Posted by wishingstar on February 7, 2007, at 21:59:29
As most of you know, I'm starting my new job at a community mental health agency on Monday. I'm doing intensive in-home counseling work for families in crisis.
Have any of you ever decided to disclose your "issues" (for lack of a better word) at work? Have you considered it? Or would you never do it?
I'm a bit torn on how to handle this. My intuition tells me to say nothing, and that will definitely be what I do at least in the beginning. I have some flexibiliy in setting my own hours, but I'm concerned that therapy twice a week plus med visits every few weeks might start to be noticable or get in the way of things at work. I'm picturing myself in the situation where my coworkers want to meet about a case, or visit a client, at a certain time, and us having to find a different time because of my appts. My concern is that if that starts happening frequently, I'm going to feel pressed to give a reason (even though I know I wouldnt HAVE to) since we have the same caseload (so it's obvious I'm not with another client).
In my last job, I made up a story about having to get injections... I get chronic kidney stones and allowed everyone to think it was related to that. But that was only once a week, and I was lucky that no one ever pressed me as to what the heck theyd be injectng me with related to kidney stones.
If I were to disclose my situation, it'd be VERY vague, just that I suffer from depression and am being treated. But there is obviously a lot of stigma attached to that.. although hopefully it wouldnt be as bad working in a mental health agency.
Of course I definitely wont bring it up if it never becomes a problem. I guess I'm just trying to think ahead at this point, just in case. Has anyone had any experiences with this either way? Even for those who havent, I'd be interested to hear what you all think.
poster:wishingstar
thread:730974
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/work/20061208/msgs/730974.html