I think a lot of us struggle with the idea of what our actual limit is, and when we need to ask for help, or explain to others about our mental health. Accommodations aren't just for the workplace, we have to make for our illness everyday and re-evaluate and assess it sometimes even daily what we're able to achieve.

My questions:
1) How comfortable are you expressing to others about your mental illness? Do you only do it as necessary? When do you deem it necessary? For example, when it's a significant other or a close friend?

I don’t much disclose my mental illness. Like others I don’t want to be judged. And you do get judged. The majority of people who are not familiar with mental illness do not believe it’s organic but somehow bad choices and purposefully misbehaving. Though I have spoken at events. The majority the audience was predisposed to be accepting. And I was a mental health advocate for PAIMI and did fundraising. I didn’t make a big project out of my own struggles.


2) Do you have a solid support system in place? (includes anything such as psychiatrist, therapist, close friends, family members, perhaps religious figures etc.)


I’m fortunate that my family has become educated and is now supporting of me. I disappeared for a few years and that was hard on them. They took classes from NAMI and were more understanding when we were unified. I do now finally have a pdoc again. That is reassuring. My daughter has had her own struggles and is a ferrous advocate as well as a supportive person. But the majority of people I interact with now are just from the senior citizens club and know nothing. But they are acquaintances only at this point.

3) In terms of work accommodations, have you ever had to request them? If so, how honest, or upfront, were you about it ? Did you share everything they may need to know or just the pertinent details for that moment? If you have never had to ask for an accommodation or at least divulge some aspect to maintain/improve your work -- would you?

I worked before the ADA became a law. There weren’t accommodations back then, even though I was profoundly hearing impaired as well. In later years I did try to work again and was given accommodation for my deafness I never asked for anything for mental health, I never disclosed it. Not even when I was in a residential hospital and working at target.
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