So much of the diversity conversation focuses on gender and race. Today, I need to expand that conversation to mental health and compassion.

I am diagnosed to have moderate depression and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), the symptoms of which mirror those of post-traumatic stress disorder (ptsd). These symptoms manifested in 2019 when I reached the edge of my emotional resilience. You see, my daughter had received a new medical diagnosis the previous summer and caring for her created unexpected conflicts between my core values: professionalism vs caring.

Abruptly, I no longer had the emotional capacity to meet my personal expectations (which, of course, I set much too high … but that is another story).  I’ll try to explain.

The value of caring manifests in me as service to my family and, really, to anyone I meet. I am able to meet this core value quite easily by being aware of the emotional climate around me — and as an individual with a high emotional quotient (EQ), this awareness is effortless. When I notice emotions of distress or anxiety, I am able to do the emotional work that helps the group or individual resolve some of their stressors.

Unfortunately, working in a culture of low EQ, my emotional needs in the workplace remained unmet and the college became a drain on my emotional reserves. I could manage this drain on my reserves by refilling them at home, at church and at my volunteering positions, with music and affirmation from the broader engineering community. However, when I acquired the increased emotional work with my daughter’s diagnosis, I could no longer cope. I could no longer recover from the emotional drain of the college.

You may wonder how I realized this? Well the non-stop crying for three days was pretty scary. I called a friend in the college’s HR department; she is the one who sent me to the doctor for help.

Since then, through an amazing course called Radically Open, a course using dialectical behaviour therapy, I discovered my tendencies towards being psychologically over-controlled, which manifests for me as perfectionism and low self-compassion. I’m working on these — and taking medication for the depression and for physical symptoms that developed during that period of overwhelm in 2019 and, again, in 2020.

It is vital to talk openly about mental health and mental disorders to diminish their stigma and amplify their normalcy, enabling those who are struggling to seek help — and be safe.

I recently saw a beautiful video posted in the Bounce Back program (https://bouncebackbc.ca/)— a program supported by several chapters of the Canadian Mental Health Association and by public health authorities, including BC — of an interview with Shelagh Rogers, which I’ve inserted below. It was recorded several years ago and remains very reassuring. I recommend this program as a great place to start if you are experiencing emotional distress.

I also want to talk a little about dissociative identity disorder, DID, only because of a new series that came out on Apple + that portrays DID through the eyes of a serial criminal (The Crowded Room). I learned about the series from a DID system — they call themselves the Entropy System — whose YouTube channel has published a video about issues with this series.

I invite you to watch the video and to sign the petition. While the conversation must progress, associating DID with criminal behaviour increases the stigma, which is unhelpful in that conversation and in any conversation around mental health.

Thanks for reading. I wish you good health.

As the Entropy System says, “You are valuable. You are loved. You are valid.”