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The road to recovery – my mental health journey

Emma Brooks
Emma Brooks

If you’ve followed me over the past few years, by now you might have followed bits and pieces of my mental health journey too. It all started with my blog post “living with anxiety“, and since then I’ve gone on to share more via YouTube. Below is a summary:

And in this blog post as you might have guessed, I want to cover the topic of recovery.

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Integrating the different parts of your life

integrating the different parts of your life
Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

Back in November 2019 I attended the Women in Tech Regatta and was inspired by several of the talks I attended. One of them was around “Integrating career and parenthood” and as I was sitting there, I felt that it touched upon some of the tensions we face in the workplace when battling with our mental health regardless of whether we are parents or not.

This got me thinking of the work-life balance again, and how we can create work environments that are favourable to managing the different roles we have in life.

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What is burnout trying to tell us?

What is burnout trying to tell us

There’s a lot of information out there about burnout, but have you ever stopped to think about what it really means? What is the message being sent to you from your mind and body when you burn out?

We can talk a lot about the circumstances that lead to burnout and in fact it’s easy to blame others, particularly employers. They overwork us, they don’t see us for who we are, etc. etc. But let’s take a step back and ask ourselves what the burnout was trying to tell us. This is something we don’t talk about so often, and yet it’s crucial if we want to be better able to understand and prevent burnout.

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My last burnout

burnout
Image by Lattice

Or should I say, the last time I burnt out. I really hope it was the last but you never know, these things creep up on you… Nevertheless, I’d like to share the story with you and I took to video again to do so.

Once again, it was the the usual “end of year breakdown”. Sad that’s actually a thing, but it was. And I’m sure many of you can relate, in most industries Q4 is pretty intense.

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Mental health: managing your emotions in the workplace

Managing your emotions in the workplace
Women in Tech regatta 2019

In October 2019 I attended the Women in Tech regatta, and was super excited to take part in 2 very interesting panels that inspired me to write.

One of those was called “Hiding in the bathroom: emotions in the workplace and how to manage them”. It was moderated by the wonderful Lara Manqui and included other people whose work I already enjoy following such as Vivian Acquah and Kevin Groen.

Call me crazy, but it was only during this panel that the penny dropped: holy shit! Emotions in the workplace are so connected to our mental health. How have I not talked about this before?

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What is Normal? Reflections on mental health and the hospitality industry

Mental health in the hospitality industry
Alex Haupt, 101 Gowrie

Guest blog by Alex Haupt from 101 Gowrie.

Editor’s note: at the end of September, I attended a talk run by Creative Mornings Amsterdam where Alex spoke on the topic “Muse”. He ended up talking quite a bit about mental health and I was really inspired by his presentation. Afterwards, I decided to ask him if he’d be willing to contribute to my blog, and you can see his thoughts below.

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Real-life mental health stories: mental health in a leadership position

Mental health in a leadership position
Selina and Baxter

This blog post is part of an interview series for mental health awareness week. In this series, different people give their perspective on living with a mental health condition.

In certain cases as with the interview below, people have had the courage to reveal their identity. This is brave, as it can be difficult and daunting. Congratulations to them!

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Finding the right work environment, when there are so many wrong ones

People working
Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash

In previous blog posts or videos, I’ve talked a bit about a toxic work environment. And while I worked at Impraise, I got to study a lot about what makes a good company culture. Yet it only occurred to me not so long ago that there is more than one type of negative or toxic work environment, which is what I’d like to talk about today.

I used to believe that a toxic work environment was the classic “Devil wears Prada” or “Horrible bosses”: people getting yelled at, intimidated, and whole bunch of fear tactics.

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Consciously choosing life over work: how to find a balance

In my last two blog posts I’ve been talking about our relationship with work and how it affects our mental health. Generally speaking, the workplace has a huge impact on us – including our mental health. Working in a negative environment can be really detrimental. If everyone around you is demotivated or unhappy in their jobs, or if everyone is extremely stressed… no matter what it is, it will affect you.

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Being busy as a badge of honor – perceptions of work and how it affects our mental health

Busy as a badge of honour

In a previous blog post I talked about how we define success at work, and the impact this can have on our mental health. It’s a long and complex topic which could be debated for hours, but I think it’s super important to take a closer look at it and ask ourselves some hard questions.

The truth is, burnout and other mental health issues can be induced by toxic workplaces and other problems that stem from the employer, but sometimes we also bring it upon ourselves. That’s why today I want to take a closer look at the concept of being “busy as a badge of honor”, and what this does for our mental health.

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How we define success at work, and what this means for our mental health

How we define success at work
Success

A topic that’s been on my mind for a while is our definition of success, particularly when it comes to our professional lives. Ultimately, I believe it’s the source of a lot of stress, and can end up being the cause of burnout and other mental health issues we experience at work.

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Why you should talk about mental health at work

Why we should talk about mental health at work

For the longest time, talking about mental health at work has been a taboo. Have you burnt out? Don’t mention it or people might think you’re weak! Seeing a therapist? You must have something seriously wrong with you!

In general conversations around mental health have been taboo, mostly because there has been a big misunderstanding around what it is. If people don’t understand depression, or view OCD as “quirky”, it makes it harder for them to empathize with those who are experiencing an issue. There has also been a stigma around mental health, with people being viewed as “crazy” or good to be booked into the psych ward. But the truth is, mental health is not as black or white as it’s portrayed.

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Overcoming workplace trauma and restoring your mental health

workplace trauma

I often joke that I have PTSD from some of my previous assignments, but if I’m honest with myself, there is some truth to it.

Of course it’s not as extreme as for example, for war veterans or victims of abuse – but I genuinely believe that you can leave a work experience feeling scarred. The negative experience and consequences you carry with you can feel traumatic and affect your behaviour in your new workplace and with colleagues, which of course, you don’t want. So today on the blog, I want to tackle the topic of workplace trauma.

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Real-life mental health stories: a lifelong battle

This blog post is part of an interview series for mental health awareness week. In this series, different people give their perspective on living with a mental health condition.

In certain cases as with the interview below, people have had the courage to share but were not comfortable revealing their identity. For this reason, the interview is anonymous.

Continue reading “Real-life mental health stories: a lifelong battle” →