Disclosing Mental Illness at Work, or How to Get Fired

Hey all. Legal advice needed maybe just some moral support. First off I'm sorry that this has happened to all of you and your family's. I started this waitressing/bartending job here about 4 or 5 weeks ago and it was going very well I've never had any complaints only my one coworker who had been verbally abusive towards me. We got a new manager a week ago, my doctor decided to prescribe me with anxiety medication for specifically at work. I received a phone call from the new manager today and she told me they can't have people taking medication at work and they're going to have to let me go. I am so frustrated.

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In June, I was promoted at my job. I am a store manager in retail. My job is high stress and I have 60 employees. I went off my antidepressants in August/September through tapering because of weight gain. By October, I was experiencing very bad paranoia and mood swings. By November, I was having severe depression and panic attacks. In December, I chose to go back on antidepressants. I was straight forward about my depression with my bosses because it was affecting my performance at work and the were coming down on me very hard. In December, an employee of mine spread a rumor in my store that I was taking Xanax in the office and accused me of having a drug problem. I do have a prescription for Xanax for panic attacks but I am not currently taking it. I reported this to HR and had documented conversations with this employee who said this to other employees in my job. I spoke with my boss about it then. I have casually spoken about taking antidepressants for depression at work. I have only been on antidepressants for 2 years after I had a severe manic and a severe depressive episode after my divorce. I haven't ever officially been diagnosed with anything other than depression and anxiety. In January, my boss offered me a lower volume store which I turned down because I was back on antidepressants and confident I could work better. My words have been taken out of context by my employees who reported to HR that I said "I need to take drugs to work here." My bosses sat me down to tell me how serious it was that someone said that. I fear that I will face discrimination now and they will find reasons to terminate me for this.

Has anyone considered filing a lawsuit for medical discrimination? I made the mistake of disclosing to my employeer my health condition, my story if identical. After asking for time off to get my health in order, I was treated terrible, when I returned to work.

I understand exactly how a person feels with biploar disorder. My wife who I love dearly who I have been married to since 1987 has biplolar. She is a registered nurse and been nursing since the late 1980's. She has done very well at it and having to deal with her illness. My sweet wife has been discriminated against so many times by more than one employer in the medical field due to her disorder. She has been forced to resign or be fired from previous employers but she chose to resign because she did not want termination to be on her job record. She just lost her job recently at Carolina Pines Hospital in Hartsville,South Carolina. She was forced to resign or be fired anyway. She was lied on and her employer or Director Of Nursing told my wife that she was untruthful because my wife did not tell her about having bipolar at time she was hired and she accused my wife of being a drug addict which my wife is not a drug addict. My wife takes meds to control her bipolar and is legally prescribed by her doctor. Now my wife is in the process of having to find her another job in the medical field all because of evil minded unprofessional people in management. My wife was given a drug test before hire and passed the drug test. Then she was tested again by Carolina Pines Hospital and test proved to be negative. During her time of working there this same Director of Nursing praised my wife for her well performance on the job as a real good caring nurse. Even one of the Doctors within the hospital always loved to deal with my wife and take report from her about his patients because of her work performance and professionalism. Now my wife is having to seek another nursing job elsewhere all because of being discriminated against but only this time she is seeking legal advice in order to see if she has a case to place a lawsuit against this hospital which I believe she does. She has been through this discrimination so many times,now it is time to fight for her rights. Enough is enough. All other employers got by with their disrespect toward her and she just did not want to deal with the stress of taking a lawsuit out on previous employers because she just felt like she did not have a chance to win. I hope she gets something out of this lawsuit because she deserves it. It really saddens me that people can be so cruel against people with mental disorders and my wife has not been hospitalized with her illness since the year 2010. One more thing. At the time my wife was being told she was being terminated from her job,remember she was accused of being a drug addict. Guess what? My wife was asked if she would be willing to take a drug test by this same Director of Nursing. My wife knowing she has no drug problem said yes no problem I will be glad to take a drug test. But guess what? Director did not follow through with my wife to take the drug test after falsely accusing my wife of being a drug abuser. How ironic. If there is any advice someone can give my wife and I or some legal advice it would be appreciated. Thanks.

Where can a person with disabilities(mental) go for employment? Note: No recent work experience.
I looked into Pharmacy Tech. However, they may think I will take the medicine.
Have you heard (how do you use) of the USA Jobs website?

I work in the transportation industry while on duty I was attack by a passenger, this attack left me traumatized and with severe eye and head injury. I went into severe depression and treated with counselors, neurologist and a psychologist for a year all have diagnose me with PTSD. After being release with restriction I asked my employer for a reasonable accommodation of reassignment to a different atmosphere. They offered me a different position at $8 dollars an hour lessor than my previous position. I'm 49 years old it would be a financial ruin for me to go that far down in pay from something that happen while I was on duty at work. Your all are right when you tell of people with no sympathy, respect or knowledge of what a person is going through.

I have informed my supervisor of my "mental health problems" I am under the care of a mental health provider. I have started the process to be approved for FMLA coverage. My supervisor makes jokes about my condition. They are not willing to make reasonable accommodations. I feel like my employment will be terminated before I can finish the FMLA process. I am scared. I have 2 children to care for. It's not fair. I get physically ill when they ask me to do some tasks. Certain supervisors take pleasure in assigning them to me knowing that it makes me ill. There are many other employees who are trained and able to do these tasks and plenty of tasks that do not make me Ill that I could do. Why, with a documented mental illness am I being forced to do things that exacerbate my illness?

I was let go today because of "strange " behavior. She read two pages of "others " observations and conclusions. It was very painful. Instead of sympathy or support, i got let go (like rejection) ouch and idea of jobs at grocery store.... I will never offer that about me again. She said I seemed like two seperate people! I am not! I gave the correct diagnosis. She said you are not coming back? Like I was the vampire. She heads a Community Center and Council on Aging. No end of disappointments! IT is so hard to stay together and not rage into pieces.

I have found it more difficult entering the workforce due to my mental illness. Eventually I gave up and at present I am on a disability support pension and volunteer three days per week in mental health. In Australia because I have a mental illnessd I was sent to a disability employment service where most staff do not have any training I mental health issues. Using a DES means you are pretty much forced to disclose due to pressure and otherwise employers wonder what is wrong with you and why you are using a DES. DES are full of discrimination and I was told once the best I could ever hope for is a part time job in retail despite not working in retail before and being 30 dispite going to uni and TAFE and being more educated then the so called employment consultant in the first place. This triggered a relapse in depressive symptoms. Now the only positions I would seek are peer/consumer positions.
If I was to give advice to someone based on my experiences it would be only ever disclose to people who love you never in the workplace, BUT my partner had a positive experience with his boss when hospitalised for depression who helped him fill out his income protection stuff so he could have two months off on full pay so sometimes there is an individual who understands.
I have had two friends who were bullied in the workplace for having mental illnesses including a mental health Organisation.
I also don't like you using the word stupid this girl might have had cognitive issues because if mental illnesses or she might have a mild intellectual disability that she is scared to disclose. We need to be allies of people with disabilities in general.
For me the biggest problems are not my bipolar but stigma and discrimination.

I have bipolar. I had worked as a social worker in a mental health center. They knew I had a past hospitalization for depression. I worked with a few others who the other social workers had no luck getting the clients to co-operate. But they worked well with me, so I was being praised and told I was a great social worker. I believe it was because I understood them as I had been there too. Then I started having more frequent symptoms. I decided to tell my boss hoping that would explain my sometime slow work. She decided I shouldn't work directly with clients and work more on the paperwork and filing for awhile. Then she asked if I'd be willing to share with the other employees what was going on and why I was switching my clients(consumers). By law I didn't have to but I did. It was a small company. Then they all, boss included started threated me as if I had a mental slowness. Always asking if I was okay or understood the instructions. I was never allowed to go back to working with clients. Eventually I quit. I'm sure I could have fought it but didn't have the strength to fight it. I don't think I would ever share again. If a mental heath company doesn't understand, how can other people who don't understand bi-polar?

I had worked for five years at Walmart without disclosing the fact I had been diagnosed with Aspergers (Which I am not public about in the first place because I do NOT want to be seen as having a disorder first and foremost) until they started to side with customers who were exaggerating about my behavior. I try to watch myself when talking to people, but I never did anything to insult the customer intentionally. I thought it would save my job as I also had to work with two people who had WORSE mental disorders (One was a compulsive liar, the other was regressing) and they NEVER were called out about it. In fact, when I asked them why they were never called out, I was accused of judging them! By their standards, I would be judging a meth addict. Long story short, I felt betrayed. I had been loyal to them without incident and all they were doing were finding reasons to fire me by exaggerating instead of doing the honest thing and asked me to take a paycut, which I feel was the real reason for this. What's worse is that I got fired after I could not get anyone to help me deal with a woman who was berating me, and the manager on duty didn't even bother to listen to my account of the story before making a decision, claiming it was misconduct on my part when it very well wasn't. Now I've been out of work for nearly a year and a half, and I would love to find an employer who will not put me through the same hell as I had to endure over there. I have a lot of good things going for me, and I don't want my internal struggle to be exploited and held against me. I deserve to get the same respect that I show others, which is a lot.
Although in some cases, I'm kind of glad it happened. I am really wanting to be a performer and I could not do many plays as they wanted me to adhere to their schedule. But I still need money to support myself in it as well as move out to a big city with film/TV opportunities. I just hope I can find a job soon because I can't keep putting this off.

I was a minister for 35 years, and during my last 5 years became progressively ill with depression and some attendant disorders. When I went into an inpatient setting for a short time (3 weeks), things fell apart around me in my church/workplace. People were at first receptive, several sharing some of their own experiences, specifically with suicide attempts. By the end of my tenure, people were saying all kinds of critical and/or false things about me and my work. I was very close to having to charge one woman with libel and slander (a warning made her back down), and a few months later I began receiving SS disability, which allowed me to leave that position and retire, albeit ten years earlier than I'd have liked.
In general, there was a lot of miseducation, though I invited a counselor friend to address mental illness in a Sunday morning service. Some quit attending our church, which meant withdrawing their financial support. I was able to contribute to the faltering budget, because I had started receiving disability, by working pro bono my last six months.
Were I able to do it over again, I'd not publicly disclose my illness, either to the church as a whole or to individuals I thought were friends. There is a definite stigma attached to mental illness in the conservative church world, where faith is supposed to solve every ill, and where mental illness is even often connected in people's minds with Satan. My ill-health was much more favorably received and recognized by others outside the church. Because I was working in a very small, remote town of 250, everyone knew enough about everyone else that they would respond positively or negatively to any interesting news about a fellow community member. That period of my life was a very dark, lonely time, and if I had it to do over again, I'd find other ways to explain my behavior until I was able and ready to retire.

You, having been diagnosed w/ bipolar disorder - why would you call the intern you worked w/ "stupid"? All name-calling is hurtful.

I chose to share that I had bipolar disorder both at work and at graduate school, where I am getting my master's in special education. After my experiences with both places, I would be incredibly hesitant to be forthcoming in the future with anyone.
At work, I felt that I was seen not as a professional educator, but as a bipolar person (which is vastly different from being considered a person with bipolar disorder). Anything I did seemed to be chalked up to being hypomanic, if I went above and beyond the norm (and yes, it would be safe to call me an overachiever), or to being overly sensitive. The stigma I felt toward me only worsened with time and even one colleague who knew I had bipolar never admitted to me that her rude outbursts were most likely caused by her NOT being compliant with her meds one week. If anyone would have understood her, it was me. Her refusal to be as open about her illness as I had been with her about mine felt like a real slap in the face and the friendship we had evaporated. I lost complete trust in her.
As for graduate school, all you need to do is read Julie Fast's blog post entitled, "Sandra and the Teacher" and you'll have the story of a special ed professor who took me to task for asking for an extension of an assignment. Her email back to me clearly showed absolutely NO comprehension of what bipolar disorder was, yet she sought to tell me how to handle my bipolar disorder "better". An example: She berated me for relying on others to help alert me to mood swings (at the time, I found it exceptionally hard to recognize hypomania/mania setting in) and said I needed to be more self-reliant. Yet EVERY article/book about bipolar disorder that I've read talks about the support team those of us with bipolar disorder NEED to have in place.
While I would like to help pave the way for others with mental illness and chose to share that I have bipolar disorder, my experience has proven to me that this is not the best thing for me to do, either professionally or emotionally. The stigma I have felt from those who should know better has been very, very difficult to deal with. I've lost all trust in any future attempts to share about this disorder. I hope others have better luck than I have had.
Sincerely,
Sandra

I agree that disclosure is a really touchy subject, and I empathize with your struggles with that. But may I veer off the subject a little and say that not too bright intern you were talking about could easily have been me. Though I have a couple of advanced degrees, I have slow processing that makes me look stupid when dealing with the present. It's inattentive ADD, Sluggish Cognitive Tempo. But disclosure isn't as much an issue as just moving on when people discover I'm a little slow--ha. So we're out there everywhere!

I thank everyone for sharing I am bipolar and my sister has used it against me. It has made me stronger and more outspoken . I have become an advocate for educating the media, police department, and public at large. I have to say that some tv series are being more realistic about mental health and we have to thank them. We all just keep on going.

My son is worse off with schizophrenia, and he has been mentally ill for 20 years. Back in the 1990's you wouldn't dare say you or a loved one had a mental disorder.
Now, after Neil's graduating class at Manhasset found out Neil is hospitalized they chose to help Neil raise food for Homeless Families on L.I and to encourage him in his pursuit to get better.
I established http://www.neilswheelsny.com and NAMI did a documentary on Neil, myself, the two coaches who knew Neil before getting ill, and the Manhasset Community. That documentary should be out this coming fall.
I speak at schools and said to a group of kids at ST Marys in Manhasset, that you are the first generation that CAN TALK comfortably about mental illness, drugs, alcohol etc.
I feel one day it will be OK to say you have Bi Polar or any problem. The present generation gets it.

I agree with you that I would not disclose that I have bipolar to my employer. I used to work as a pharmacy tech and never disclosed beccause of the stigma plus I thought that they would think that I may steal pills, which I would never do. I see a psychiatrist and he gives me my prescriptions. I finally did disclose when I went inpatient but I never went back, I had to go on SSDI.
Michele