6 Ways to Stay Effective At Work When You’re Depressed

Have a Venting Buddy

To clarify: Your cheerleaders are people outside your work who can “raw raw raw” make you feel better. A venting buddy, on the other hand, is someone within your work organization with whom you can be completely honest. This can be a dangerous step, so please proceed with caution.

But I know from the very recent experience of working at a rigid consulting firm that I would have completely lost it if it weren’t for three women in whom I confided everything: That I absolutely hated it, that I was looking for a job, that I was bipolar, that I might go postal at any moment. One woman, especially, my “new hire buddy” was a humongous support, as I would text her that I needed to have a cry outside, and she would just put her arm over me as I bawled. If you can find one person you trust, you will feel as though you aren’t totally alone. And that will make you less depressed.

List Your Excuses

Prior to working at this conservative consulting firm, I might have advised you to be perfectly honest with your co-workers and supervisor and divulge any depression or mood disorder. Yeah, well, I’m changing my mind on that. I thought I was doing the right thing by passing out copies of my book The Pocket Therapist: An Emotional Survival Kit to all my co-workers who I felt needed therapy, and setting up a blog where I could tie in research related to my job with my current bipolar status. Um. I got laid off. Not explicitly for that. But it really didn’t help my case.

So, for those people just entering a new job, I would seriously come up with a list of health issues you have, and use THOSE as your excuses. Don’t don’t don’t mention your depression or bipolar disorder. Everyone has funky stuff wrong with them. Geeze, I don’t know which to choose – my benign brain tumor, my aortic valve regurgitation, my Raynauld’s syndrome? In hindsight, if I were having a rough day at that firm knowing what I do today, I’d pick from the list and say I have a doctor’s appointment. I would not utter anything about a psychiatrist. I guess I just didn’t realize how backward corporate culture can be. Wow.

Don’t Blow Your Nose

This is another way of saying “fake it til you make it,” but since that phrase is overused, I thought I’d try another expression. In other words: The day that my boss told me that I had to shave off a layer of myself to fit into the firm – and that I shouldn’t breathe another word about my mental health history – I was trapped. I didn’t have a pass to exit the floor, let alone the building.

I couldn’t even go to the bathroom. So I sat in the room next to her with three other co-workers and I cried my eyes out, but since I didn’t blow my nose and kept my head down no one even noticed. If you can avoid crying altogether, that’s preferred. But I am a crier, and so if you are trapped in a situation where you can’t cry outside or in a bathroom, there is a way to sit at your desk and cry without anyone noticing. And if you type, even to a blank sheet that is not going nowhere, that looks (and sounds) even better. Like you are productive! When, in essence, you’re having a serious meltdown.