When Every Day is a Mental Health Day
62% Share of people ages 20 to 37 who report feeling comfortable discussing their mental health at work
32% Share of people ages 54 to 72 who say they are comfortable discussing the same
MADALYN PARKER HAD been at her first job only a few months when the depression and anxiety set in. She had beaten back both in college, where she became so depressed that she stopped eating and going to classes. It nearly prevented her from graduating.
She kept her history to herself when she accepted a job as a web developer at the small software company Olark in 2014. But as the youngest (and only female) engineer, “I started getting panic attacks about work and being really, really stressed about not getting enough done,” says Parker, now 29. She went in to her Ann Arbor, Mich., office later and later, then less and less. Her performance slipped. Parker pulled aside the chief technology officer at a conference. “‘I don’t think it’s going to go away, so I feel like I should be open about it at work,’” she remembers telling him, and bracing for the worst. “Instead, his response was, ‘I wonder who else feels like this.’”
Parker had stumbled
