I’m a US military veteran (US Air Force) and each Memorial Day is hard. This approaching one is no different. Thankfully, I never deployed to a war zone and didn’t have the face the horrors that are so damaging, emotionally and mentally. However, I have lost friends due to the Global War on Terror (GWOT), some after they came home. Those are the hardest, because even when I couldn’t have done anything more to help them, I still feel like I failed them. I was talking with a friend recently about this and he remarked that any high stress job can lead to the same kinds of issues. Of course, before he specified IT, I first thought of law enforcement, especially those who have to deal with child sexual abuse materials (CSAM). Mental health issues for law enforcement are higher than for the normal population. They see a lot things that cannot be unseen. Law enforcement who deal with CSAM experience an even higher rate than “normal” law enforcement.
Working in either information technology and/or cybersecurity can be extremely stressful. There are a lot of demands, especially if projects are behind communicated dates. There are plenty of cases in our industry of what is referred to as death marches, with apologies for actual death marches such as the Trail of Tears or the Bataan Death March. Projects and/or organizations with unreasonable demands don’t just cause exhaustion and physical body breakdown. I can remember talking with a colleague who had been on a death march in his organization and he overheard his children ask their mom if dad loved them any more because he was always working. He was crying as he told me, which showed the significant impact on his mental health.
Just as it’s important to take care of our physical health (and I’m guilty of neglecting that), it is important to take care of our mental health, too. Also, as much as it’s unlikely for your organization to put you on a treadmill or have a trainer “enforce” a lifting routine, it’s also unlikely that the organization will force one to pursue resources to address mental health issues. Sure, there are cases where specific organizations must because of the nature of the business or because that organization is unusually proactive in that regard, but those are the exceptions, not the rule. Therefore, it’s up to us to look our for our mental health.
If you know you’re having an issue, please seek out the proper help. There’s no badge of honor for trying to suck it up on your own. The consequences if you’re wrong are horrendous to those who love and care about you. I had a friend who lost his fight with his demons. I can tell you that even now there are a lot of folks who remember him, miss him, and regret they weren’t able to intervene. I think about him often. I think about the last time we got to spend some time together, enjoying BBQ and talking about our shared interests and his future. I know the last thing he would have wanted to cause was more pain for those who loved him. However, because he continued to struggle alone, he reached a point where he couldn’t continue the fight. It had broken him and he felt his only option was to leave the mortal coil. Don’t let mental health issues break you until you reach the same conclusion. Address them early. Address them aggressively. Don’t let them win. And remember, you are not fighting alone, but folks can’t help you if they don’t know about your fight.