I am Hasmik and I have a psychosocial disability. About work challenges.

 

Hi. 

Thank you for being here with me and for your willingness to listen to everything I want to share with you.

My name is Hasmik, and I live with a mental health condition—I have bipolar affective disorder.

I've talked before about having a mental health condition, which you can find on my LinkedIn page, and what it's like from my perspective.

In this part, I would like to talk about the work-related obstacles I’ve been facing for many years.

By some strange imperative of life, my “little mischievous companion” tends to become active precisely when life is in full motion, when people are moving forward, when you’re supposed to enjoy the breath of spring or the golden sun of autumn—but instead, you find yourself fighting through each day, trying above all to be at peace with yourself. And that, I can assure you, is perhaps the most essential element of our inner harmony.

But what can you do when you have a natural and simple desire—to work, to create, to contribute positively through your efforts?

Of course, you choose the path of persistence, gather your strength, and get to work… only to suddenly be tormented by countless intrusive thoughts—thoughts that you are being watched, that people and the world are working against you.

You want to scream, to demand that they leave you alone, to stop “harming” you—but caught in the grip of fear, you remain silent, making it even harder to escape from that swamp.

And as a result, you become unable to work, your functionality becomes limited, your already fragile mental world becomes further disrupted, and you decide—again and again—to take a break. As if you’re caught in a constant spin…

So what is the reasonable accommodation that you, as someone living with this condition, need in the workplace?
Most likely, it’s a non-oppressive, empathetic, and supportive environment—a kind of attitudinal accessibility—where you can be heard and accepted, where you can work for a certain period, then rest, and continue again. Unfortunately, this is not always the case in our everyday reality, and that leads to the isolation of people with psychosocial disabilities.

To be continued…