Work and the Bipolar Mom
Workers see plenty of red flags standing between their mental health needs and the consequences of speaking openly about them. From employment applications that ask people to check off whether they’ve suffered from bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, to being fired after suffering breakdowns, fears are well-founded. Jennifer Marshall was the top producer in an executive search firm when, in her mid-20s, she suffered two manic episodes and was eventually diagnosed with bipolar 1 disorder. “They gave me a couple of weeks off,” recalled Marshall, “and then I got an email that said, ‘We need you to return to work or you have to resign. We have these clients and they are not being served now.’ Looking back, I remember feeling pretty sad when I read the email, thinking, ‘I put all this into the company and now this happens.’ In their defense, they had never really dealt with anything like this before.”