Mental Health in the Office: Difficult Conversations

MORRA AARONS-MELE: I’m Morra Aarons-Mele, and this is The Anxious Achiever. Each episode, we look at stories from business leaders who have dealt with anxiety, depression, or other mental health challenges, how they fell down, how they picked themselves up, and how they hope workplaces can change in the future.

Today, we’re going to talk about boundaries. Boundaries are like a secret magic ingredient once you understand yours. And they’re so crucial. But think about it. When is the last time that you checked in to make sure yours were being at least partially respected at work? Whether it’s a boss who always bothers you after hours, or mine – people always in my physical space. Once you know your key boundaries and apply limits to try to maintain them at work, your life will change.

Today’s first guest, psychologist, Dr. Rebecca Harley, is here to help us understand our boundaries and set limits. She told me that the people who come into her practice often just have one question, “How the bleep did I get here?” Harley thinks it’s because they tuned out a lot of messages that their boundaries were being violated in so many ways. And then later, HBR’s Amy Gallo will join me to practice some tricky conversations and answer your questions around setting boundaries, considering if you should come out to your boss about your anxiety, depression, or other struggles, how and when to tell, and more.

Why am I obsessed with boundaries? Well, this show is about anxiety, but it’s also about excellence. And if I told you that your anxiety was actually a secret to your effective and authentic leadership, you might look at me funny. But if you can manage and negotiate with it, your anxiety will enhance your skills as a leader. Like your focus, and your passion, and your drive, you want to be excellent, and you can be, but you’re never going to get there if you ignore your anxiety, or resort to old coping mechanisms, or let your boundaries get trampled over like grass under a herd of wildebeest.

Rebecca and I met almost 11 years ago in our new mommy group when our sons were six-weeks old, and we were weepy and overwhelmed new moms. Little did I know, she was a renowned psychologist. Dr. Harley is an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and has worked as a clinical psychologist and director at MGH and in private practice for over 15 years.

Okay. So, what are boundaries, and why do they matter in the context of your work life?

REBECCA HARLEY: Yeah. I mean, I think a general working definition of a boundary would be a guideline that we set for ourselves or that we create for ourselves to identify what feels permissible or what feels safe as we operate in life. I think if we’re on the inside of that territory, on the inside of a boundary, we feel more confident that we’re going to be okay, we feel more confident maybe at work that we’re going to function at our best. And then if we’re outside that boundary, like in a chronic way, I think that’s where problems can really start to arise.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: What is the relationship between anxiety triggers, which are a concept that I think a lot of certainly my listeners understand, and boundaries? I mean, how can understanding emotional and physical boundaries help you both manage your anxiety and try to either avoid triggers or better process-

REBECCA HARLEY: Mm-hmm. Well, I mean, I think it gets to another concept that’s related to boundaries, this notion of a limit. So if the boundary is the general guideline or your sense of the territory that it’ll be more concerning to cross into either physically or emotionally, or even intellectually around how much of your time you spend working or whatever the boundary is, then the notion of a limit is like the line that you want to try and observe, being careful not to cross. A limit is the idea of your-

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Give us a real-world example.

REBECCA HARLEY: Yeah. It’s what you are or aren’t willing to do, or what you are or aren’t willing to tolerate. For instance, the world is not doing a great job for us professionally, helping us separate times when we’re working versus times when we’re not. For me, for instance, I’m pretty careful not to bring my phone upstairs with me past a certain time when I’m ready to go to bed.

That has to do with my general sense of not wanting to work too much or not wanting to be too encroached upon by the world of the Internet. But the limit then is … the thing that I try to set for myself to pay attention to is where my phone is at certain times of day and how close am I to it, to try to not get triggered by picking it up.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Your phone is literally downstairs. That’s the limit.

REBECCA HARLEY: It is literally downstairs. That’s right. That’s right. And anxiety goes both ways. If we’re not paying good enough attention and find ourselves living life in ways that cross a lot of boundaries or that put us in positions that aren’t the ones that are best for our mental and physical health, then probably anxiety is going to be cropping up more and more, along with depression and other difficult internal states. The flip side of that is, in a moment by moment way, little flare-ups of anxiety are signals, sort of like things we can actually decide to tune into.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Well, I think that many of us who are achievers train ourselves to say, “Well, discomfort is part of it.”

REBECCA HARLEY: Right.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: How many people have you known who struggled through law school, or like you, a PhD, and said, “But I’m not supposed to enjoy it”?

REBECCA HARLEY: Right. No, exactly. I mean, and it’s tricky because I think part of that’s true.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Right.

REBECCA HARLEY: To be really good at something you often do, you have to just plow through stuff, find your way, and do what you’re supposed to do. It’s not as if we can run through the world doing exactly what we want all the time. That is part of what success requires, and it’s the differentiation of how to know. Often, it does take time. That’s kind of layer upon layer of that observing, of that tuning in, and being willing to accept that I don’t quite know what this means, and yet I’m not going to ignore it just because I don’t know what it means or because I’m afraid of what it means. I’m going to just let it be there, and I’m going to let it be a topic of further exploration as more information comes in.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Okay. We’ve used this term “tune in.”

REBECCA HARLEY: Mm-hmm.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: How do you start? Do you tune in to your body? Like where do you start?

REBECCA HARLEY: Yes. Well, yes and yes. Can I say yes to all of this?

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Okay. Yes, absolutely.

REBECCA HARLEY: I think it’s tuning in to whatever’s there in the present. So, you don’t necessarily have to go searching. It’s just about trying to turn your attention inward. Whether the most prominent thing that you notice right in that moment is a physical sensation, or whether it’s a feeling that you can put some words to, or whether it’s a thought, like the social anxiety thoughts while giving a presentation of like, “I’m going to do terrible at this. This is going to be terrible.” One of those things might lead the way. And so, whatever’s there would be the first thing.

In culture these days, there’s more and more talk about this concept of mindfulness. And that’s really what we’re talking about here is just paying attention, ideally in a curious and not judgmental way to just observing and describing whatever your internal experience is in that moment. Looking at life and looking at inner life and looking at even hard things that happen from that kind of position of curiosity, like, “If I could be a detective here, maybe that makes it a little less scary.” Right?

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Right. And I may judge myself less.

REBECCA HARLEY: Yeah. Let’s hope so. Because rarely have I ever seen judgement do anything other than shut us down.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Well, okay. Let’s talk about that, because I think that as anxious achievers, many of us, we want to please others, and a huge value to us is making everyone else happy, making others impressed with our performance. And I feel like when that is a primary value, you may be explicitly not tuning in well to how you really feel.

REBECCA HARLEY: Mm-hmm. Well, especially because, I mean, I think often there’s this dichotomy that gets set up inside us that says sort of, “I must please others to the exclusion of what’s good for me.” So that sense of an either-or may live inside the given workplace. That may actually be part of the power dynamic of the place that you work, such that that environment is actually true in a certain way. Depending on where you are in the power structure of a workplace, there may be explicit or implicit limits on what you’re allowed to express.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Right. If you’re a new person at the office. Right.

REBECCA HARLEY: Yeah. I mean, that’s difficult, because that’s basically a moment where whatever you might wish to express interpersonally is not welcome. I mean, and so people make different decisions about that over time, but I think of that as… that doesn’t equate to having to quash our own awareness of what we wish to say, our own awareness of how we feel over the questions of what is and is not my point of view. I think that’s where it gets to be really this slippery slope.

We don’t always choose to say or aren’t able to say, given the environment, exactly what we need. But if we stop even paying attention to the question or answering it ourselves, even if it doesn’t seem possible to get that thing out there in the real world, that’s where that sort of slippery slope of like, “How the heck did I get here?” starts to really feel slippery.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: I think especially if you are early in your career and accept that there’s a lot of things you’ve got to suck up, or you’re at a new job, you have to impress people. That’s just life.

REBECCA HARLEY: Yeah.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: But at the same time, to play detective and think about… I’ll never forget when I started out as an executive assistant right after college, and I would observe the very powerful women that I was assistant to. And I would say things to myself like, “I really love how they can come and go as they please, and no one ever asks where they are.” That was like a little piece of information I was saving for myself, even though at 22 that was not my option, but I was like, “Oh, this is something I want to aim for.”

REBECCA HARLEY: Yeah. It’s like there’s this little ping that goes off inside you that says, “That I like,” or the alternative, “That I don’t like.” So, it may not be that you can do anything about it right away. I mean, I think people will sometimes come into therapy and say things like, “I don’t think there’s anything to be done about that.” But I guess my answer is like, “Oh boy, well, there’s all kinds of doing, isn’t there?” There’s a kind of doing that’s internal doing, which is the kind you just described, which is like, “I took notice of that and sucked it away for a future time when I felt like maybe I could actually make more of that my life.”

I think that doing that is very important, to not feel hopeless that, “Oh, because I’m here in this moment with this set of choices means that I just have to suck it up and stop hoping or stop paying attention to what might work better for me.”

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Are anger and anxiety related emotions?

REBECCA HARLEY: Mm-hmm. Yes, and kind of in two directions. Like one can precede the other, and each can precede the other way. Maybe your listeners are already familiar with this notion. Part of how to think about anxiety is that it’s old, right, inside of us as a feeling that relates to the need to flee or fight.

Part of what can happen when anxiety gets triggered is that sense of, “I either need to run away from this threat,” or if I’m trapped and can’t run away from it, maybe another urge that will come is to fight in some way. And so, anger is a fight instinct. Anger is a feeling that is about trying to defend yourself, or argue against injustice, or something along those lines. And so, fear and anger, then, could totally follow. Sort of, something scares me, but then I’m realizing I need to defend myself inside it, and so anger could come next.

You could flip that around and go the other way, though. Let’s say you’re feeling that there is some kind of injustice, or there is something that makes you angry because you need to defend something, but let’s say you’re not comfortable with that.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: You’re a woman, and you’re not allowed to be angry?

REBECCA HARLEY: That’s right. Absolutely, we need to not forget societal and cultural impacts here. Maybe you come from a culture where either in general or as a woman you’re especially not. So, to have a feeling of anger and also to be feeling it as unacceptable, or unexpressible because it won’t be welcome or it might lead to some kind of ramification, then anger might be the feeling inside, and then the secondary feeling might be anxiety.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: So, if you had a boss, for example, who was continually violating boundaries. Let’s use the old chestnut of always calling you on the weekend.

REBECCA HARLEY: Right.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: You might be angry, but you’re also going to feel anxious all weekend as you’re anticipating that.

REBECCA HARLEY: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, those things would, for sure, commingle. And then depending on who you were and how much space you felt like you had inside you for this kind of differentiation, you may not even know you’re angry. It just might feel like anxiety running rampant.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Or stuckness. I think a lot of us feel stuck. Yeah.

REBECCA HARLEY: Yeah. Or hopeless. So, all sorts of different versions of feelings that can arise in a situation like that.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Speaking of hopelessness or stuckness, you and I have talked in the past, you introduced a term to me that I think is super interesting, defensive pessimism.

REBECCA HARLEY: Oh, did I?

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Yeah.

REBECCA HARLEY: I don’t remember.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: You did.

REBECCA HARLEY: Okay.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: I think when we were getting pedicures, because this is what we talk about.

REBECCA HARLEY: Of course.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Or the idea that are anxious patterns in some ways, they’re so firmly part of our self-interest we may not even notice them. To me, also, it’s a sense that anxiety and some of the feelings around it or even bad habits, they’re comfortable for us.

REBECCA HARLEY: Right. No, it’s very true. I mean, I think some of these patterns that may actually not serve us in the long haul are actually the more comfortable thing. And there are so many things to say about that. It might be partly how I was taught as a kid. So, maybe I’m modeling things that I learned before I was even aware of the fact that that kind of teaching goes on. It can feel safer, to assume the worst, maybe, in this particular example of defensive pessimism.

Or the tendency to catastrophize things. Sort of like that sense that, “So long as I’m the one that’s imagining that, that might be how it turns out, then somehow I’m protecting myself. The worst thing would be to be taken by surprise by an outcome that’s negative that I didn’t want.” And so that kind of generalized worry that people can feel, and certainly that kind of defensive pessimism might well be that well-worn trail that feels safer. Even though it may cause me amazingly more distress, because now I’m living in a world where I’m expecting the worst.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Well, and it’s funny because I’ve actually read in books that anxious people when a real crisis happens can be heroes because they’ve been preparing for the worst for their whole lives.

REBECCA HARLEY: Right, right. It can feel vindicating.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: I honestly do not know how I feel about that sentence.

REBECCA HARLEY: Right. But I actually am not sure exactly about the data about that. If anybody has studied it, it’d be interesting to find. But I think that’s true. There’s a sense that, “I’m going to be ready for it.” But what that means is that curiosity window we were talking about right is much narrower, because when people are depressed and when they’re worrying that way, there’s this confirmation bias that can arise where I’m pretty much more tuned for the things that confirm the negative and confirm the likelihood of the worst, and I’m actually filtering out things that are contrary to that or that are just neutral even.

While you may be ready for Armageddon when it comes, the question of your actual level of satisfaction in your daily life and your moment to moment existence, it might not be as much as it could be if there were a way to tune in differently.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Yes. Or as my husband says, “I can’t even imagine what it’s like to live inside your head.”

REBECCA HARLEY: Right. Right. I know. Another thing I remember us talking about, maybe in that same conversation, this whole experiential avoidance idea. So, we’re in that territory talking about it. There is this funky paradoxical thing that we will do in the face of something uncomfortable or hard, where we substitute that feeling out for a less imminent but still very negative set of thoughts. Like let’s say I’m sitting down to work on a project that is hard or maybe tedious, like just something I don’t like, something that’s going to mean I have to sit with discomfort or feel yucky.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Right. Like your taxes or something like that. Yeah.

REBECCA HARLEY: Yeah. Right, right. Or maybe it’s a project at work that pushes the limits of my capability and I’m not sure I’m going to be able to do it, like that’s uncomfortable, that’s a negative set of thoughts and feelings. And instead of actually sitting there and feeling those things, maybe I start to worry about how if I don’t get this finished, I’m going to get fired. And then actually, maybe I go even further and not only am I fired, but I’m like homeless.

And so now I’ve been sitting at my desk thinking really upsetting thoughts and feeling those upsetting feelings, but what’s amazing about that, the paradox is, without realizing maybe I did that because I didn’t want to feel the discomfort of working on the project.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Right. Because you’re feeling the familiar comfort of, “I’m going to be homeless, I’m going to get fired,” because you’ve been feeling that that’s a very comfortable series of-

REBECCA HARLEY: Yes. Yes. And it’s relieving because it’s not imminent. The thing I’d have to be feeling more actively is right here inside me. And so, instead, I’ll borrow trouble. To actually strip off the layer that is about resisting it, means that actually our distress paradoxically is a little bit less in that moment. This is the time where I would normally use my hands and show like…

So, imagine a ball, and that’s the pain or the distress. But then imagine a ball like with a whole another three-inch layer on it that makes this sphere bigger. That’s what the Buddhists and the mental health folks who use these concepts would call suffering, which is the resistance to the truth of the pain. So like, “I’m going to resist that feeling. I don’t want it to be here, so I’m going to just try and push it away, get away from it somehow.” But if you think about that three-dimensionally now, my distress is actually bigger than if I had just engaged more directly by turning towards whatever was uncomfortable in the first place.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Rebecca Harley, thank you so much.

REBECCA HARLEY: You are so welcome. It was a pleasure.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: I’m sitting here in the flesh at Harvard Business Review with Amy Gallo, who wrote the HBR guide to dealing with conflict and is a contributing editor to HBR, and is going to help us really think about, “Okay, I’m going to sit in this room, and I’m going to have a difficult conversation with my coworker, team, boss-”

AMY GALLO: HR, maybe.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: “-HR, and really ask for what I need in terms of preserving my mental health, maintaining it, or if I’m in a really bad place, taking the time that I need,” because you’ve heard on the show, and we just talked with Rebecca Harley, about how to really tune in to what you might need to understand your boundaries, how people cross them all the time at work, and how that can really contribute to stress and anxiety. It’s an amazing thing when you know your boundaries. It’s another to ask. And not only that, to keep asking. Right. So, thanks, Amy.

AMY GALLO: Thanks for having me.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: I’m curious as an expert in this stuff, do you have any self-talk, or mantras, or pep talks when you start feeling a little anxious before a difficult conversation?

AMY GALLO: For sure. There’s actually a couple of steps I take that help me calm down. Oftentimes, with a difficult conversation, I will tell myself, “This is just work. This is not life or death. This is just work. This is not me having to rush to the hospital or me having to do something that’s going to change my life forever, this is a conversation.” And how will I feel about this conversation in a week, or in a month, or in a year? Chances are it will be relatively inconsequential. So, I try to give myself a little perspective.

The other thing, and this is what I really encourage people to think about is to figure out, “What is my goal in that conversation? What is it that I actually want? Is it that I want my teammates to stop emailing me on the weekend? Is it that I want my boss to let me leave early on Thursday evenings, so I can go to therapy? What is it exactly that I want as a result of this conversation?” And that’s going to really guide how you navigate it.

And I do encourage it to be a discussion. I think a lot of times people think of setting boundaries as a demand or even a request. And oftentimes, it’s a conversation to figure out, “What have we both been assuming here? How can we make this a little clearer? How can I maybe request something? How can we experiment for a little while to see if that request works?” This is an ongoing discussion. This isn’t, “I can’t check my email anymore on the weekends, or I’m going to be sick.”

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Am I scheduling a specific meeting to do this? I’m not casually bringing it up in the hall, I would assume, but how am I setting this conversation up for success?

AMY GALLO: Yeah. So, I think there’s three things you need to do to set it up for success. One is, mentally get in the right space for you. If you’re thinking, “Oh my gosh, she’s horrible. She’s ruining my weekends. This is awful. I need to lay down the line,” that conversation is not going to go well.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: “Take this job, and shove it-”

AMY GALLO: Exactly. Can you be curious … what don’t you like about the situation? Can you look forward to it as an interesting conversation with your boss about setting boundaries as opposed to a conversation you’re dreading? You also want to think, what are your main messages? What is it you want to deliver? And here is a big question about, are you interested in disclosing your mental health issue or not? That will be important to know, what are your key messages? What’s the reason you’re having this conversation? And that’s where you also want to think about what your goal is.

And then there’s the logistics. Knowing what you know about this person, knowing about what you know about you, where’s the best time and place to have this conversation? Oftentimes, it’s in a conference room, in a meeting room, in a quiet place where you can both focus on the conversation. So, the hallway conversation is not directly good. It might be you going out to coffee, it might be in part of a check-in that you already have scheduled. You will have to figure out how big of a deal you want to make this, and saying, “I need an hour with you to discuss email on the weekend,” makes it a pretty big deal. So, can you figure out the sort of level of severity that you want to convey with-

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Right. “Could we grab 20 minutes right after the staff meeting? There’s something I’d love to talk about.”

AMY GALLO: Exactly. Yep.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: So, I want to talk about keeping the boundaries because I think this is hard. So you have a great conversation with your boss or your team. I think a lot of it is a team dynamic. We’ve all been on teams where it’s the “reply all” contagion, I call it, where everyone is like, “I’m going to answer this email right away, and I’m going to reply all so everybody knows how on top of it I am.” So, okay. You say, “Hey guys, let’s try something. Maybe after 7 p.m., after 6 p.m., or on the weekends, we could be more thoughtful about email. We could try a little less “reply all” because here’s a statistic that shows that it makes people anxious, and my executive coach recommended-” It’s always good to pull in like outside experts, so they’re all cool. Right?

AMY GALLO: Yup. Wait, can I just point out something about your request, which I really like, which is like, “Let’s try something.” And this is true. Whether you’re talking to your boss, whether you’re talking to peers, whether you’re talking to even HR, present it as an experiment. If you tell them, “We will never be able to email weekends for the rest of time,” some people would think that’s great, but it’s much harder to get an accommodation or to get people to change their behavior forever. Whereas if you say, “Let’s try it for a month and see how it goes,” then it’s much easier. They get used to it. They see what actually works, what doesn’t.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Right. It’s a really good point.

AMY GALLO: Yeah.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: I like the word pilot. “Let’s do a pilot.”

AMY GALLO: Yes, yes.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Okay. Let’s talk a little bit about disclosing, because this is a question that we get a lot, and there’s levels. So, I think it’s becoming actually more acceptable, and a lot of leaders are leading the way, saying, “I have an appointment every Thursday.” And we all sort of know it’s therapy, and it’s like wink-wink, and it’s on their calendar, and that’s great.

Some might even say, “I’m going to therapy. It’s Thursday.” When do you know it’s okay to be honest? Because sometimes if you say, “I’ve got to slip out for an hour on Thursday,” people don’t take it seriously enough, and then you’re anxious. So, you want the boundary of, “This is sacred time to me,” but you may not feel comfortable disclosing. How do you judge how to have that conversation?

AMY GALLO: Yeah. I mean, it’s, it’s a really personal decision. I wish there was a checklist that we could hand out when people would say, “Here’s when you can disclose your mental health issue at work.” A couple of things to keep in mind. One, there are protections in place, at least in the U.S. That does not mean your boss or your organization will adhere to those protections, but there are protections. And there’s actually the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which has some resources around what your legal protections are.

If you choose to disclose, I think it’s important to educate yourself on those. Educate yourself before you need an accommodation. Know what your legal rights are. But then it comes down to really, “Do you trust the person you need to tell or the people you need to tell?” This is sensitive information. The reality is that while it is becoming more normalized, there is still quite a lot of stigma. And you usually don’t know how people are going to react to that information. So, it’s really a personal decision. “Do I trust these people? Do I think I will be protected? Will my job be at risk? Will my reputation be at risk?” And then you have to decide, “Do I feel comfortable doing this?”

I definitely have colleagues who’ve disclosed to me, either one-on-one or said definitely have the wink-wink Thursday afternoon appointment. I think in the environment I currently work in, it’s not an issue at all. But it really depends on the organization.

I mean, it’s hard because I wish I could tell people, “Disclose.” And actually, disclosing would help normalize it even more if more of us were talking about it, but I don’t want to tell people to disclose if their job might be at risk, or their reputation, or their relationships with people at work. And that’s the reality for many, many people.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: It’s true. And I think also, it’s really important. There are cultural differences. There are probably geographic differences about how we think about this stuff. And also, some offices have no facetime value. They don’t care where you are. So, being out of touch for an hour, or not visible, is like literally not a big deal. But if you’re an executive assistant, as I was for many years, and you have to leave your desk for an hour, there’s a lot of logistics involved. Right?

AMY GALLO: Right.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: So, it really is also about where you are in your career and all that. I would encourage leaders, people who can disclose, to do it because you make it so much easier for others.

AMY GALLO: Yeah. And there’s lots of benefits to disclosing. You feel like you can bring your full self to work. You might actually get the emotional support from your colleagues that you need. It would reduce stress of trying to hide your situation or trying to hide the fact that you need to leave for therapy every week. So, there are benefits, but I think you have to weigh the costs as well before you make the decision.

And you don’t have to say, “I’m going to therapy because I am bipolar.” You can say, “I have a doctor’s appointment every Thursday. I need to leave at 3:30. Let me know if that’s a problem. I’m assuming it’s not, because I’ll be online later and get my work done,” or I’ll make up for the hours on Friday, whatever you can do to make up for the time. And present it as, “This is what I have to do.”

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Right. Like you had a broken leg, and you had to go to physical therapy, otherwise you couldn’t walk again.

AMY GALLO: Exactly. And no one would say, “Wait, you’re going to physical therapy every week?” And I think you have to, remember, present it as just the facts. That’s how I think of it, like, “What’s the basic information the person needs to allow the accommodation you need?”

MORRA AARONS-MELE: I’m curious, in all your years working in many different environments, if you’ve ever had a colleague … I was thinking maybe you’re traveling, and it’s a bumpy flight, and someone says, “I get really anxious on planes.” Has anyone ever volunteered information, or, “I’m going through a hard time. I’m depressed. I’ve got stuff going on,” and how has that felt to you?

AMY GALLO: Well, I’m a fearful flyer.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Me, too.

AMY GALLO: So, I’ve certainly disclosed that to colleagues, and it’s been well received. And it’s funny. I mean, I think more than anything, people feel like they should offer advice, which is very funny. Like you don’t understand how fearful I am exactly, but sometimes it’s good pointers. I’ve had colleagues when I worked at a management consulting firm … there was a colleague who had a panic disorder who shared that, particularly in the context of, “We’re in a very high stress project.” And she let us know what was happening. We were able to make accommodation for her. She didn’t require much.

There’s always that moment of discomfort. I think that moment of discomfort for me when someone discloses to me is the instinct to help. And it’s not my job typically to help. I mean, I can be empathetic, I can be supportive. It’s my job to say, “Thank you for telling me,” and then figure out how and if it affects the work.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Right. And, “Let me know what you need.” Well, actually, let’s talk about that, because I think on the flip side of being able to ask for what you need is also being a coworker who feels like their boundaries might be violated by someone who’s oversharing. We’ve all had the oversharing coworker, or someone who works for us, or whomever who trusts us, and all of a sudden we feel like their therapist, which is not appropriate either. So, what’s your advice around that?

AMY GALLO: Well, I think if someone tells you that they’re dealing with a mental health issue, hopefully there’s a reason. Hopefully it’s just not information they’re blurting out or oversharing.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Although in fairness, when you’re feeling that way… I mean, I’m a blurter, I’ve said that on the show… your judgment and your impulsivity might be not as good as it always is.

AMY GALLO: Yeah, of course. I think you want to, when someone discloses to you, whether it feels like they’re doing it intentionally and thoughtfully, or just in a moment of panic or nervousness, I do think you want to say, “Thank you for telling me,” because it’s usually a very hard thing to say. And then as you said, “Let me know if there’s anything I can do.” But I think, keep it very professional, not asking a lot of questions, especially where you’re concerned, “Well, wow, I’ve worked with this person for a week maybe, and they’re telling me now?”

Don’t ask a lot of questions. Don’t make it a regular topic of conversation. Put up your own boundaries by showing, “It’s okay you’ve told me. I’m here if you need me, but we’re done with that topic.” And you don’t have to say, “We’re done with that topic,” but you can demonstrate you’re done by talking about work next, about moving on. And really, try to be as comfortable with it as you can, because that’s going to convey, “This is a normal topic of conversation. We also have 10 other things we need to talk about. So here we go.”

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Is it okay to say something, like if you have been there, like, “I’ve been there. I get it”?

AMY GALLO: For sure, if you feel comfortable doing that. Again, that is not required because that’s a disclosure in itself. And so, you have to decide, is that something you want to do? Especially if you’re dealing with an oversharer, is this someone who is then going to share that information? Are they going to go to the next person and say, “I talked to Morra, and she told me she’s dealing with this,” to feel good about it? You have to be careful and know who you’re talking to, because that information could travel.

And the oversharing is interesting. I think there are some generational misconceptions around it, that millennials are oversharing or that certain types of people overshare. I haven’t personally witnessed that. I don’t think there’s a lot of research to back that up, but keep your judgments to yourself. So if someone does overshare, don’t be like, “Oh, this is because she’s 28, and they’re all doing this,” or, “Every woman who I’ve worked within HR overshares.” Just keep your judgment out of it, let them do what they’re going to do, and put up the boundaries that you need to.

And in the situation where someone has asked you… essentially doesn’t ask you but starts treating you as their therapist, I think you need to gently put up your boundary there. And that may be spending less social time with that person, changing the subject to work topics, doing more interaction with them over email or Slack rather than in-person, just subtly showing, “This is not the role I want to play.”

And there are times where you may need to actually point-blank say that, say, “I enjoy our conversations. I think you need more help than I can provide, and it’s impairing my ability to get my work done. I’m hoping we can continue to meet up, but we can talk about different things.”

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Last question is a real question actually that we got from a listener I wanted to bring up, and she wrote, “I’ve been struggling with anxiety and depression for the past decade.” She asked, “Is there any chance you can address how to mention your mental health to future employers? I’ve taken a long three-year stint after dealing with severe depression, and I’m back looking for jobs. I’m not sure how to tell potential employers without scaring them that I may not show up again because of my mental illness.”

AMY GALLO: That’s a hard question.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Mm-hmm.

AMY GALLO: Yeah. This is tricky territory, again for all the reasons we talked about earlier around stigma, and you don’t have a relationship with this person or this organization, so you can’t do the detective work of figuring out, “Will this person be open to hearing this?” Again, I would advise this person to go back to, what is their goal? Is their goal to get a job, any job, just a job? Maybe they need to get back in the workforce right away, maybe they need money, maybe they’re just anxious to get started again. Or do they want a job where people will be supportive, and understanding, and accommodate her in any way that she needs?

If it’s the former and she just needs a job, there’s no need for her to disclose, unless her illness prevents her from doing the job as described in this current moment. I would not plan for eventualities if she has a relapse. Can she do the job in this moment if they were to hire her? And if the answer is yes, there’s no need to disclose.

If, however, she does want a job where she will be supported, where people understand, she could use that interview as a litmus test, and choose to disclose, and see how the interviewer reacts, how HR reacts, how any recruiters involved react, because that’ll tell you a lot about how the organization will handle the issue when it does become an issue in whether or not she can do her job.

I think you could certainly ask a lot of questions without disclosing as well. “What are the company’s health benefits? What are the mental health benefits? Have people taken leaves of absence? What have they taken leaves of absence for?”

You can certainly ask a lot of questions that would also get you that information or at least some of that information without disclosing. They might catch on that you’re asking a lot of questions about that, but again, how they react to those questions will say a lot about how they will be when you need accommodation in the job.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Yeah.

AMY GALLO: She’s under no legal obligation, obviously, to tell them. She should know that. She just needs to be careful, take care of herself, figure out what is her goal, and then make thoughtful choices that help her get that goal.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: I love that. And I think also, my heart answer for her is that if she really feels great, and she’s really ready, and she’s passionate about going back to work, we people with mental health disorders, who are also dazzlingly amazing at our careers, can be both. And my advice is always to dazzle first, and then do your detective work, and then maybe ask more about mental health. And even if you’re comfortable after you’ve totally dazzled them, after they’ve given you an offer. Right?

AMY GALLO: Right.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Because that also, I think in your subtle way, you’re doing amazing work in erasing stigma. “I am a dazzlingly amazing professional who’s going to change this company. Oh, and by the way, I had to take time off because I had a serious issue.”

AMY GALLO: Yeah. There is a lot of power in disclosing in that way and also some risk, and you have to consider both.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Absolutely.

AMY GALLO: Yeah.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Thank you, Amy.

AMY GALLO: Yeah. Thank you, Morra. This is great. I love your show.

MORRA AARONS-MELE: Hi everyone, it’s Morra. So, I have exciting news, which is that the show will be back for season two in Spring 2020. And I really can’t wait to talk to more people, explore more incredibly, to me, fascinating aspects of our mental health lives and our journeys. And I really want to hear from our listeners. If you have an idea for a show or you’d like to tell us your story, just drop me a line, anxiousachiever@gmail.com. That’s right. Just send an email to anxiousachiever@gmail.com.

That’s it for this week’s show. If you like what you’ve heard, be sure to subscribe and submit a review in Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your shows. And if you have an idea for the show or you want to tell us your story, drop me a note at anxiousachiever@gmail.com, or you can tweet me @morraam. That’s M-O-R-R-A-A-M.

Special thanks to the team at Harvard Business Review, my producer Mary Dooe, the team at Podcast Garage, and all of our guests who are telling us their stories from the heart. From the HBR Presents network, I’m Morra Aarons-Mele, and this is The Anxious Achiever.