Jobs and Benefits

What do you do when you can work, and work well, but mental illness increasingly makes it more challenging?

 

Much is written about, and many resources are directed toward, as they should, people whose lives are decimated by mental illness and addiction. Services for lives that are shattered draw much of the public funding. The battles over whether or not more public support should be given to those with mental illness focus on those too ill to work. Society provides for, and sometimes coddles, people challenged by severe mental health challenges. The biggest hurdle to overcome in providing these services is matching those who need help to the help that is available.

 

Private funding for mental health is another story entirely. All sorts of insurance coverage and treatment are available for the “worried well;” those with lives disrupted by mental illness who have the means to pay for help. To providers, especially psychiatrists and therapists, this is where the money is. There is no shortage of assistance for those who are “a little depressed” or “moderately anxious.” Especially when these people have good health insurance.

 

I’ve been in both groups. I’ve languished on food stamps and disability insurance, uncertain of how I was going to go on and if life was even worth it, and I’ve held demanding jobs with full benefits and ready care, uncertain of how I was going to go on and if life was even worth it.

 

It’s easy to write the story about my most economically disadvantaged periods. It’s compelling, and people feel a lot of empathy toward those pummeled by unforeseen, and unfair, enemies. Bipolar disorder is an enemy easily described when the enemy is winning.

 

But what happens when the enemy that is mental illness stands mostly defeated? What happens when someone with severe mental illness, not someone from the worried well, holds a job, has a family, and can keep up with the demands and commitments of a competitive economy?

 

In many cases, that competitive economy sweeps in to help.

 

I like to find significant information about mental health in unexpected places. Possibly the last place one might look for such information is an entry in a blog from a major investment house. But right there on the website of Janus Henderson Investors, a manager and marketer of mutual funds is such a post.

 

The letter is full of information on the impact of Covid-19 on mental health worldwide, and the trillions of dollars lost to the world economy due to untreated, or poorly treated depression and anxiety. But this information comes from an investment company, so I looked for something about investment. It’s in there.

 

Every $1 spent on mental health services returns $5 to the economy. For both private industry and national governments, it’s profitable to promote and maintain good mental health.

 

The Janus letter describes their endorsement of, and search for, companies who make quality mental healthcare available to their employees. Simply put, it’s good for business. Good employees who struggle a bit with mental illness become better employees when properly treated. And they stay with the companies that help them. This is of great benefit to the companies’ missions and the performance of their stock.

 

There are also a number of startups, especially this year with the rash of anxiety and depression caused or exacerbated by the coronavirus, that address unique mental health challenges. Many of these new services are provided through companies for their employees. Nearly all of them show the potential for rapid and consistent investment returns, so they receive funding from companies like Janus to help them on their mission, and to help them to profitability.

 

Say what you will about capitalism, but it’s very good at providing relevant, cost-effective services when a need persists.

 

Everybody wants to hear about when I wrote bad poetry, cut myself and underwent a long course of electro-convulsive therapy, but I think the time when I was a successful young professional barely holding it together is much more interesting. If there had been programs like the ones Janus looks for I may have been able to avoid the tailspin into manic despair. But there weren’t, and I soon failed at everything I attempted.

 

I was struck down by psychotic mania early into a very successful career in finance. It was a time before HIPAA enforced privacy and employee assistance programs didn’t exist. Stigma was great because little was understood about bipolar disorder. Today, the company I could work for likely would have such services and a more open mind and would seek to be proactive in employee health. If such corporate programs had existed when my bipolar disorder emerged, I could have received treatment early and possibly even kept my career and thrived.

 

As it was, without the sort of programs that companies like Janus look for and invest in, my career ended and I entered 16 years of destitute trauma. For those of you teetering in a career trying to hold on to a job while managing a mental illness, take care. Private help through companies you can work for exist. You don’t have to wait until it all falls apart to get help, and you can find incredible success in the face of serious mental illness.

 

Dig a little and you can find such companies. Big investors like Janus do.

This post originally appeared in the November 25th edition of my newsletter. To get more content from Practicing Mental Illness and to get it early subscribe here.