Congress has passed and we're waiting for the President to sign amendments to the ADA of 1990. The amendments have considerable promise for people with mental illnesses, as well as people with epilepsy and other conditions which are episodic and usually successfully treated with medications. At the same time, it seems likely that it will take a considerable "shakedown cruise" before the implementation really reaches its goals.
For me, I am cautiously hopeful that at some future date, if I become unstable again, I will be able to tell my employer that I have bipolar disorder that is temporarily out of whack, not that I "take seizure medications" that are slightly out of balance at present. I hope that if I ever have another psych hospitalization (and mine was just four business days long -- probably the shortest ever in this metro area!) that I won't return to the office to find my boss recommending new jobs in other companies, and, when that failed to move me out, collecting every negative comment from five years of annual reviews to make a case for probation and then firing from a job I'd held for a decade.
I've noticed a couple other issues that might be challenging for the new ADA. In my state, it takes a medical exam, including a statement about all the meds you take, to obtain a commercial drivers license. Any psych meds are grounds for a refusal, and a "conscientious" examiner will pass the info on to the private licensing division so you lose your personal driving license as well.
Then there's the insurance issue. We're working on parity, which is great. But how many self-insuring companies (like mine) require employees to provide a full health history to an in-house insurance management team as part of the hiring process? Will we be safe in disclosing or will we have to continue to do our best not to? (Thank goodness my company's form asked if I'd ever had "a nervous breakdown" ... which I didn't figure described my situation at all!)
Anyone else got any observations, comments, hopes, expectations?
Dear Lady,
My boyfriend went to business school and he always tells me I have rights and should disclose my illness. I am stubborn and say I am only doing that if I need a specific accomodation desperately (for instance, I thought I should have done this with a call-center job where my shift was until 2 am). I tell him you just do not realize if you work for unenlightened people it just can make you cringe when they look at you funny. Apparently, the discrimination issue is different for companies with fewer employees. For a long time, I looked for work with big companies so I could find health insurance that would cover psych care and of course human resources departments know better than to tell anyone else who it is that has a psych illness due to privacy laws. I'll never forget though that one time I was working for a huge insurance company and we were having a new employee seminar on filling out the insurance/ human resource forms and they had an employee assistance line (commendable) but the HR assistant described this as if you need to call because you go CRAZY (accompanied by the rotating finger gesture at the side of the head). Still kinda kicking myself for not saying, "Excuse me, you mean crazy like me?" I try not to be paranoid and am still fighting the good fight of spreading education about mental illness, it gets exhausting but let's not let them hold us down. Power to the BPs! bipolar bear (yes this name is meant to be a gentle joke)
Actually, I think the issues are bigger in bigger companies. What I've found visiting support groups is that you can get away with disclosing if you are self-employed or work for government. The more corporate the employer, the less tolerant of any "divergent" behavior.
Before these amendments, we actually didn't have much in the way of rights -- we were potential test cases for the ADA, which is why the EEOC was very excited to take me on and a great ADA attorney wasn't. So I think we're all going to be cautiously optimistic about what we can do in the months ahead.
Blessings!
The Lady Behind the Mask
My last comment tended to ramble, but what I was trying to say is that apparently there are separate rules for businesses that have only a few employees as to what they can be required to do in terms of accomodations. I am sure you know more than me about these laws, I have not studied up on it. But in a large corporation, it seems to me that you may only have to disclose to an HR employee and your direct manager may never know. Of course half the time the HR employees seem nonconversant with the law. I would certainly love to understand this topic better if anyone out there can shed more light.
Here is another vignette. I was working making cappacinos, etc in a coffee bar in the mall circa 1997. My boss was always treating me like I was stupid/slow so finally I quietly advised her that I had manic depression and took medicine but I was committed to keeping this job...Her reaction was, "So THAT's what's WRONG with you!" Things went downhill after that. I had no guidance on how to handle this situation professionally, this is a thorny area for me. Mind you, the customers would come up and say, "Haven't you been promoted to running this store yet?" so am I looking for discrimination and thus finding it? Am I too sensitive? If I had diabetes would she say, "Quick grab some orange juice!" Keep fighting the good fight, and I would welcome any more input you have on this topic.