While People & Culture departments make noise about giving us tools to cope, and offering resilience workshops, they often can’t spot a person who is not coping, says Brooke Le Poer Trench. And neither can our colleagues. Here, she looks at how many of us are experts at masking our anxiety, depression or stress. And how at the end of the day, we have to be advocates for our own mental and physical health.

When tennis champion Naomi Osaka withdrew from the French Open, it was the culmination of a backlash created by an IG post where she stated she would not be attending post-game press conferences during the tournament. The reason: the 23-year-old had concerns for her mental health. Right now, after the year we’ve had, you might expect compassion. Empathy. For the sports world to create some space for a young woman being honest about her struggles. Of course, there was support from fans, but the media and event organisers really tossed their toys out of the pram. Naomi was called a brat and a diva, fined $15,000 and threatened with future suspensions. And ultimately, she withdrew from the tournament altogether.  

Athletes have a unique relationship with the inputs and outputs of their work lives. The training is a bottomless pit of giving. It requires endless dedication. Then there is the competing, and courting fans, brands and the press. It’s not an average job, but the part of Naomi’s work-life we can all relate to is that work can sometimes harm our mental health. And when that happens, the bravest and most self-caring thing you can do is step away. It might just be for a day, but it helps. 

The issue is that while People & Culture departments make noise about giving us tools to cope, and offering resilience workshops, they can’t spot a person who is not coping. Neither can our colleagues. Not the least because many of us are experts at masking our anxiety, depression or stress. At the end of the day, we have to be advocates for our own mental and physical health.

I was confronted by this idea of needing to advocate for ourselves — and how I clearly did not know how to do it — when the COVID numbers started to rise in early 2020. Something interesting happened at work. The company I was working for—a traditional workplace not set-up for flexible working—was hedging. The messaging was come into work if you feel safe. Honestly, what does that even mean. How can you feel ”safe” against a virus you don’t even understand. I took the subtext as: keep coming into work. 

Several people, however, took it at face value and stayed home. I remember a senior executive walking around and demanding to know where everyone one was… “they’re working from home, per the email,” someone answered, dryly. I understood their tone: it felt bad sitting at our desks like obedient Poodles, while more and more people had already been told by their businesses to keep away from office environments. But in that moment we all knew what was going on… the people who had advocated for their own sense of self-preservation, and stayed home… it felt like they had a mark against their name. 

I remember envying the clarity my coworkers at home had around the line that existed for them between work and their own sense of self-care. Many of them were younger, and I wondered if I had just come up during a different time. Here I was, willing to expose myself to a potentially deadly virus… for what? The desire to be seen as a team player? As I sat there at my desk, it suddenly seemed so lame. I wondered: What would it take for me to put myself first? Certainly not a virus shutting down entire countries. Perhaps lava flowing down the streets would do it? 

You can love what you do. You can be fulfilled by what you do. But we can’t confuse that with thinking our jobs will love us back. Colleagues and managers can be a great source of comfort and friendship, sure. But ultimately, like Naomi, we sometimes need distance ourselves from the parts of our job that are damaging. I spoke to a friend recently about this, who is the kind of leader I’d love to be one day. And she said something that really stuck with me: “You get what you tolerate.” So if it’s been a while since you’ve allowed yourself to have some time off, and you can feel your mental or physical health suffering, it’s not only normal to take time off… it’s critical. “You don’t owe your employer your mental and physical health,” said my friend, “but there are plenty of firms that will take it if you let them.” New plan: don’t let them.