Imagine the pride you might feel when your workplace approaches you and praises you for your hard work. They move you to a high-end team because of your work ethic. Imagine the excitement and the possible opportunities. I mean, if you kept going, perhaps one day you’d be management. The possibilities were endless. And for a while, you flourish in the team. You do an amazing job and though the expectations have certainly increased, you do the best that you can do. Going home you feel proud. You’re tired but the possibilities are still endless.

Now imagine they come back to you and tell you that you’re just not good enough.

My partner found himself in this exact situation. Meeting after meeting turned to what he felt as criticism. He took nothing constructive out of it and soon the meetings were about what he wasn’t doing rather than what he was doing. He began to take everything on board. Had trouble sleeping. Had trouble waking up. Had trouble functioning. And as the criticism grew, his performance at work suffered until finally he couldn’t take it anymore and sought medical attention.

The doctor diagnosed him with depression and prescribed medications. The doctor warned him that it would take a while to find the right medication and/or the right dosage. Mental illness was not exact science. It takes a while to find the right medication to fit the right person. Our minds are different and for a while, it was a struggle for Joel. He struggled with mood swings. Suicidal thoughts. Self-harm. There was a point where he felt like the medications were making him worse not better. He was finding it too hard to communicate with me, his own partner, so imagine what it felt like to have to go into work and do your job. He took more and more days off. He was beginning to feel like a burden at home and at work. He had no refuge or escape at this point. Things were coming to a crashing halt.

Joel made a very brave decision. He decided to be honest with his workplace about struggling with mental illness. He decided to ask for help from his managers. He sought out EAP, a job provided mental health program that allowed him to speak to a counsellor over the phone for an hour while still at work. His medications were starting to take effect. The doctor and him and found one that was working. It was expensive but it was worth it.

But the managers took this information and started to give him their own advice:

“Have you ever tried getting better at your job? Then your depression would go away.”

“Look if I can come to work and do my job with the flu or a cold, then so can you.”

“Maybe if you woke up earlier, it’d give you more time to get ready.”

“I’ve never had depression myself but it’s all in your head.”

“I knew someone who had depression and they got over it quickly so, so can you.”

More and more, Joel was taking his personal leave to deal with his depression, especially on the bad days. Some days he’d threaten to step in front of a train so I had to think of his own safety and keep him home with me. Soon his managers got worse. Putting him in meetings without 24 hours notice (that’s a must here). Constantly berating him and harassing him over his mental illness. Cornering him to do better. Giving him deadlines to get better.

And despite all that, he did slowly start to improve. Slowly, but he was improving. And by the end of 2018 he was almost back on track.

And that’s when his work place demoted him.

Joel went back to work in 2019 as if he had just started that job all over again. He was back at the bottom but found that his expectations were still higher than the rest of his team. He was given harder clients as he was still considered a senior employee. And with the feeling of being demoted and starting under new managers that were not familiar with his history, he just felt he was being portrayed as a lazy worker. More and more pressure was put on him. The managers no longer followed proper procedures. Started sending group emails praising everyone on the team but Joel. Publicly shaming him.

And by April of 2019, they were starting to threaten him with termination, in front of others. And in the middle of the floor, he crumbled into tears. And begged for his job. They dragged him off the floor into a private meeting room where he sat in tears. They waited till he calmed down. When he was, they continued the discussion.

It doesn’t surprise me that Joel came home in a mental state so bad that the doctor immediately requested WorkCover. He told Joel he wasn’t fit for work and insisted on Stress Leave.

And the icing on the cake here? His workplace gave Joel his first written warning.

I cannot imagine what it must be like for people who do not have the privilege of universal healthcare or the protection WorkCover can bring. Joel was able to take some paid time off to seek rehabilitation towards his mental illness. He was able to see a mental health doctor for a few times. He also had to be interviewed and his claims were investigated, but we recognise that he got more than most.

But mental illness is different for everyone and before he could complete his treatment WorkCover ended suddenly. He suddenly stopped seeing a mental health professional he couldn’t afford. He was expected to go straight back to work.

And do you know what his job did? They put him in a high performing team. They put him back with the same managers prior to his stress leave. Who, quite frankly, played a part in his mental breakdown. Watched him cry in front of others. And shrugged his mental illness away as if it were a cold.

Joel has been proactively searching for jobs for a while now. It has been a part of his recovering. To be proactive. To find confidence again. To find a job that will work with him not against him. It was on his terms. I am so proud of him for his strength and courage. I congratulated him when he got an interview and fought against his negative thoughts when the rejections kept coming. He tried. He tried. He tried. I know how it feels sometimes.

Then his managers caught wind that he was applying. The manager was excited and told him that he was glad Joel was looking elsewhere and would do anything possible to help Joel get out of that place. Joel felt completely dejected. His suspicions were confirmed. They didn’t want him there. They wanted him out. He reported this to HR (Human Resources).

He took some mental health days off due to the stress of not only these targeted harassments but because of homophobic statements made that Joel defended against.

That’s when Joel found himself in the middle of the office being hounded by a manager about why he took sick days off. In front of other staff members, Joel refused to answer. Told him that he had a medical certificate and that’s all he needed. The manager kept badgering him. Forcing him to tell him an answer. Even tried to pull Joel into a room to get these answers out of him. Joel refused and just babbled an answer just to stop him. He reported this to HR, too.

HR found no wrong-doing and as Joel continued to argue his case, he then received an email the following week of a “Disciplinary Meeting” that may end in possible termination.

Then they moved the day of the meeting to another day.

Then they tried to move it for another week.

Already this was triggering his mental illness. He was spiralling. He was fighting so hard to keep it together. He sought out professional help. They feared for his safety. There was a point where they even talked to me about possible hospitalisation. This workplace was literally torturing my partner.

And yet, he stood up to them. He told them the meeting would happen at the time they agreed upon. Do you think they made that easy? Nope. They told him if they did that then they would close all HR concerns prior. They even invited another manager who wasn’t even supposed to be there to discuss why he had taken a day off. Anyone else going, “Why do you think?”

They gave him a moment to give a ‘right of reply’ which he did. He had to repeat it three times during that meeting. They talked over him a few times or they obviously weren’t listening. They littered his mind with a ton of questions. Questions he was so flustered through he could only sit in silence or answer, I don’t know. They even took a 10-15 minute-break to confer with each other. Leaving him to his thoughts. Hint: they weren’t good. Somehow, he was convinced he wasn’t handling it well. That he had to be professional. That he had to jump through all these hoops even though they were completely out of line and unprofessional in many, many ways.

That meeting concluded with his still possible termination. I had thought they had fired him. I was relieved. But they didn’t. They told him to go home and write his ‘right of reply’ up and send it to them. That they would sit down in another meeting to discuss AGAIN the same things they had met face to face already. They were going to make him defend himself again as they told him how he was failing them. And not letting him tell them how they were actually failing him.

Upon medical advice that night, the doctor told Joel he did not have to sit another meeting. That he could request a resolution. So, Joel sent an email but suddenly HR was against the meeting. Suddenly HR wanted to address all of Joel’s concerns first. They wanted to talk about the claims Joel made about feeling that they didn’t want them there and how his manager did no wrong doing in seeking out medical information to put into a report that was late to handing in. 

Joel refused.

The story doesn’t end there. He had to go in again on Monday. He had to keep arguing with HR, who kept telling him that he was choosing to refusing to deal with his concerns. He stood his ground. He told them that he wanted a resolution first and then he’d address the concerns after. But for his own well-being, Joel needed the end of the first meeting that the management and HR had instigated first.

I cannot begin to tell you the ramifications this has had on me. I’ve deleted that sentence a few hundred times. I feel selfish wanting to talk about how powerless I feel. I’m not there. I’m not him. I don’t have to deal with this face to face. But the panic attacks. The rescue mode I’m in but can’t do a thing except hold him when he cries and remind him that he is absolutely amazing. But I need just one paragraph for me. Just this one to say, I’m so angry at that place. I’m so frustrated at them. I’m so extremely sad that such a wonderful man has to deal with this. Joel doesn’t have a negative bone in his body. He’s a genuinely nice guy. He doesn’t deserve this.

No one does.

So, he went again. Hopefully for the last time. They tried to force him into a HR meeting again. Tried to tell him that he was the one that refused. He stood up for himself. He told them the truth. And he sat in that meeting and not even 5 minutes in they say, “We didn’t have a decision made, but we were leaning towards termination.” Then they said they needed a 5-minute recess and left Joel alone in the room again.

Joel’s messaging me trying to understand why they’d set up a meeting, say a few lines and request a break again. I didn’t have an answer. There’s a lot of answers I couldn’t give to Joel and I start to shake. A panic attack rises and I just praise him. I tell him I’m proud of him. I tell him he’s got this. He tells me we’re a team.

And I couldn’t love him anymore than I already do.

They came back in and the manager explained he did everything he could to bend over backwards for Joel, but that Joel left them with no choice…

And that’s how Joel got fired.

We’ve gone from a 1 salary household to none. As I have been getting back on my feet for mental illness, starting my publications and getting myself back into the workforce, Joel has been working hard to keep us afloat. Now the unknown looms in front of us, we are fearful for our own mental illness as well as keeping a roof over our heads. Please, please, if you can help, donate to our Ko-Fi. You won’t be disappointed. And if you can’t help financially, that’s okay, we get it. Keep promoting my books. Help us stop Christmas from being a homeless one. Donate here.