Mean Business

Is it ok to say you’re not ok?

Today is RUOK? day  – a national day of action aimed at suicide prevention. It challenges people to start a conversation with friends, colleagues, and anyone else with whom they come into contact regarding mental health issues, by asking early and stopping small issues from becoming big ones. Any activity aimed at suicide prevention and mental health awareness is a good one. RUOK day has gone from small beginnings to garnering huge celebrity endorsement. Workplaces are challenged to become involved in several ways, through meetings, raising awareness, and more practical/physical events. You can see the resources offered to support the day at the RUOK? day website. 

Care has been taken to ensure there are resources available for people who may not be feeling ok, and for those who are starting conversations. It can only be hoped that these skills can permeate workplaces and our society so that it’s not just a one-day, tokenistic thing, but “normalises” how we think about  getting help for mental health issues (ie. that getting help for mental health is no different to getting help for, say,  a sore foot).

But the cynic in me can see some organisations “ticking off” that they have dealt with mental health problems at work by supporting RUOK day. As noble as RUOK day is, however, it’s good intentions can be frustrated in a number of ways.

Perhaps a real situation will help illustrate some of the potential problems.

I was in a workplace situation some time ago where a supervisor had acted in ways that I considered to be grossly inappropriate, compromising to the organisation, and which disregarded the efforts I had made. To put it simply, I felt disrespected.  That I had told the supervisor about the inappropriateness of their actions put me in a somewhat vulnerable position, and my annoyance was palpable. I was in a cafe with a group of colleagues when the supervisor walked up from behind me, put his hand lightly on my shoulder and asked “Are you ok?”.

How do you think I responded:

a. No I’m not ok.
b. No I’m not ok because you did this and that and it was grossly inappropriate and disrespectful…
c. Yes, I’m fine.

Of course I said “Yes, I’m fine”. What else could I say? There were colleagues around, and the question wasn’t really aimed at resolving the problem – just resolving that person’s uncomfortableness with the situation (making them feel ok). Granted, this wasn’t a situation of mental health issues – I wasn’t depressed, or suicidal, or showing any other signs of mental health problems – but this situation demonstrates some of the problems of asking “RUOK?” unthinkingly.

First, the environment wasn’t right. Don’t ask people this in an environment where others are present.

Second, the question wasn’t the right one. It’s too easy just to say “yes I’m fine”. If you’re going to start such conversations, they need to be conversations. The RUOK day website has some resources about this. Consider  the language used – asking “You’re fine aren’t you” assumes that the person is, and its even harder to say “no”.

Third, the wrong person asked the question. There was no way I could say that I was very annoyed to the person who had caused the problem. There are also issues with workplace hierarchies that can impact on this.

Forth, what would the person have done if I had said, “No, I’m not ok”? Were they prepared for that answer? What would have happened next? In the situation above it would have been confrontational, but the point for mental health awareness is that you need to be prepared that someone could say “No, I’m not ok”. Again, the RUOK day website has resources for this, but not everyone who engages in such a conversation will have read it. Starting a conversation is one thing. But conversation starters have to be prepared.

In some ways I think it would be better to encourage the perception that it’s ok to report when things are not ok (be it at work, or other contexts), rather than to focus on the question, or the questioner. Many people this RUOK day will simply not feel safe reporting a mental health issue at work, for fear of stigmatisation, or that they’ll be placed on the watch list. While this continues, asking the question won’t have the optimal effect. I’m often reminded that workplace bullying and psychological hazards at work are affected by the same attitudes and biases that we have for mental health in general, and we need to continue to break these down.

We have to start somewhere – and starting a conversation is a good place to start. But we need to ensure follow up, change our workplace cultures so that it’s safe to report,  demonstrate to people that it is safe, and then have adequate support available to them when they do.