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This year, the theme of World Mental Health Day is ‘it’s time to prioritise mental health in the workplace.’ Because of this theme, I decided to prioritise the news article for the Shake My Hand Campaign website before writing one for I’m NOT Disordered. Over on Shake My Hand, you’ll find a piece full of advice on managing your mental health in the workplace, and if you scroll back through the Campaign’s social media (Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram) from Monday (the 7th), you’ll find daily quotes from my Volunteers about how they manage their mental health alongside their volunteering. So, I wondered what was left to write about for I’m NOT Disordered, and realised that my blog is really all about providing insight into my life and perhaps into mental health in general sometimes too, so I thought I’d write about all my thoughts surrounding me being ‘the boss’ at the Campaign and give you some thoughts and tips on managing your mental health when you’re in a senior role…
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In
2017, I interviewed and secured the position as an Advertising Assistant for a local
support group providing help and support for unemployed people called LEAPS
(Listening Ear And Positive Support). The group had actually been going for a
number of years, so it was quite well-established when I joined the team and I remember
in my first meeting, the Chair sort of dominated the entire discussion and made
the whole meeting about politics – something I have no real interest or knowledge
in. I ended up leaving and ringing the Founder of the group (who had been absent)
and I remember crying and said “this isn’t what I signed up for. This isn’t
what you said it would be.” She managed to convince me to attend the next meeting
– which she promised she would be at – and told me that she’d make it clear to
everyone that, whilst politics might be an appropriate topic occasionally
because of the government’s actions around unemployment and particularly around
setting criteria for state benefits, it wasn’t the reason for her Founding the
group.
Her
speech worked and the Chair developed a balance between being able to discuss
our individual interests and experiences, whilst also regarding what the rest
of the group might feel is an important topic. So, I continued as Advertising
Assistant for just over two years and during that time I secured several funding
bids for the group, had press releases about the group published in local
newspapers, and created social media and a website for the group. So – after gaining
the largest grant they’d ever received from the Lottery – I felt that I’d really
reached my full potential in the Advertising work so at the Annual General
Meeting (AGM) in 2019, I explained that I was wondering whether I could be Vice
Chair as a way of feeling challenged again. I’m definitely someone who enjoys –
and really benefits mentally from – being productive, and so, where some people
might say I’m making more work for myself, I see it as a really positive move.
The
Chair ended up asking whether I’d like to have his position, because he said he
was ready to ‘hand over the reins’ after having been Chair for a number of years
previous to me joining and throughout my entire time there too. And, without
much consideration nor any campaigning, I was unanimously voted into the position
– I actually wrote a blog post about it at the time too: BECOMING
CHAIR OF LEAPS | I'm NOT Disordered (imnotdisordered.co.uk)! I remember
being so nervous and also excited for my first meeting as Chair, but mostly I
was just really grateful to the group members because it felt like in voting me
in as Chair, they were really showing faith and trust in me and my leadership
skills. Skills which I had never actually used/experienced prior to becoming
Chair, but I still felt confident and happy in all the responsibilities I would
now have.
As
Chair, I managed to help and support the group through a really difficult time
when the previous Chair lost his short – though it felt like he was going through
it forever – battle to cancer (again, I wrote a blog post at the time: COPING
WITH GRIEF | REST IN PEACE DAVE, PREVIOUS CHAIR OF LEAPS | I'm NOT Disordered
(imnotdisordered.co.uk)) and died in 2020. It was a such a sad and
challenging time for everyone in LEAPS because he really was like that saying
when someone has been working somewhere for so long and people say they’d almost
become a fixture! He was the exact epitome of that! It was like the group would
never be the same without him.
With enjoying
and being successful with my Advertising work, and I’m NOT Disordered teaching
me a lot about communications and marketing, I took on a Digital Marketing
Internship in 2019 – luckily it was in the same town as LEAPS, so I was able to
maintain both commitments. Also, with it being an Internship, it was only for
three months and since I wasn’t chosen to be kept on permanently after it, I
applied to volunteer with St Oswald’s Hospice as a Digital Volunteer. By 2022,
I was offered a temporary contract as Communications and Marketing Assistant
for St Oswald’s and I knew before I even started it that it would be really
challenging to maintain both responsibilities, so I made the upsetting and
difficult decision to leave LEAPS. And until Shake My Hand, that was the last
time I had any sort of leadership role in terms of my employment experience.
I
definitely think that without that experience, I wouldn’t have felt ready to hire
and manage Volunteers for Shake My Hand because even with that experience, I’ve
been sceptical that I could manage and worried that it wouldn’t be adequate
enough to help me to do well with my role now. And that’s the point, isn’t it?
That you use previous employment experience, educational qualifications, and any
life-learned skills and qualities to help you to do the best you can with
something new. Something that is going to challenge you and help you to grow,
develop, and progress in the industry you’re passionate about and which you
feel dedicated to.
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This is
where the quote at the beginning of this blog post really comes in. If you’ve
been reading, I’m NOT Disordered for a few years, you may know that when my
mental health was really poorly (2009 – 2014) I was absolutely convinced that
my purpose in life was to kill myself in order to draw attention to the
failings of mental health services.
In
2012, I made a suicide attempt that led to me being on life support and when I
woke up, I was sectioned to a specialist psychiatric hospital for two and a
half years. In the hospital there was a number of different things that helped
me into recovery and to eventually being discharged. The main two were Dialectical
Behaviour Therapy (DBT) and medication, but another which was really monumental,
was when I was working with a Psychologist to do Trauma Therapy (but she left
before we really got into it!). In her short time there though, we did manage
to do some work around this belief I had held onto for – by that point – five years.
To bust
this belief, she had me write down evidence that it was true and evidence that
it was wrong and of course the points that really undermined the belief were a
lot longer and more substantial and important than the other list. In
recognising and accepting this, the Psychologist said that we then had to think
of an alternative belief. She explained that this was because since my mental
health had clung onto that one for so long and had used it frequently as a
reason for my actions and attitude, my head would try desperately to find a
replacement and it might discover another untrue one. And so, the alternative
was to remember that destiny is not set in stone and that every day you can
make decisions that will change the path and journey you’re on. You don’t have
to fit with your beliefs nor the thoughts and opinions of who others think you
should be or what others think you should be doing with your life.
Something
which was really helpful to doing this piece of work with the Psychologist at
the beginning of 2014, was that I had created I’m NOT Disordered in the January
of 2013, so it had been going just over a year and felt really established in
my life. The impact it was having on my life and my mental health was also well-established
and this was a really good thing! Not only was I finding it therapeutic to have
somewhere to release all my thoughts and feelings that I felt reluctant to
share with the staff and other inpatients, but I was also starting to receive
lots of really lovely, positive feedback from readers. So many people were
telling me how helpful my content was for their mental health too and when I
saw the number of readers climb and climb and climb, I realised that this must
be true for more people than the amount who were emailing and commenting.
I
remember reaching my first real milestone with the reader statistics and there
was a girl on the ward who I was really close to, and she had been helping me
with the aesthetics and the design and layout of I’m NOT Disordered because I
had no clue about any of that back then. So, it felt like she was invested in
the blog too and this was proven when it became apparent that we had both been
watching the views climb because once it hit that number, we both raced out of our
rooms to each other! We were jumping up and down and screaming so loud that all
the staff came running, pressing their alarms and shouting at us to ‘break it
up’ because they thought we were fighting! It was actually really funny because
when they realised what was happening and we explained it, you could see they
were both relieved they didn’t have to restrain either of us, but also kind of
disappointed because they’d prepared themselves to have to do that! Plus, they
looked a bit like fools because they’d pressed the alarm level where staff on
other wards had to come running too!
There
was another girl on the ward who also had a blog and one time, she asked me in
front of a few others why I cared so much about the number of readers I’m NOT
Disordered has. Some might say she was being interested and curious. Those
people don’t know her or the situation. Because, actually, she meant in a
really sly, spiteful, and sarcastic way as though she were saying that I was
being superficial for caring about something like that. Like I wasn’t genuine
in my blogging. And that was so offensive and upsetting, and it was made even
more difficult because it was actually something I hadn’t fully considered so I
didn’t have an answer for her. And the fact that I had to think on it, just
looked worse on me.
In the
end however, I was glad for the question because I enjoyed thinking about it
and now, I feel prepared if anyone else were to ask me that too. So, the two main
reasons I thought of, and which have remained true over the entire eleven years
of I’m NOT Disordered, were:
1.
The
more people who read my blog, the more people it can help.
2.
The
higher your views, the higher the chance you’re offered one-of-a-kind
opportunities.
These
factors and the results they have had over the last eleven years, left me
realising that that replacement belief I worked on with the Psychologist around
our destiny not being set in stone, actually isn’t that accurate a replacement.
What is a better one, is to have a new destiny from that of suicide at an early
age, and I’ve discovered that my purpose is my blog. It’s writing about my
mental health and my life, helping others, creating creative and unique content
for so many people to see/read, and engaging in amazing opportunities and experiences
that I wouldn’t have without the existence, success, and popularity of I’m NOT
Disordered.
Now, I’d
say that I had this realisation a few years ago, and ever since, it has been
the greatest improvement and most monumental contributor to my mental health
recovery. To feel that I’ve gone through all those horrifically terrible
moments and instances for a reason. It wasn’t about making me stronger,
learning from them, making changes and improvements… It was about discovering a
reason to be alive. Finding an influence that makes me want to be alive. Recognising
and accepting that I need to be alive in order to fulfil this purpose. And do
you know what, you’d think it would be a relief and a comfort to have a reason
to stay alive, and it was – but it was also really, really, really scary too! Like,
to go from thinking of yourself as one thing and spending all your time devoting
your attitude and actions to that – I mean, believing my purpose was to die
young, meant I spent all my time attempting suicide and refusing to cooperate
or engage with mental health services and professionals who were trying to
intervene in my attempts. So, to have this new and more solid, positive, and productive
purpose? It was kind of like; ‘now I need to list all the things I can do to
help make that happen or continue to happen.’ It was a change, and changes can
be scary and intimidating.
I also
worried about judgment. I mean, so many people would think that having children
or finding a partner is a reason to have purpose and to find motivation to stay
alive. Not a job. Or a blog. However, now that it’s years later since making
this discovery, I’m more than adjusted to my purpose of having I’m NOT
Disordered and working in communications and marketing and that makes me
confident in telling people this is how I feel. I’ve come to realise and
believe that what people believe and agree with is their problem; I have to manage
and prioritise my own happiness and safety. And it is this mindset or quality,
that has proven so useful in Founding Shake My Hand and in becoming the boss.
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When I
first thought of Shake My Hand and began the Campaign, I honestly had no
insight or preconceived notion that I would end up needing to recruit
Volunteers to work for me. I wonder whether, if I had thought about that, it
would have completely put me off the idea of even Founding the Campaign and
starting work on it! I think that new things can be scary and that’s often off-putting
and provides reason to avoid them and having only ever really been a leader in that
one instance with LEAPS; this was all a bit new.
It didn’t
help that when I first talked about recruiting Volunteers with people in my
life, no one was too supportive of the idea. I mean, people appreciated that I
needed Volunteers in order to reduce my workload – because in those early days
it was pretty immense (not that it isn’t still huge!). They still, however, had
a lot of concern over being able to do criminal records checks and simply verifying
people’s identity, as well as ensuring that the people I recruited were capable
of coping with the cause that the Campaign was created for. I explained to
everyone who voiced these concerns, that I felt that I just needed to take a
chance and if I – and those I hired – fell flat on our face, it would be a huge
learning opportunity. And if it all worked out… Well, the potential of that
happening and everything it would mean if it did succeed, made it feel totally
worthy of taking that risk.
Recognising
that Volunteers would be greatly helpful with my workload was actually a lot
less of a challenge than it used to be. When my mental health first became
poorly, there was so many times that I couldn’t do things or had to say ‘no’ to
something because I was so unwell; so – to still feel as though I was living
life to the full – when I was stable and having a ‘good day’ I would pile the work
on myself. It was sort of like a desperate attempt to counteract the bad days and
I did so in the hope that it would make the bad days a little less bad because
at least I could reflect on the good memories and hold onto the achievements I
made when I was doing well. But, of course, it wasn’t that simple because if I
wasn’t taking care of myself on those good days by overworking and becoming
stressed, then actually; the bad days would become more regular and a lot harder
to get through.
I – and
my mental health – have come a huge way since those days though! I now
recognise that there needs to be a balance; that you should make the most of feeling
well and healthy, but not to the degree where it can actually leave you feeling
really overwhelmed with tasks and losing the time to actually take care of
yourself. Doing this – using my DBT skills in self-soothing, mindfulness, and
distraction – tends to put me in a better, stronger, and capable position when
I do begin to struggle again. In learning this, I now have a balanced mindset/work
ethic where I will use my good days to be productive as well as an opportunity to
practice self-care so that, on my bad days, I’m still accustomed to looking
after myself and I also have some really amazing achievements as motivation to work
hard to get back to the good days. This recognition has meant that after
starting Shake My Hand, I very quickly (around two or three weeks later) accepted
that I really did need help and support in my workload because I worried that
if I didn’t seek such assistance, it would become too much, and I would find
myself resenting the entire thing and regretting starting it in the first place!
And having the expectations and hopes I have for the Campaign and the help it
can provide others, wishing I hadn’t created it was truly the last thing I wanted.
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Finding
the right advertorial platform for your vacancies: So, straight away I knew which
website I wanted to use to advertise my vacancies (Reach Volunteering), but upon researching,
I discovered that your organisation had to meet certain criteria to be eligible
to advertise. So, assuming that having just created the Campaign, it wouldn’t
be able to match anything, I used a different employment advertising website which
still specialised in promoting voluntary opportunities but allowed you to post
vacancies without any cost or guidelines. It wasn’t as well-known though, so I
only received one application (the Fundraising Coordinator – who you can read about
on the Meet The
Team page) and after a little while longer with no further interest, I
decided to look into Reach Volunteering more thoroughly and when it became
apparent Shake My Hand didn’t match two or three of the criteria, rather than
be put off again, I did a ton of research to find out how to create and
implement those things. Once I felt the Campaign fulfilled all of the criteria,
I submitted the necessary documents, completed the forms, and hit the apply
button! And I could not have been happier or felt prouder than I did when I
received that approval email! My instincts were proven right when I received a
number of applications within days of posting the vacancies and I’m happy to say
that all but two of my seven Volunteers applied via Reach.
ü
Getting
the job vacancies right: In
determining the job titles, some of them were obvious based on the tasks I’d
had to do myself and the ideas I had for the future of the Campaign – especially
the Social Media Assistant role because I was struggling to create daily
content on all three accounts that was of the quality or efficiency I really
wanted to feature. Before hiring the lovely Assistant – Lou (who you can also
read about on the Meet
The Team page) – I was having to just post a lot of Pinterest images of
motivational quotes relevant to the Campaign’s cause because I just simply didn’t
have the time to put the quotes into unique, specialist, graphics with the
Campaign’s branding e.g. colour scheme and fonts. The frustration with this was
that I accepted I didn’t have the time, but I also knew full well that publishing
such content would really be the answer to increasing the size of our audience/following.
So, hiring a Social Media Assistant was a pretty done deal! And upon recognising
the bits and pieces the Campaign would need to be doing in the future and
accepting that I really don’t have all the skills and qualities necessary to be
totally effective and efficient in doing those things, the other roles I chose
to advertise for have also seemed like a really perfect fit and a sheer and
genuine necessity to excel the Campaign. After determining the vacancies
required, I then researched how to write the job descriptions because this was
something I haven’t had to do previously, so I really didn’t know where to start!
The annoying little story here is that I created the vacancy adverts when I was
using that first website, but on moving to Reach Volunteering, their adverts have
a totally different layout, so I actually had to re-do all of them! It was a
chore, but the interest and applications they gained made it worthwhile and
left me feeling fairly confident that I had done a good job with the adverts.
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The way
Shake My Hand operates is that other than the Social Media Assistant who has
the ongoing task of creating the daily (Monday to Friday) content for
Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, all the other Volunteers are assigned
individual tasks with deadlines. This is actually one of my favourite bits to
being the Founder; I actually really enjoy thinking up tasks for each Volunteer.
Because these tasks are dependent upon the Volunteer’s role and corresponding
responsibilities, I get to make each of them very different so there’s nothing
really mundane or repetitive in setting the tasks. Although I have two Research
Assistants, I still set each of them different tasks.
I think
my enjoyment comes from two reasons:
1.
I
have to use my creativity skills to think of the tasks, the results I need from
them, and how they’ll benefit the Campaign.
2.
The
anticipation of seeing the Volunteer’s work upon completion of the task – so far,
of all the Volunteers and all the tasks I’ve set, everyone has surpassed my
expectations each time!
I feel
lucky to have discovered these reasons for enjoying setting tasks, because without
doing so, I honestly don’t think I’d be that eager to do so. Like, the general premise
of the action in basically telling someone what to do and when to do it; is
actually really off-putting and something which I feel reluctant to do and honestly,
fairly keen to shy away from. I think is likely because I’m very aware of it
sounding as though I’m bossing someone around and that coming across as rude and
arrogant as if; ‘what right do I have to tell someone else what to do?’ Maybe
it’s a confident thing because it isn’t necessarily about setting tasks; it’s
also just generally about having to demonstrate authority too.
I think
that a reason for me finding this quality of being the boss challenging, is
because I’m so unaccustomed to doing it and more accustomed to hearing people
moan and complain about their employer bossing them around. I mean, I won’t
lie; it’s something I’ve done myself – particularly when I was in my first
weekend job in retail and one of my Supervisors had a ‘too-good-to-be-working
here’ attitude in her work ethic and general manner. It made listening to her
and doing as she said really off-putting.
I’d
like to think that I’ve learnt from experience and the stories of others that a
good boss and someone who you’ll listen to and follow direction from, is one
who is kind, empathetic, and respectful of your position. Someone who doesn’t
lord their ranking or position in the hierarchy above that of others and someone
who is polite and compassionate when handing out orders! Mostly, I think people
like to have someone in charge who knows what it’s like to not be in charge so
that there’s a good level of understanding, empathy, and equality there.
Another
responsibility I have which falls under me exemplifying authority, is providing
feedback to my Volunteers on their completed work. Now, when I said earlier about
feeling that my expectations have always been surpassed by the work my
Volunteers have turned in in response to the tasks I have set them, a huge contributing
factor to this fact has been the varied ways in which the Volunteers have
presented their work. Some have used PowerPoint and Excel where I would have just
used a Word document. We’re also about to approach other people and organisations
to request they share an image and it was something which I’d already created
but having now taken on a Graphic Designer (who is also on the Meet The Team page)
I thought it right to see what he would do given the briefing of the
information the graphic needed to include and based upon what had already been
created. Turns out I was so right to have given him that chance when he came
back with a really unique and thoughtful graphic with QR Codes – something we were
yet to use in our marketing materials!
Despite
having my expectations surpassed, there has been around three or four instances
of Volunteers creating work that I’ve needed to give some feedback on… I was
fairly nervous and reluctant to provide my thoughts in terms of the edits of
corrections I would like made to the work, but I thought of two things that
gave me the motivation to speak up anyway:
1.
I’ve
put my name to this Campaign and if something goes online and it isn’t 100%
what I would want to put out there, how can I stand by it?
2.
If
I don’t make the recommendations and corrections, the person might continue to
make similar mistakes and decisions.
So,
similarly to when I talked about equality and remembering how it feels to be on
the other side of the situation; when I had to give corrections and edits, I
made sure that I explained my reasons why these changes needed to be made. I
realised that if I didn’t give a rationale and explanation, they wouldn’t learn
why they shouldn’t have done it and that would lead to the chance of repeating it
in future tasks/work. So, with all three or four instances, the corrections
have never had to be repeated in any follow-on work from those same Volunteers
and all of them appreciated and agreed with the changes I requested they make
to their work. But this makes me nervous. Nervous that it feels kind of
inevitable that someday, I’m going to have to be more forceful with my authority
and the longer it takes for that day to come – even though I don’t want it to
happen at all! – the harder it might be to cope with it! To cope with that thought,
I’m just trying to remind myself that I won’t change myself and my attitude when
the time comes; I won’t become too big for my boots or be disrespectful or bossy
in anyway. Hopefully that will be helpful.
Until
then, it’s a learning curve – one that I’m thoroughly enjoying…