Working Well

Jane had been through a divorce and had recently moved interstate, which saw the beginning of her experience with depression in the workplace ...

I had been through a divorce and moved to Sydney from Melbourne and took the first job I was offered because legal procedures are a bit different in each State and employers were dubious.  If I had known what I was letting myself in for I would not have taken the job.

It was a small law firm, the principal and an associate, two paralegals and four other staff.  I was a paralegal working with the principal.   He was a volatile man, used to rant and rave when things didn't go right.   He didn't want to know the ins and outs of anything and he just wanted things done and nothing ever had anything to do with him.   He was the lawyer and ultimately it was, of course, his responsibility.  On these days he would often lock himself in his room and not answer anyone which was very difficult if there was something important happening that needed his attention, it even happened on occasions regarding matters that were in the Court list early.  

It was my fault if a witness didn't turn up or a report didn't arrive on time even though I had done everything in my power to achieve it.   I'd sit with Counsel on cases at the last minute, cases that he had prepared and I wasn't familiar with, to find documents missing or witnesses not on standby or hadn't been arranged, so I would be frantically phoning and running around trying to get it all together on the day.   I then had the Barrister berating me when I in fact had nothing to do with the matter and Solicitor had just sent me on the day because he was going elsewhere.  This type of thing, of course, did not impress the client so I had to placate them as well. During my time at that firm my mother had also come to Australia and ultimately came to live with me as we were both living on our own.   Her health was starting to fail, she had a fall while I was at work and broke her arm and other things were happening.   She was a stoic type and never called me at work although I told her to if she needed, so I was coming home to find things had happened.   She was getting quite deaf and I came home one day to find half the roof on the house missing and she hadn't really noticed anything!

Anyway the last year working there I was worrying about her, worrying about medical conditions I had and stressed out with boss being the way he was.   I also had no understanding from him when I had to take time off for medical appointments for my mother or myself and my sister was not very helpful in this regard.  I started having panic attacks on the way to work, although I didn't know they were panic attacks at the time. I thought it was an underlying heart problem I had.   I had numerous attacks either in the car driving to work or walking from the car park which was about five minutes away.   On one occasion I was sitting on a step outside a shop trying to recover from a panic attack when the assoc solicitor walked past.   He asked what was the matter and I said I was just catching my breath and would be there shortly, he said okay and carried on.   He told the boss when he got there and the boss subsequently made some snide remarks about it.  A few weeks later I had viral labarynthitis and was off work for two weeks. I went back to work  before I was fully recovered under pressure from him and was still feeling quite dizzy when walking which in turn made me a bit slow to respond when boss was asking for updates on files etc.  He was very impatient with this and told me to go home if I couldn't do the job properly as I was of no use to him.   So I had a couple more days off.   I'm not sure whether this was really labarynthitisor a stress reaction now.

I went back to work, panic attacks were getting more frequent and I was getting quite depressed, I was getting them at night and called the ambulance on some occasions thinking it was my heart problem.   Hospital just used to check it out and also assumed it was my heart problem but that it had passed.   The heart specialist increased my medication but they continued because that wasn't the problem.  It was panic attacks.   During this time because I was quite depressed with it all and the work environment being what it was, I had to really push myself even to get to work.   I was also finding it more difficult to concentrate so work itself was becoming very tiring and I was feeling quite drained in the evenings.  I also dealt with probate matters at that office and I had one client pushing me to distribute the estate.  I knew the estate was liquidated and the money was there but my boss told me to tell the client it was not ready for distribution yet.   I double checked and wondered why and then realised he was 'borrowing' trust monies from estates (I subsequently learned he was using it to lend out on short-term mortgage bridging loans and reaping the profit for himself).  This realisation had me in bit of a tizzy but I decided not to say anything as I knew he would erupt and it was his responsibility.   I had the client going on at me and every time I mentioned it to him he got irritated and kept saying tell them you can't distribute yet.   I tried to pin him down to a date when I could but got nowhere so I had to just keep stalling the client with excuses even though it was wrong.

Anyway, I started feeling worse and worse with the stress at work and my mother's health was also deteriorating.  She had had another fall while I was at work and had lain in the garden unable to get up until I found her when I got home.   I spoke to my boss about working part-time, maybe job share.   His response was to the effect that it wouldn't work, basically he didn't want the hassle of it.  I decided to resign and did so the following day giving just one week's notice so by the time my mother came out of hospital I was not working.  I think he thought I only resigned to try and force him into lesser hours and simply said to let him know if I changed my mind.   He didn't advertise or interview anyone while I was working out my notice. 

I was still getting panic attacks after leaving work and went to hospital one day when they basically said you can't keep coming here, you're having panic attacks and you're depressed, it was the first time they had said that to me.   I was given a letter for a GP who put me on medication for depression and I saw a psychologist for about six months.    I was okay for a while and got on top of the panic attacks to a large degree but to be honest it was mostly by avoidance.   Depression seems to recur whenever there are stressors in my life of which they had been quite a lot over the past decade, some self-induced and some life events and I have been back on medication for the past year. 

My work environment definitely contributed to depression/anxiety coupled with trying to juggle caring for my mother. The irony was when I left the reference was almost too glowing, it said I was the best paralegal he had ever employed. It would have been good if he had somehow showed that while I was there.  It would, I think, have had a beneficial effect on the depression I was feeling, to know I was at least valued. The workload was very high so I was constantly under pressure. If my employer had been the type of person I could talk to and let him know how I was feeling and the effect his behaviour and workload was having on me, maybe I would have coped better. Common courtesy and mutual respect makes the workplace a much better place.