“ All you can do in life is be who you are. Some people will love you for you. Most will love you for what you can do for them, and some will not like you at all. "~ Rita Mae Brown
The stigma associated with mental illness has improved in recent years, but there is still much to be done.
I am a certified life coach and certified personal trainer. As an employee of a large global gym chain, I was once discriminated against because of my mental health problems.
I've always been an athlete and I love sports. Before I decided to study engineering, I thought I was going the medical school path with the goal of becoming an orthopedic surgeon. I have always been fascinated by the structure of the body and how all muscles, ligaments and tendons work together. But I chose the technical path and kept my sporting activities and my fascination for body mechanics and hobbies.
When I got divorced, I decided to get my personal trainer certificate. I've been a home mom and part-time photographer since birth, and a divorce meant I had to go back to work. However, I wasn't interested in a job in a company booth.
I studied hard, passed the exam and quickly got my first training job as a trainer for a global gym chain. The classes on this particular chain were essentially based on high-intensity intervals and combined treadmill running, rowing, and weight training. The classes of up to thirty athletes were trained by a trainer who set the intervals and explained the training units.
It was a very energetic workout and an atmosphere with loud, pulsating music and drill sergeant-like encouragements.
The training for this position was an intense one-week ordeal. I scraped my bum this week with no guarantee of a job (which they failed to tell us until training week was almost over).
When I was ready to teach my first class I was excited and nervous, but in the end I loved coaching the classes. There were many unsuitable people who barely knew how to do a squat, and I loved not only teaching them, but also encouraging and helping them to believe that they could master these exercises and become good at them.
I helped many people to see themselves as athletes when they could no longer run for three minutes in a row, but actually ran for three minutes in a row.
We have had membership challenges including a weight loss challenge. I loved it, and given my background in battling an eating disorder, this was my chance to lose weight in a healthy living place – and not lose weight to meet a ridiculous standard.
After each class, members of my team stayed to ask questions about diet, exercise, and recreation. I loved sharing my knowledge with them and cheering them on. I knew they could achieve their goals, and they did. My team won the challenge.
During the time I worked for this company, I was struggling with my personal hell. I would show up to class to work out and put on my energetic, happy face, blow up the music and shout those firm but loving words of encouragement for my athletes to give all they had on every break. But inside I felt like I was dying.
I lived with a sinking, sick pit in my stomach. I would often leave the studio and cry in my car before returning to the lonely house where a family once lived.
During my tenure in the studio, I was hospitalized twice for severe depression. Both times I had to take short leave of absence – a few days the first time and almost a week the second time.
I also made a last minute trip home on Christmas Day to visit my family so that I could get family support for the first Christmas without my children (they were with their father that year) . I hired someone else to report on the class I was supposed to teach.
When I came back from my trip, I came back to work and taught my planned classes. When I left, the head coach and one of the main investors in all of the Maryland franchises let me stay so they could fire me.
They told me that my performance was not up to par and that they had to let me go.
Funny, I had never let anyone point out that I had to improve something to keep my job. Not even in my assessment with the head coach – she gave me constructive feedback, but also stated that I did a good job. There were no warning signs.
After my departure, a large number of my students turned to me and asked where I was and why I was no longer teaching. When I told them the reason, they were horrified and angry. One or two even quit their membership.
They loved my lessons and came because they liked my style of teaching. I asked for membership polls for my classes but management refused to show them to me, stating that "polls don't tell the full story".
Other coaches, including another head coach who had been with the Maryland franchises since the first location opened, thought it was absurd and offered to come back and teach at his location. As much as I loved the coaching, I was still too upset about how the company had handled my firing to take up their offer.
I am telling this story because what happened to me was cruel and heartless and should never happen to someone who is really doing their best in a job. It shouldn't happen to anyone without proper warning.
I've had problems at a level I doubt either the twenty year old head coach or the bougie investor ever had to endure, and they let me go for some made-up reason that really returned to my sanity beneath the surface Struggle.
Authenticity is an issue that is very close to my heart and I have the feeling that authenticity is sorely lacking in the workplace.
All too often we feel that we cannot show ourselves as our authentic selves for fear of looking weak or incompetent. We need to be competitive and not show any signs that we are nothing but perfect for fear that someone else may be due to a misperception (mistakenly skewed by mental health struggles) that others have of our ability to achieve get ahead job done.
I've done my job as a trainer and coach and I've done well. Ask one of my students. But in some ways management sensed my weakness and decided that I did not fit the “brand image” of this very popular and trendy international gym chain because I was struggling with mental illness.
If you ask them I'm pretty sure they would argue that their reasoning had to do with other factors, but the facts just don't match.
I had never been fired from a job in my life. This contributed to my depression and anxiety. I understand that if I had not been able to perform my duties it would have been a reason for dismissal. But I gave my all and never received negative feedback indicating that my job was in danger.
My fight against depression at the time was no different from the one with a physical illness.
If I were to undergo cancer treatment, this scenario would certainly have been completely different. I'm sure there would have been at least a conversation about the situation instead of just finding an excuse for my performance not being as expected and firing a single mother with no other job.
We need to remove the stigma that mental illnesses have in the workplace. We have to fix it for people to show up and say, "Hey, I'm fighting right now. I'm doing my best, but I have a hard time." That shouldn't be a weakness. If anything, it is a strength to admit when you have problems and need help.
Is progress being made? Yes. However, the discrepancy between the perception of physical and mental illness is still too great. This has to change.
How could my former employer have dealt with it differently?
If they didn't think my performance was good enough, they should have given me the chance to improve first. You should have told me I need to change something because I'm the type who, when given feedback, will go out of my way to nail it. At this point in my life, I was still firmly rooted in the perfectionist mode, and the mere thought of someone who thought I was not perfect would have been enough to send me on a frenzied mission to correct that perception.
If they weren't thrilled with the amount of time I had to take off for my hospital stays and my last minute trip with someone else covering a class, the head coach should have told me that this was unacceptable, and me a given warning. That would have given me an opportunity to have an honest conversation about the struggles I was having.
Even in an environment with minimal care, it makes more sense to help people succeed than to throw them away when you don't like them. It is much more expensive to train a new employee than to try to improve an existing one.
In my opinion, especially in the fitness industry, there is little room for perceived imperfections and even less room for a faulty trainer or coach. The fitness industry perpetuates the lie that coaches and coaches have their shit together – that's why they exercise you. Therefore, you cannot achieve these results yourself – because you are imperfect and you don't know how to be perfect.
Authenticity in every workplace is so important. When we are afraid to act like ourselves not only with our mistakes but also with our gifts and talents, creativity ends here. If we cannot exercise our creativity, innovation will be thwarted. And when the innovation stops, everyone is stuck.
In retrospect, I now know that I never want to be employed by such flat and uncompassionate people, but I also know that this just wasn't the place for me. There is no place where I want to be that I cannot appear as the real me and say: “Hey, I can bring a lot to the table, but I am also flawed and I agree with that.”
The reaction should be: “Yes, me too. Welcome to the club "
Because we are all imperfect. And that's a fact.
About Kortney Rivard
Kortney Rivard is a Certified Life Coach and lives in the Washington, DC area. As a former aerospace engineer who wanted a more fulfilling life, she is committed to helping women who are ready to stop putting their dreams aside to find the courage to pursue their dreams and create a life you want to wake up with. Check out her Real, Brave & Unstoppable podcast HERE and learn more about her work on kortneyrivard.com.
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