The Guardian has written an insightful article on the difficulties those with mental illness can be exposed to in the workplace – you can read it Here. I'll touch on some of the points made later, but first is the issue of a person with a chronic mental illness, a mental illness that has acute phases, or a combination of both (as in my case) getting a job in the first place, unless they lie during their interview.
For some people, with certain mental health problems (I can think of a couple of people I know myself), they would probably be able to get away with this. The reason being – their illness doesn't fluctuate much, and it is very well controlled by medication. Both the people I'm thinking of have regular Bi-Polar disorder and have been stable (in other words, they have not had a period of either hypomania/mania or depression for several years). In a situation like this, it tips the question of whether a prospective employer should know on it's head, as they have in front of them a well person (with a controlled illness, rather like someone with controlled type a diabetes).
For a great many of those with either a serious and/or complex mental health diagnosis, things get murky, particularly where there are cycles of acute unwellness, or their chronic illness can not be masked. If a prospective employee, who's illness was managed as well as it could be, but who admitted in interview that they were prone to occasional psychotic episodes, perhaps twice a year, which would mean 6-8 weeks off work each time, is that prospective employee likely to be selected? With chronic mental illness, if a person has a severe Panic Disorder, Generalised Anxiety Disorder and Social Anxiety, however much they wanted to work, how would the potential employer view this chronic illness in terms of whether their mental health issues outweighed their qualities as an employee?
Much research has been carried out, but due to disability discrimination acts which also acts as an umbrella for those with Mental Illness, garnering highly accurate figures over the reduction in one's chances of employment if you have a mental illness against another individual with equal qualifications and similar attributes – the non mentally ill person is approximately 20 times more likely to be chosen for the position. The existence of Disability Discrimination laws is neither here nor there unless they are enforced, and for those who are disabled or mentally ill, it is accepted that this discrimination has simply gone underground. The issue with regard to the chasm of inequality for the mentally ill is greater than that for the physically disabled, and this is also a resigned but accepted fact. The reasons for this are as ridiculous as witchcraft, because they are based around wildly incorrect assumptions of who and what mentally ill, or those with mental health issues are.
There is still a belief, for example, that individuals with severe mental illness, such as Schizophrenia and Paranoid Schizophrenia are inherently violent or dangerous. The irony here is that if you have a severe mental illness you are 85% more likely to be a victim of a violent assault than a non mentally ill person. The overwhelming majority of people with severe chronic mental illness are often extremely timid, distressed and frightened individuals who go out of their way to avoid others. Well over 80% of all murders are committed by perfectly sane individuals. A small proportion of those who commit murder will be psychopaths. However, psychopathy is not a pathological condition, and is an inherent part of X individual's personality. It is fixed and unchanging. You can not be given any medication or treatment that will improve the “symptoms” of psychopathy, and as you can't die from it either, it, technically is not an illness as Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder etc are. The message here is that mentally ill people have far more to fear from the sane than the other way around.
Of course, stigma is broken down through normalisation, and this can only come through people being honest about their particular issue or condition. Taboos have changed over the last eighteen years since I first became ill, but employers in many cases tend to appraise those with a mental illness as a liability rather than as an asset, which is a shame for them as much as it is for the person with the mental illness.
I have misgivings about the fundamental use of the word mental illness, although I use it all the time, simply because it's become ingrained into me. But each of us has a singular mind, and I've never met an individual who's been diagnosed by a psychiatrist with a mental illness that doesn't think in original ways that set them apart from the rat race. This is a massive wellspring of ideas, originality and inventiveness that seems to go hand in glove with the negative bits many would rather focus on. Perhaps the term Mental Illness will seem archaic in fifty years, as we appraise and re-assess. Of course, as I know myself, I have been too unwell to work because of my mental health disorders, but I've also been capable of periods of intense creativity, and this is of immense value both to the individual, and to any prospective employer.
