 Clock just hit 1130 so go ahead and get started So everybody welcome Appreciate you coming in here. This is erasing the stigma mental illness in tech. I'm JD Flynn. I am a Drupal developer architect at Genuine If you want to tweet about this I'm at JD does dev on all the slacks. I'm dwarf on on d.o. I'm dwarficus In case you didn't know we're at flippin Drupal con so that's pretty amazing So also hashtag Drupal con and hashtag as me. Does anybody in here know what as me is a Few people that's good. Well, I'll talk about them a little bit later So hello It's best to start off with a big friendly greeting. So hello Thanks for coming in Also, this is a conversation. This isn't me talking to you about me This is me talking with you about us. So it's two-way. It may be pretty one-sided right now But I consider a conversation. I See some familiar faces, but for those of you who don't know me I'm a Drupal PHP developer been doing that for about six years now. I've been doing HTML since the 90s I help organize mid-camp. I help organize a Drupal Chicago meetup and before all of this I was a paramedic and a firefighter for a while I Also have mental illness So a couple disclaimers too that I like to start off with I Am not a mental health professional nor am I here to give any kind of medical advice. I'm just somebody with mental illnesses Also, I tend to swear without thinking about it. So I'm apologizing ahead of time So there are a few reasons I do this talk, but the main one is I want to start the conversation Just you know rhetorical kind of question. How many of you are comfortable talking about mental illness? Well good. Good. Okay What are you all doing here then? So what do most people think of the mentally ill and when I say most people I mean in general I it's usually negative It's they're dangerous. They're unstable. They're weak. Is this person gonna kill me the answer is usually no I'm also here. I'm gonna share some resources and statistics share some of my experiences and Because I've seen what untreated mental illness can do and also I really want to help people realize that Nobody's going through this alone You know kind of put it in a PHP Drupal sense May have different variables and methods, but the interface is kind of the same So I'm still having a really hard time dealing with this fact Even though I'm telling you this I'm having a hard time believing it So I understand how difficult that may be Also, it needs to be talked about I Want all of you to be comfortable having a conversation which from the hands earlier looks like you are We can take away the stigma around mental illness by talking about it and all of you are here And you're all taking the right steps even if you don't have mental illness yourself Thank you for being here and thank you for being part of this in case you're asking why should you care? Number one because we're human and people are good also 20% of us adults experience a mental illness in a year and we're gonna find out later that that number is a little bit higher in the tech community For me as I mentioned I have mental illnesses plural I Suffered in silence for a very long time. I was in denial I thought that saying there was something wrong with me at any admitting that I had a problem Would make me weaker or put a label on me And I thought it that being diagnosed meant somebody was damaged or defective or just not right And I worried that if I told people how I felt they wouldn't want to be around me I'd lose the few connections I had but something I always needed to tell myself repeatedly is I'm not weak. I'm sick. I'm not defective. I'm I have a disease It's not it's it's a disorder not a decision All right So you're gonna learn a lot more about me in the next few minutes. So I want to learn a little bit about you How many of you are developers here to learn development here to do site, you know anything? building site related Okay, quite a few of you great How many of you are project managers? Project owners account managers, you know along that that line of things Couple, okay. Are any of you an HR? No hands great And how many of you are in upper management managers president CEOs that level pretty high up. Okay, get a few of them Now the question on everybody's mind other than who is this guy and why is he talking is what is mental illness and that's a Pretty wide range of definitions, but boiled down is it's a wide range of mental health conditions that affect your mood thinking and behavior So several things There's a book called the DSM 5 is the latest version of 2017 and it stands from the floor to about here a various criteria that you have to meet to be diagnosed So that changes it evolves they change names But that's that's what they go off now now it's time for me to tell you about me I Have a few things like I said several times. I have mental illnesses what I've Have is major depression Anxiety disorder PTSD and ADHD. I'm just one diagnosis away diagnosis away from mental health bingo and So those are all lots of letters Depression It's feelings of low self-worth or guilt and a reduced ability to enjoy life And these are symptoms that persists every day for at least two weeks That's what the DSM 5 says for the diagnosis Anxiety Characterized by feelings of worry or fear. They're strong enough to interfere with your daily activities and that Basically, you know, the really really primitive part of your brain the lizard brain the amygdala It's when it just says everything's going to kill you or everything or you need to eat It's those two. It's a fight-or-flight feeder breed PTSD is a failure to recover after experiencing or witnessing a terrifying event and the best analogy that I've heard about that is Comparing our brains to a computer kind of makes sense, right? You've got your RAM Short-term memory and you've got your storage the long-term memory The RAM is right there connected to the CPU information is going back and forth back and forth really quick The storage a little bit longer a lot longer when we were using mechanical for the most part, but you know Still a little bit longer, but what happens in PTSD is your Your event gets caught right in that RAM right in the short-term memory and it never processes it back to the storage so anything a sight sound smell anything can just make you rerun whatever it is that's living in there and That at least to me it made a lot of sense and really cleared up how this is happening and what's happening ADHD is varying degrees of hyperactivity impulsivity and inattention That lead to difficulty and academic emotional and social functioning When I was a kid this was looked at as being a bit odd Which I take pride in now, but it was you know nobody really wanted to put a label on it Just go burn off some energy so I did get treatment, but before that Let me summarize it was difficult Well down difficult Because I was afraid I was paranoid about everything I had a crippling fear of everyday things You know the lizard brain just saying that's gonna kill you that's gonna kill you Oh, you're gonna drive to school. That's gonna kill you and Social situations were paralyzing That's also very angry again that lizard brain And what does a lizard do when it's scared? Says go away lashes out I Had a mix of a high-stress job on an ambulance and untreated anxiety and depression and it wasn't a good combination I Don't know if anybody knows this but people who work in public service generally don't like to admit that they have Issues or that they have a problem that should be addressed You know the the physician heal myself No, if if I'm supposed to be helping you I should not have anything wrong with me so I'm not gonna get treated because there's nothing wrong with me and I Can count unfortunately it takes two hands to count people that I've worked with who have fallen To either suicide or overdoses because of untreated mental illness Fortunately for me I saw treatment. I never got to that point. I realized something was was difficult and different I was also alone Because I would cancel plans that I'd make myself alone I'd find a way to be alone in crowded spaces and I'd always worry you know back to that anxiety that people were looking at me for any flaws whatsoever like I have a bugger hanging out. Is there a piece of corn in my beard? Who's paying attention to me? Did I drop some coffee on my shirt? Really nobody cares. Nobody's just going around unless you're a real jerk going around looking for You know things on other people But all these also made me Misunderstood because people thought I was angry when I was really terrified of being wherever I was or just trying not to screw up And it's easier to lash out at people than to say hey I'm going through something because you don't want to say you're going through something but being being a jerk is That's perfectly acceptable This was the hardest step for me accepting something is wrong. I Saw other people living happy lives. They weren't going through nearly the same things that I was people didn't get upset like I did about the smallest things and People weren't affected by normal things like I was so one day I kind of had an epiphany that maybe everybody else wasn't the issue. Maybe it was this guy It's kind of like if everywhere you go smells like dog shit look at your own shoes that might be the problem and This is the hardest part But after I realized hey, I've got to do something I Got treatment And it's different for everybody what works for me may not work for you Medication and therapy work for me Your mileage may vary, but I'm not shy about talking about it either obviously. I Normally don't go into details. You know, why do I have the PTSD blah blah blah? Yeah, I have it That's that's all anybody really needs to know So Told you about before treatment now life after treatment I'm not ashamed of who I am. I'm not too proud to admit that I need help The valleys are much much easier to cope with so if you're familiar with depression There can be peaks and valleys and the valleys can get really really really low. They can go on for days To the point where you can't get out of bed or or worse. I still have bad days, but I They're a little bit more shallow. They don't last as long and they're much more tolerable my anxiety has gone down a lot I still have the occasional panic attack like probably about 20 minutes ago. I was having one just knowing that I'm walking in here But I'm more comfortable with myself Which really helps my brain. I still have the occasional Issues with losses, but I take losses a little better better when I say losses I mean, you know if something doesn't go my way or the way I was hoping I don't the world is out to get me It's like, okay, let's move on I I used to be terrified because I couldn't focus on anything I used to be terrified of losing my job because I wouldn't be productive enough and that people will just kick me out So I don't have that fear anymore Again big thing though. I also realized that we're not alone said it before I'll say it again We're not alone. I Was afraid Because of the way people would view me because I thought nobody else was going through it like I was nobody else would understand but it's not true and Part of the reason I feel that way is an organization called as me now a few of you raised your hand said that you know But I was me is the the very high level Overview of us me is it's an organization founded by Ed Finkler about five or six years ago with the sole mission of erasing the stigma around mental illness in the tech community specifically and the way we do that is by speaking Doing surveys. We have some forums online and a couple handbooks that I'll talk about a little bit later But it's a great organization. I really highly recommend that you you look it up Or ask me about it I will talk at length about it, but I only have another 15 minutes. So I'm gonna cut myself off there Big question that I get when I say I'm doing this talk mental illness in tech is why tech? What's so different? What's so special about us? I? Venture to say and I I have citations on my speaker notes I'm not gonna invite you all up here to look at it But some studies have shown that creative people and I'd say that programmers developers designers, you know We're all you know those of us who work in tech even the hardware it takes some level of creativity to come up with something But studies have shown that we're more prone to depression of anxiety There was some anecdotal evidence there used to be the forum called deaf pressed calm That Osmy kind of absorbed and were really active keeping eye out on that That was kind of you know Signaling that there was something wrong and when I say that creative people are more prone What I mean is that we tend to overthink things and over think over situations more and more We like to see how do we get from X to Y and why didn't it go to Z and we relive it relive it and Trying to better understand it but by trying to better understand It just gets more embedded and it could lead to feelings of depression Hopelessness, okay. Why didn't I get this job? Why doesn't this? Render the way I'm looking for why didn't my mail come? Why did my dog die? Relive it. How could I have changed this? It's got to be my fault somehow Another thing that is it's prevalent everywhere, but I see it a lot in the tech community is imposter syndrome Who's heard of that? Yeah, I yeah, it's not a secret a lot of us go through it The basic you know again high level it's a feeling you don't deserve to be doing what you're doing You haven't earned it and I go through that all the time right now What the hell am I doing here? I'm talking at Drupal con to a room full of people who are probably 10 times as smart as I am and I don't know why you're all here, but thank you for coming I Try to deal with it. The best thing that I do to deal with it is to take a compliment Because I can't do that if somebody says something nice to me I usually just yeah, okay, whatever you're you're no no, that's no, but I'm getting better at just saying thank you All right, I've talked for quite a bit. I've got more questions for you after I take a drink because it's dry up here All right, so these might be sweet and silly but answer Would you tell someone with glasses or contacts to try looking harder? Not a lot of yeses. Okay Have you ever asked somebody in a wheelchair why they decided not to walk be pretty rude, right? You ever tell somebody with a heart condition snap out of it. You don't need your meds That they all seem ridiculous Would you tell someone with depression to try being happy? Would you ask someone in a panic attack? They've ever tried you know, do not have anxiety Would you tell someone with ADHD to stop taking their meds and just focus? So That that's the stigma right there. We see I we all know what a meme is we see this and if you can't read it Nice beautiful picture of a forest saying this is an anti-depressant and a picture of pills that saved my life called saying this is shit This one goes around. I don't need pills to be happy. Oh good for you. I do And this one one of my favorites I know the text is pretty small, but it you know Morpheus What if I told you you don't need anti-depressants if you lift? um Some people yeah exercise works for them. It didn't work for me But a lot of these are just saying it's a decision to feel this way you can snap your fingers and make yourself happy I can vouch for the effects of medication obviously and Every person is different and what works for me won't work for somebody else it might work, but you know Don't shame somebody for using the path they take fortunately. We have our own Memes go both ways and if you can't read that because that's really tiny on that big screen It says if you can't make your own neurotransmitters store-bought is fine So what do we do to erase the stigma the biggest thing we can do is being stronger than fear and that doesn't mean Trying to beat your fear at arm wrestling. It means starting the conversation Listen to people let people know they matter Let people know they're not going through it alone. Don't be ashamed if you have mental illness It's not a choice. It's a disease. You're not damaged and Try to be respectful. That's a huge thing because not all disabilities are visible Think of how you're saying things think of how you're portraying things think think of what might be minifying What somebody else is going through just because you're having a bad day if you're not diagnosed with depression It doesn't mean that you're depressed just because you like your desk desk organized doesn't mean that you have OCD I Did a talk similar to this and the woman who spoke before me had OCD and she was telling her story and the way that she put it And I just can't fathom even thinking this way and I can't is is that Imagine you're allergic to blueberries You know if you take a blueberry it's going to cause you significant Personal or physical damage even kill you but if you don't eat that blueberry you think everybody that you care about is going to die So it's just that compulsion that you have to do this thing or the world will end if you don't do it That's OCD saying. Oh, I prefer this way That's not that's that's just being organized person But if you do feel that you have a disease If any of those symptoms Get treatment get checked out go see a doctor or see a therapist Right so one of the things I told you that Osmy does we do surveys We have science. I have a lot of anecdotes, but I also have facts The survey we do it's an annual survey. We put it out to several different communities. It started off Again about four or five years ago The 2017 one is the last one that we've tabulated all the data. We're still going through everything from 2018 That one had about 800 responses. I do have some 2016 answers on here because they had 1500 responses so twice as many a little bit bigger sample size This was made available to several several different communities in the US and all of these are self-reported. They're also anonymous One of the questions would you bring up a physical health issue with a potential employer or at an interview or not or an air at an interview Physical health maybe 40 no 37. Yes 23. So it's kind of evenly distributed not horrible But when it goes to mental health issue That yes, it's just a tiny tiny little piece of the pie the no is 69% so it's a definite no From the 2016 survey, do you feel that being identified as a person with mental health issue would hurt your career? I Know it's too small to read that but that tiny little Red sliver is the no it has not and the one next to it the blue is no. I don't think it would that's in total 12% in the negative thinking that it would not hurt their career if they were identified or called out on it This is something I worry about every time I give this talk But it's also very very freeing knowing that all my cards are on the table and if somebody searches my name They're probably going to find one of these videos done by the great Kevin Thull at various camps And if you don't know Kevin, he's an awesome guy He does a lot of recording around but that has nothing to do with this. I just really like it Um So do you think discussing a health issue with your employer would have negative consequences? I did a side-by-side on this one mental and physical Really tiny numbers. I apologize the chart didn't scale very well, but the all mental Negative consequences. Yes is about 23% the physical. Yes is 4% five first are five times more people think that they were definitely be negative consequences if they were identified or Discussing it with their employer. That's horrible. Have you been diagnosed with a mental health condition again? Full disclaimer, this is self-reported. The average in the US is about 20% and we had 800 responses No is 58 and yes is 42% of people who responded from the tech community have been diagnosed with a mental health condition Now do you think you have a mental health condition this includes those who've been diagnosed so the yes is Still the 43% or 42 But the possibly again, I apologize for the small up there if you can't read it the possibly is 19% so that's Pretty significant chunk of the pie of people who either do or think that they have mental illness So my conclusions on these are that it We're afraid to talk about mental illness Especially if we're the ones suffering from it, but it also means that we're not alone We're afraid because of the stigma around it mental illness has a stigma. It's horrible trying to get rid of it That's what I'm doing here. We're afraid that being honest is gonna hurt us in some way We're afraid people will change their opinion of us Especially co-workers worrying what people think if you have anxiety can be terrifying Some of our minds go straight to the worst-case scenario Like mine personally if if for some reason the email server is down and I can't log in I immediately start looking for another job because I think that it means I've been fired and they just haven't told me yet Mike, please make sure that the email service work I've got a kind of a binary mind where if it's not good, it's bad But if it is good, it's gonna be bad soon. So I might as well prep for that So it's not quite binary, but something like that In the workplace, we're afraid that we might get sent to the HR department How many of you talk with HR on a regular basis for either good or bad things? It's a very very small chunk of the people in here. I could not point out my HR people in in a lineup if I had to But I did have one position where I disclosed I have depression I need a day off and I was immediately hung up on with a goodbye I can't talk about this and then I got a call back from HR who it took me forever to build up the courage to talk to The direct supervisor who I talked to on a daily basis now I have to talk to a complete stranger and say hey, yeah, here's everything personal about my life and this was before I was Getting full treatment and non-medication. So it was even worse for me But it's difficult In 2015 17.9% of all US adults had some form of mental illness That's quite a bit In the tech community Quite a bit more. I think the 2016 survey we had right down the middle 50-50 split of diagnosis or think But why should a workplace care about that what what's in it for them well It's estimated to cause 200 million lost work days each year which can cost employers up to 44 billion with a B dollars annually That's a lot of money So as a site is asking me How do you eat an elephant? You do it one bite at a time If a workplace can create a culture of inclusiveness that an employee may feel more comfortable being open They may feel included. They may feel like it's not, you know, they're not being a burden I used to do very very little for days and I'd get angry that I couldn't function because I Wasn't doing anything and I'd get afraid because I wasn't succeeding or putting out what was expected But if in one of those old positions, I would have felt comfortable enough to say I need a day off I need to recharge then Or the managers would have been able to recognize. Hey, what's wrong? Things probably would have been a lot different so This is one thing that Could just do volumes for anybody create that culture of inclusion find a way to to help out Another thing that all of you in this room can do to help out is we do surveys at Osmy Osmy help org slash research. It takes about 20 minutes. It's not a short one But every response is amazing and helps out a lot And I'll have these slides online after this as I put a few more slides then Time a lot. It's I'm going through kind of quickly We can also fight ignorance with information One thing that we can also do for HR managers or really anyone is find a mental health first aid class It's not telling you how to treat things. It's how to recognize and how to react appropriately Also, we can take the Osmy 2019 survey every response helps out and Could really use the information we like data Osmy we also have the handbooks. I mentioned way way 20 some minutes ago and Osmy is a nonprofit 501c3 blah blah blah And the handbooks are mental health and tech Guidelines for mental wellness in the workplace guidelines for executives and HR professionals and guidelines for employees. These are all vetted Through the ADA we have lawyers and all that good stuff But it's DRM free and I think that for all three of them. It's $10 and We could take the Osmy 2019 survey which really really helps every answer helps So One thing that we have here. We're an open source Tech conference Community here is amazing And that's what open source is it is community coming together for a joint purpose on those surveys 43% said diagnosis 20% more than that said I think I do again. I keep saying this but Mainly to tell myself this we're not alone Also, we're more than just usernames. That's what events like this remind us of meetups camps cons whatever you go to We're real people. We're not ones and zeros. We're not just some Comment on a forum or in the issue queue. We're here interacting We're not damaged. That's a big thing. We're not damaged. We have a disease. We it's not a choice. It's a disability and Together we can erase a stigma I've got some resources available for you Osmy help org is What I've been gushing about for the last 30 minutes Psychology today is a Drupal site and they also have a therapist finding tool National Association on mental illness. I don't know why you'd want to call them. You might want to look up Instead the suicide lifeline if you are going through a crisis and know somebody who is Also 9-1-1 or your country's equivalent Don't hesitate So I want to thank you all for letting me talk with you. I have the obligatory Feedback slides the session survey is available on the session node the Drupal cons survey is on Survey monkey words and We're almost out of time. So I'm gonna skip the questions for now you can ask me out in the hall, but the contribution opportunities right in 6a Mentored contribution first-time workshop general contribution happening tomorrow Really good way to get back to the community and anybody who wants to find a way to Get back to Drupal they can find a place for you to do it It's 12 o'clock on the dot. Thank you