Brands, brains and anxiety: Living, working and thriving with Generalised Anxiety Disorder in the world of IP
CITMA Paralegal, Kay Szawlis tells us about her journey living with Generalised Anxiety Disorder and how firms can help support employees experiencing similar difficulties.
Do you know the feeling of a missed deadline? The tight stomach, the sweaty palms, the shaking hands? Now imagine you didn’t actually miss it – but your brain still sends you into overdrive.
My name is Kay Szawlis, and my brain regularly plays this trick on me – doctors call it a Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD). Over time I have learnt how to tame my brain and thrive as a trade mark paralegal at Springbird IP Ltd.
What is GAD?
At its core, GAD is a condition where worry goes beyond what is considered proportional to a situation. Everyone experiences stress and anxiety - it's part of life. But for those with GAD, worries aren’t just occasional or rational – they are an everyday occurrence, affecting all areas of their lives.
Some people (myself included) can experience anxiety attacks – these can look different for different people. For me, they usually include hyperventilation, uncontrolled crying and an overwhelming sense of being out of control – they are not pretty, and there is not much a bystander can do to help in the moment. They are also usually followed by an adrenaline crash, whereby I shake, my hands get very cold (if you know me, this is highly unusual for me!) and I need a moment to recover.
How does GAD affect my life at work?
GAD used to run (and ruin!) my life. I worked highly stressful jobs, had two kids in two different childcare provisions and was commuting over an hour each way, chasing what I thought was my dream career. I was close to burnout, and if I am completely honest, a mental health crisis of epic proportions.
I realised I couldn’t live like this anymore if I was to survive, not to mention thrive… so I took steps to try and tame the beast that GAD was to me then.
Finding the right workplace was step one. It took me a couple of job changes to find my ‘home’, but now I work somewhere where I could talk openly about my mental health from day one (and I did just that!).
Ironically, the COVID lockdowns gave me breathing space, helping me realise I could (and should) cut unnecessary stress from my schedule. I made substantial lifestyle changes, and I try to keep tabs on my calendar to ensure I don’t add unnecessary pressures in periods that are naturally stressful and dotted with social commitments (good luck getting hold of me in December!).
At the same time, with many mental health services moving to remote operations I was able to finally get myself to therapy – I didn’t need to carve out time from either work or family life. I was able to do an hour of phone therapy in my lunch break. It gave me tools I use to this day, and so far I haven’t felt the need to re-fresh them, but if I do, we have 10 sessions a year included in our medical insurance cover.
I really appreciate that this may put in me in a unique and privileged position in the legal world (although I hear IP is not the scariest of them all!).
So, what can you do as a firm to support your colleagues?
- Awareness is so 2010 – let’s move onto acceptance and inclusion.
Create a place in which people can openly talk about their mental health, where it’s treated the same way as our physical health is (including sick days!). Make sure people in positions of leadership are happy to talk about their own mental health, using the correct language – let’s ditch saying ‘I am sooo OCD!’ when we mean ‘I like my things neat’. And please – no, we are not all a little bit autistic. Also – don’t offer gimmicks like yoga sessions (unless your employees actually want them!). Flexibility, support and meaningful changes go much further (and often cost less!).
- Communicate clearly and be predictable
Don’t send invites to ‘catch-up’ meetings, unless you first tell your colleague what you want to catch-up about – ‘I want to talk about project X, in particular aspects A (which I think is going well) and aspect B (which I think we could improve),’ is a good example. ‘Catch-up’ in an anxious person’s head very quickly becomes, ‘OMG, I am getting fired’.
- Play to people’s strengths
Don’t let job titles or your preconceptions pigeonhole people – create roles that can expand and evolve as you get to know each other. You may hire an administrative assistant who turns out to have a flair for design and marketing – let them go wild in Canva and take over your LinkedIn account.
And most importantly, do not be afraid to hire people with anxiety disorders!
We are not all a blubbering mess all of the time – those of us who made it through most of our lives with GAD have usually developed excellent coping strategies. Ask us how you can support us – it really doesn’t take that much most of the time.
In fact, the two examples that had the biggest impact on me feeling encouraged to talk about GAD openly didn’t cost anyone anything – they weren’t policies that needed to be accepted by committees, partners and managing directors. They were very simple, very human gestures.
The first one was day one of my current job. I was undergoing onboarding, and as part of it, I was asked if I had any medical conditions. I said, ‘I live with Generalised Anxiety Disorder’ – I was somewhat unsure if I should mention this – it was the first time I was openly saying it out loud in a place of work and on day one as well. My colleague reacted in the most perfect way. Without missing a beat, she said, ‘Is there anything we can do for you? Would you like any reasonable adjustments to be made?’ And that was it.
The second time GAD came up at work, I was actually having a panic attack. I thought we missed a deadline. I was crying and hyperventilating, and I couldn’t figure out what to do. My boss knew I was stressed, so she asked me on Teams, ‘Can I call you?’. My reply? ‘I need a moment. I will call you when I am ready’.
You might think, ‘Jeez, what is the big deal about?’ – and that is the point. It is not a big deal, and it doesn’t take much. At the end of the day, we all know that feeling of thinking we have missed a deadline. Some of us just have a brain that likes to play it over, and over and over, and over again.