Tags
Alcohol, Boss, Disclosure, Drunkenness, Equality Act 2010, Reasonable Adjustments, Shame, Stress
Anyone who follows me on Twitter knows that I got absolutely wasted last night. Buying in rounds is such a bad idea. I had had a stressful day and and when my boss got the first round in I ordered a glass of red wine. As the evening progressed more people bought rounds and they just bought without asking… they looked at my drink and bought another one. I didn’t spend a single penny but I had drinks lined up in front of me because I couldn’t get through them fast enough. That is really bad. I also didn’t eat enough or drink any water. I just downed glass of wine after glass of wine like an idiot. Hubby says he has never seen me that drunk. How I navigated the tube and trains I’ll never know.
I don’t remember fair chunks of the evening, but I do remember I fell over outside the pub and my boss walked me to the tube station because I clearly was not to be trusted wandering London streets alone in the dark. Hubby tells me I fell over when he collected me at the station the other end too, and the wealth of bruises and scratches all over my body would seem to back him up.
Oh. Fuck.
Alcohol does not have any depressant effect on me, rather the opposite. I go up and up and up, getting more hyper with every glass. I really really have to be more careful. Today has been full of humiliated lurches of shame in my tummy. The dread of walking into the office on Monday…
I’ve decided to disclose my mental illness to my boss. I decided last night while I was still drunk and wondered this morning if it’s the right decision. I mean, I was drunk, not crazy. I don’t need to give a diagnosis to explain why I was pissed as a fart. But it is linked because of what happens to me when I drink too much. And because my stress levels are through the roof which is why I drank so much without any quality control whatsoever. I know what I need to say to my boss and I know how to say it. But it’s such a big risk.
Since I started this job nearly seven months ago I’ve been utterly determined not to disclose. Even the nicest boss could view me differently once the mental label has been applied to my forehead. But hubby tells me categorically that the risk of not saying anything is bigger. He is convinced that I will break soon. His way of putting it is that my brain will explode and it doesn’t seem to make any difference when I tell him that brains don’t actually do that. He says I’m not coping, I disagree. I am coping, but very badly – see drunken exhibit A above.
On Monday morning before I go over to boss’s office, I’ll try to see the disability advisor. The woman is fantastic, although I had hoped my days of needing her advice were over. But even if I don’t manage to see her, I have to tell my boss anyway as soon as I can. And this is what I think I should say:
I have a disability, a form of bipolar disorder. Do you know what that means, if not, blah blah blah. It is mostly under control these days. But it means that I have to very carefully manage my stress levels, which I am finding difficult now. I am experiencing high levels of anxiety, blah blah etc. I would like you and I to meet with the disability advisor together so that she can help us think through ways to help support me in my very unusual job situation.
What do you think? I’m not sure how much detail to go into about what I currently deal with. Man, I wish I hadn’t got trashed last night. What was I thinking? I’m trying today to get my brain to latch on to the simple fact that I can’t change the past. I can’t undo last night, there is absolutely nothing I can do about it so why keep reliving what little I can remember of it and worrying? All I can do now is try and put some safety measures in place to ensure it doesn’t happen again, number 1 being tell boss about my disability (I hate thinking of it as such but the Equality Act says it is and that’s what matters in this case I suppose) so I’m not working out these safety measures alone anymore. I really hope this doesn’t backfire on me. I can’t get it out of my head that I might just make the whole thing worse.
It is a difficult one. If Friday night’s exploits had not happened, would you be planning to tell your boss about your health probs Narky? If the answer is ‘no’ then I wonder what it was about Friday’s exploits that leads you to the descision to disclose. Is it
- that you are ashamed of what happened and so feel that you need to provide something to try to lessen that feeling – try to explain away your behaviour? If so, I have concerns over that being the reason to go down the disclosure path. You got totally wasted – you are ashamed – I can understand that. But work colleagues will soon forget. A number of them will have at some time experienced similar.
OR
- that the reason you succumbed to drinking like you did was some how triggered by / linked to your health problems? Maybe, because of the combination of the level of stress and the BPD. If this is the case, you are saying that if you did not have BPD or you were not under so much stress, you would not have drunk as much. Only you know if that is the case. If this is the case then disclosure may well be an appropriate way forward.
So in my mind there are three options:
- Take Friday night out of the equation altogether. Do you want to disclose your health problem ? Only you can decide that. I would share my experience of work, non-disclosure v disclosure and my reflections on that now i.e. .looking back, if there was any chance that it would be helpful to you.
- Consider Friday night, but acknowledge that it is the shame that is the biggest factor. Face up to the shame and move forward.
- Consider Friday night, and cos it was driven by a combination of stress levels and BPD decide whether to disclose.
If you go down the disclosure route I think what you outline, saying to your boss, in your post above seems good to me. Only point I am not sure about is where you say ‘very unusual job situation’.
Sorry this is soooooooo long. I hope it comes across ok and is not confusing. Also please do not read ‘judgement’ into anything I have said. It is written out of caring for you. I do not feel judgemental at all, I know how difficult work drink ups can be.
Written out of love. xx
Thanks honey. Erm… Firstly, unusual job situation – new job, new position, setting up a new thing, not being located with colleagues most of the time, two bosses, one of whom is tricky.
Friday night has triggered this, definitely. People have advised me to disclose before this and I’ve always said no. But I’ve been saying no increasingly desperately in recent weeks because I know I’m finding it harder and harder to cope.
I certainly don’t want to use this as a way to cover up my shame. Because honestly admitting I have a mental illness is also shame-inducing to me.
“Face up to the shame and move forward” – I don’t know how to do that. Shame-inducing moments from my life continue to haunt me, I have never been able to let go of them and I’m afraid this will haunt me forever too now. I’d like to crawl into a hole and stay there.
Back to the point, the humiliating drunkenness is the catalyst – because it shows me just how far I’ve let things get out of hand and I need to pull my head out of the sand now and stop wittering on that everything’s fine when it clearly isn’t.
It is best to disclose it before you get unwell. They need to know if you do become unwell that you have a plan in place that you have come up with together. If they don’t know you have an illness and become unwell it could be that they can’t help you that much as they didn’t know before hand.
Honesty is the best policy. I was made to tell uni that I had MH problems and I really didn’t want to. However, it worked in my favour in the end as when I needed their help they were much more understanding and was able to get extentions on work when I needed it. Also, when I was taken in to hospital under section it wasn’t as though it just came from no where. They knew a little before hand that I could become unwell and it was a lot easier to explain that I was ill when they already had previous knowledge that I had MH problems.
Good luck on Monday. You are doing the right thing.
xxx
Thanks for your perspective. I know in theory that honesty is the best policy, I’ve always known that, and I’m glad it helped you. But it’s also really bloody scary as I’m sure you remember and today I’ve started trying to convince myself that it’s really not necessary at all.
Disclosing is always difficult – but I would second goldenpsych in saying it’s better to do so before you get really unwell. I had one job where I didn’t disclose, became ill, told them and the next day went off sick for two weeks – when I returned I was sacked. I’m fairly sure it is because I didn’t give them any time to prepare and also because when I did disclose I wasn’t able to think about the best way to explain my illness. They drew the wrong conclusions (that I would scare clients away) and so I lost my job.
On a happier note I worked as a care assistant in the NHS and when I disclosed at the start of my employment they were absolutely lovely!
That is terrible, I am so sorry that happened to you! Glad the NHS were better but it’s such a lottery, isn’t it?
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Ugh, I feel your pain. Why do we feel the need to drink such an obscene amount in a stressful situation or when we’re feeling anxious or uncomfortable? I feel like I’ll never learn!
Re telling your boss, I’d have to agree with the others. Not that you’ll necessarily end up very unwell (touch wood!) but if you do, it’s best for them to have some warning. I have had to call my boss and tell her that I was in hospital and therefore not coming to work that week, and she had no previous idea about any of my mental health stuff. She seemed kind of scared and shocked, and I felt like I’d lied to her. Now if stuff goes wrong, it’s not totally out of the blue and awkward for you to explain in an immediate way.
Good luck.