World mental health day 2024

This year the theme for world mental health day 2024, is workplace burnout, and I am sure you are wondering what I could know about that! I have been unable to work for over twenty years, but I tried many jobs, and my first job was as a nurse in the NHS. So, let’s have a chat about workplace burnout.

My work history and chronic illness journey

I qualified as a nurse in 2000, I trained as part of Project 2000 which was started to get more people into nursing to cover a shortage and to make the training more academic. I soon realised that they had taken all of the nursing out of the training and when we were sent out to work alongside nurses I felt under prepared.

It was during my training that the chronic migraines started, and I found myself feeling overwhelmed with anxiety. My pain levels were increasing and though I didn’t realise it at the time, the stress of the experience was about to change my life completely. Back in the late 90s nobody talked about mental health in a positive way, and I felt so alone that I started to feel suicidal.

By the time I qualified and was left on shifts with nobody to help me adjust to the pressures I was struggling. I regretted training to become a nurse and wished I had gone a different route because I loved spending time with my patients, but it was rare I could. Most time on shift was spent doing paperwork and, on the phone, trying to organise patient care.

When my first big flare happened which started all of my long-term health problems, it was like the pressure valve had released. My body was exhausted, and I couldn’t carry on. My left leg wouldn’t work properly and was completely numb and painful which I didn’t know could be possible. Losing my job nursing meant I also lost my home because I lived in nursing accommodation and had to move back to my parents.

Though I never really recovered from that first flare, I did not give up on work, I tried working in retail. I worked part time in a local video store, and at Boots on the pharmacy counter where I first realised the illness had affected my memory. I was bullied badly at Boots because I struggled to remember things and instead of helping me, I was treated as if I were stupid.

My mental health was pretty bad by this time, however I tried again and worked in a few different offices where I found myself affected with my memory again as well as fatigue. It was starting to become clear to me that my body was no longer able to keep a job, but I tried one last time and got a job as a dental nurse.

I loved this job but was not fast enough and again struggled to remember how to do things, and I lost that job as well. Finally, completely broken, I started the process of getting disability benefits. All this to say that I know that work burnout and workplace stress are big issues that face many people and I am glad it is a focus of this years world mental health day 2024.

I regretted training to become a nurse and wished I had gone a different route because I loved spending time with my patients, but it was rare I could. Share on X

World mental health day inspiration

It can be so easy to be cynical that days like this mean nothing and create no change, but I don’t think that is true. Days like world mental health day can bring change if we get involved and share our experiences and posts on our social media. If we want our mental health to be taken seriously when it comes to work, we need to get involved.

Now, I know you must be thinking that I no longer work so what does it have to do with me? My answer is that we all saw how people’s workplaces were involved in their mental health during the pandemic. People had time off work or time working from home and they started to realise how much they were missing out on because everything was about work.

I saw so many people take up new hobbies like baking, or art and start to want more of a work-life balance. That seems to have all been forgotten now, with so many people pushed back to the office instead of being given the opportunity to work from home. Which could open up a lot more jobs to disabled people, but that hope has dwindled now too.

There are so many resources available this world mental health day, so it pays to check out the hashtags on social media and repost them. Bring up your concerns to your bosses and start to ask people around you who you work with to be more open about their mental health.

It takes more than just the person who is in charge to make a change, and if we want things in the workplace to change, we have to initiate. Be kinder, reach out and make sure the people around us are not suffering from burnout or struggling with their mental health. Many people spend more time with the people they work with than with their families, so we need to make sure that our mental health is a priority.

I really hope that world mental health day 2024, will inspire you and the people you work with to make the effort to make a change. If work becomes more than just stress and drudgery, we will have fewer people ending up struggling as much as I did. Work is something we do to pay the bills and allow us to enjoy life, it shouldn’t push people to breaking point. Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

Thank you xx

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