of it any more. In other words, I felt better and I did better at work—and people noticed.

“These last six months, I’ve noticed a big shift—-you’ve really stepped up your game.” In most cases, this kind of feedback in a performance review is good news. And believe me, it was good news when I got it. By investing in my mental health, I was finally able to push through those things that had been holding me back at work; I was speaking up in meetings and brainstorms, I was thinking more quickly on my feet, and I was less distracted. But I was also thinking about the implications of that stigma. As a therapist once told me, companies love anxious employees: “You’re typically type-A perfectionists, overthink every problem, work harder and longer until something is perfect, and constantly go back and check your work to make sure you didn’t forget anything.” He had a point. My anxiety did make me a good employee to a certain extent. My mind will grab onto a problem, a task, or an upcoming presentation and will run circles around it until I’ve thought through every possible solution, scenario, and side note that could come up. Now that my anxiety was more under control, I was worried that I could lose my edge. 

Managing my mental health, setting boundaries, and knowing my own limitations inherently puts limits on how much work and stress I can take on to a healthy degree. Am I putting a cap on my growth at work by knowing the limits of my stress? Am I choosing not to succeed or stopping my climb up the ladder—despite my desires—because of my mental health? How do the people I work with really feel about the boundaries I’ve put in place?