Last week I broke down mentally and was suicidal, on top of being physically ill. Once the worst phase had past I emailed the office manager (also a mental health first aider) at work, who works from home (I work in a daycare) that I was not in a good enough place to make it in for an afternoon shift the next day. I explained my mental health issues and how they had never been worse, which was difficult because I find it hard to talk about personal things like that. I apologised profusely for the inconvenience.
Over 24 hours later I had no response, but could see that the woman I emailed had been active on whatsapp throughout the whole time and had also changed the work rota. I had no acknowledgment at all, nothing to say she'd read the email, no concern for my wellbeing. All I needed was a quick one sentence response but I got nothing.
So a little while afterwards I emailed again, saying that it was upsetting having no acknowledgement or response to an email as personal as it was, and that is not what I thought would be expected from an apparent mental health first aider. I explained in the future I wouldn't approach her for help because I didn't feel supported. There were other times where I received no response to things, felt disbelieved and generally just disliked by this woman, and so this was the straw that broke the camel's back. I was very cautious with how I wrote the email, and to be professional and not insulting.
Today the general manager called me into a meeting as soon as I got in, and started with “I've seen the email, I thought it was rude.” I stood my ground and said how carefully I worded it and that I didn't accept it was rude. “Well that's your opinion.” When it was also HER opinion that it WAS rude? She then tells me how it upset the office manager. Prior to her telling me this, I reiterated that I was suicidal and having a breakdown – no response from her to that, other than “yeah”. So a mild upset to the office manager is more of a problem to them than an employee in distress feeling abandoned and ignored.
This might not seem a big deal compared to a lot of things, but it's made me very sad and angry even more so. I'm at the lowest point of my life right now and they just don't care. I didn't want or expect a therapy session, just a response and I couldn't even get that. I also needed to write it down and get it out of my system. And I'm interested to hear of anyone else's experience with mental health first aid or support at work, or if anyone has gone through anything similar?