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As We Wait for the Verdict

 

As we wait for the final verdict in my discrimination case, I’ve been thinking more and more about the bigger picture. Not just what happened to me, but why it keeps happening to so many others. Why mental health is still treated like a dirty word in the workplace. Why people who are struggling are either dismissed as unstable or accused of faking it for attention or time off. It’s one or the other, crazy or manipulative. There’s no space in between. No grace for the complexity of what mental health actually looks like.

 

The truth is, most of us fall somewhere in the middle. We are showing up to work with PTSD, anxiety, depression, ADHD, trauma, burnout. Some of us are diagnosed. Some of us aren’t yet. But we’re still functioning, still trying. And that effort often goes unseen because we don’t break down in front of you. Because we push through. Until we can’t.

 

There is a stigma in the workplace that keeps people silent. We’re afraid to say too much because we’ll be labeled. Afraid to say too little because we’ll be ignored. We’re encouraged to take care of our mental health but penalized the moment we do. Companies preach awareness until awareness becomes inconvenience. And then they distance themselves. HR smiles until it’s time to actually support someone. Then they disappear.

 

Mental health isn’t black and white. It doesn’t always look like tears in the bathroom or panic attacks in a meeting. Sometimes it looks like isolation. Sometimes it looks like overcompensating. Sometimes it looks like someone who’s good at their job but fighting like hell just to be present. We need to stop assuming we know what it looks like. And we need to stop punishing people for showing signs of it.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how unprotected we are. People with mental health challenges are constantly falling through the cracks of the law. The protections that exist are vague, outdated, hard to access, and even harder to enforce. Especially in states like Utah where the system tends to lean toward the employer. What happened to me isn’t rare. It’s just rarely talked about.

 

So maybe it’s time we start talking. And not just in comments or private messages. I mean real conversations. Real pressure for real change. I’ve been thinking about trying to push for new laws, better protections, clearer standards. Something that forces companies to stop hiding behind HR policy and start showing actual accountability when it comes to mental health in the workplace.

 

I don’t know what that looks like yet. But I know this isn’t it. I know we deserve better. And if nothing changes, then what happened to me will keep happening to other people, and they won’t always have the energy or resources to speak up. So I’ll keep going. I’ll keep writing. I’ll keep pushing this forward. Because it’s not just about me anymore. It never was.