Lars Erik lund

my story

Sad. Is the word that best describes my state of mind through the day. I cannot remember the last time I woke up not feeling sad, dispirited, or downcast in one way or another. Every morning I wake with a sense of turmoil or even fear. A smouldering sensation that spreads from the head and stomach. I’ve always thought that’s the way it should be. That everybody else feels the same. I never thought of it as a symptom of a mental illness. But now I understand that this description of myself has a diagnosis – depression. Not a paralysing depression, where I think that I cannot bear to live anymore or that I just want to crawl back under my comforter, but a constant feeling of dejection, meaninglessness, and hopelessness.

Through 25 years of work, it has been my perception that it is absolutely not appropriate to show emotion or be open about mental issues. It does not look good on your CV. I have thought that talking about one's own mental health is taboo, especially at work, but also among friends. That you should, as far as possible, separate private feelings from the professional, and that the best medicine for such negative thoughts is to swallow a big spoonful of "Pull-Yourself-Together" and bury your feelings until you are once again alone with your thoughts. I have even thought that this is especially important in a position like mine: a solid education, an EVP title, and a place in the top management group of a large and quite successful corporation. I have thought that this is a position and a role that employees and colleagues should be able to look up to. Someone wise, solid, and stoic. Someone who coldly analyses situations and makes wise, deliberate decisions.

Given my own description of the desired qualities in a top manager, I realise that this is diametrically opposite from how I think about myself and who I actually am.

I am certainly not always analytical, rational, or calculating. I feel, quite probably much more than I should. I can be impulsive and irritable; I can be moody and absent. The analytical part of my brain is often busy analysing and evaluating what (I think) others think about me, how (I think) they look at me and think about me. I am far from always confident in myself, nor in my assessments or my decisions. When someone says something nice to me, I'm quick to dismiss positive feedback as kind-hearted nonsense. At the same time, a single incident of negative feedback can topple me into a racing downward spiral of thought – back into the dark abyss, with the fears and the worries. It is as if that one piece of negative feedback is the very proof that the positive feedback was never sincere.

This logjam of thoughts is constantly draining my self-esteem. I become afraid of making mistakes, I doubt my own qualities and think that everyone can spot how little I know, how poor a leader, employee and colleague I actually am. I find myself postponing work tasks, because I cannot complete them to the standard I think others should rightfully expect, or simply because I am just not clever enough. In fact, not a day goes by without me thinking that someone is soon to expose my incompetency in my role as Executive Vice President and manager. That employees, colleagues and others judge me from my job title and do not clearly perceive who I am and how small and insecure I actually feel. Even when I accept that I am struggling with depression, I become insecure. I think that I’m not "worthy" of the diagnosis. On the surface, I come across as successful on most of life’s stages – I have a solid career, I'm mostly healthy, I have a wonderful family, with healthy children and a wife I love. I simply haven’t experienced anything that would point to having "earned" the diagnosis of depression. This gives me even less reason to feel sorry for myself or be depressed – and hence I feel shame, and I think maybe the smartest thing is to swallow another, perhaps a little bigger, spoonful of "Pull-Yourself-Together".

And of course, I also have good days. Days when I feel on top of the world. Days when every task is easy. But those days and those moments have become more and more rare over the past year. In the beginning of the pandemic, I thought that I was perfectly adapted to a life of less contact, of home office and quarantines. I would be “to myself enough”, and less interaction would mean less opportunity for others to assess me. But that was wrong. Unfortunately, less interaction just opens more room for speculation, more time and space to think and analyse.

Opening up about my mental challenges is a decision I have thought about for a very long time. I have chosen to be open after talking it over with my family, my workplace, and advisors. Nevertheless, I fear the consequences of this post. I am, of course, afraid that no one will read or care about what I write. But what I fear most about opening up, is that colleagues and friends will start treating me differently. That they will tiptoe around me. Yes, even the suspicion that they do, worries me. The fear is almost numbing. But I see a need for more transparency about the fact that many of us are struggling with such thoughts and that depression and mental challenges come in many different forms. Having such thoughts or speaking up about them should not be shameful or stigmatising, and I hope this post contributes to that.

I've learned a lot from the last year. I’ve got to know people who struggle with similar challenges, and I’ve benefited greatly from the conversations we have had. I’ve resumed activities that have at least helped put negative thoughts about myself on pause. A while ago, my employer Veidekke decided to make mental health the topic of its annual OHS week. This is encouraging – as we need to talk about mental health, including at work. Mental health is just as important as other, more physical health issues, though rarely as visible.

Mental disorders, and especially depression, are a major health concern, costing society billions every single year. But it is those affected who carry the greatest burden. Suicide is currently one of the most common causes of death among men between the ages of 15 and 49 throughout the Nordic region. Lack of acceptance and transparency about mental illness does not serve to abate this trend.

So this is my most sincere hope: With so many of us spending so much of our time at work, we need to make sure that we let people be their own authentic selves at work – not the macho stereotype that few of us believe in anymore, but ourselves – with all our thoughts and problems. We must create jobs that embrace diversity and are firmly anchored on acceptance of differentness – showing vulnerability and openness about mental challenges included.