What a difference a year makes...

I was a teacher for 12 years and in that time I had several periods of ill health associated with my Bipolar Disorder. By the time I left a year ago I had become very despondent with education and was having significant doubts about my abilities as a teacher. A year on another period of depression, but this time when employed outside teaching, has made me look back as reassess the role that employment and employers can have when someone is unwell. Stress is a known trigger for most mental illnesses including Bipolar disorder. Much of my care and crisis prevention planning is about managing stress and my life so as to minimise excessive stress as much as possible. Teaching is a stressful job and has only become more so in recent years. When I started teaching I was keen and enthusiastic and threw myself into the job, loving the creativity of planning lessons and working with teenagers. I did struggle with the all encompassing nature of the work, but I was young and had no other responsibilities in my life. At the start of my second year a change in school, with a complete lack of support, as well as moving across the country triggered a depressive episode. I never returned to that school and left after a term. Then came two years a private school and my confidence began to build again and I began to enjoy teaching once more. I put this down to the amount of planning and preparation time I was given- over double the amount given in the state sector. Added to this a long lunch break (70mins) and an understanding that I had a life outside of my teaching. As my confidence built I started to look around for a move up and moved to a state school as a head of department. Once again the stress hit. I was building a department from nothing and despite my willing and enthusiasm I began to feel the strain. Towards the end of my teaching career I had dropped to three days a week and relinquished my head of department role. All for the aim of reducing my workload and associated stress. The last year has been eye opening. I was completely up front with my employer regarding my Bipolar Diagnosis. I requested and was granted some reasonable adjustments to enable me to cope better with the working week. Because this involved an outwardly obviously change I shared my diagnosis with colleagues. It was a revelation for an employer to genuinely listen and try to adapt the working situation so that I could do my best. Despite now working full time, I was never brushed off with "its a stressful job" and never was it suggested that I reduce my hours (and therefore pay) unless it was what I wanted. This was very unlike my previous career in teaching. The biggest difference was shown most recently. At the end of August we moved house, a sale and purchase that was anything but straightforward. Moving house is listed as one of the most stressful things a person experiences (divorce and death are the top ones). I made changes, enacted my wellness plan and tried to cope with the stress as well as possible. However it was too much and triggered a depressive episode, which to some extent I am still experiencing. The response of my employer was phenomenal and has meant that I have not been signed off and instead have only taken 4 days sick leave throughout the whole period. This is significant period of depression, equal to the whole term (13 weeks) I took off in my second year of teaching or even the postnatal depression I suffered after the birth of my children. The difference was how it was handled. I spoke to my managers about how I was feeling, but also explaining that although daunting, being at work was actually good for me. It meant I was out of the house, interacting with people. We agreed some small changes to my working- staying off the phone if I needed to, I was offered a change in working hours if needed, and some time off to allow my increase in medication to take effect. At the same time I felt able to tell friends and colleagues how I was feeling and they were supportive and sympathetic. All this has made a huge difference to me getting better and as not resulted in a long period off sick, as I believe would have happened were I still in teaching. On reflection I wonder whether I should just accept that teaching wasn't for me because of my inability to cope with stress and teachings inability to be flexible in the way of other jobs. But then I also consider if that would be acceptable with other conditions. Should we simply tell people with certain conditions and disabilities that some careers are closed to them? The Equalities Act attempts to resolve this, allowing people to request reasonable adjustments to enable disabled people to continue working, to adjust their working so that they can compete at the same level as their peers. At the moment teaching is way behind other careers in dealing appropriately with mental illness and in fact any kind of change from the standard. Everyone is held to the same standards, and the attitude is often keep up or get out. But it may have to change, teachers are leaving the profession in droves. Mental illness in teachers in on the rise year after year. I now work with teachers as an Adviser, and speak to far too many in tears, depressed and unable to cope who think their only choice is to leave. Looking back there were certainly other things my teaching employers could have done to enable me to stay in work and feel useful and productive- so important to someone suffering from depression. Rather than guilt laden conversations around letting children down, and useless reminders that everyone is stressed, there could be real conversations on how this job could be made more mental health friendly- for all teachers, not just those with underlying mental illness. My mood is lifting, slowly. I have increased my medication and I am employing lots of self help tools. I am getting there!