Mental Illness at Work: To Disclose or Not to Disclose

The lie started with an interview question I did not expect. “How did you become interested in social work?” The true answer is through my own therapy, but I wasn’t about to say that in an interview. My go-to answer was that the 1983 book August by Judith Rossner, an extremely detailed account of a young woman’s experience in psychoanalysis, inspired me. I said that I became fascinated by the process and wanted to know how the therapist knew what to say and when to say it.

I continued that I then went on to do some further reading on the subject including books by Irvin Yalom and others and that those writings helped convince me to become a social worker. They seemed to accept that. This was my third interview with the company and all the time I was sitting there thinking that one of the first things I’d do if I was considering someone for a position is to Google her. If they did, means they’d know that I have lived experience with mental illness. I had to try to figure out how much they knew and what kind of dance we were acting out.

Fast forward and I’d been with the company about 10 weeks. The need for me to deliberately disclose has not arisen, though I always wonder about what would happen should the need arise every time I start a new job. What triggered these thoughts at that moment was that I was a participant in a supervision group specifically for clinicians who have patients with…