I am a flawed, ambitious, and entirely ordinary human who wears a mask daily at work. 

I put the mask on as I get into my car to drive to work or social engagements, and I take it off as I walk through the front door of my home. It is not a deliberate costume that I don and remove, akin to a Jane Austen period drama. Instead, it is a learned psychological survival mechanism that I have been employing for as long as I can remember, to the extent that I have lost track of when it is on, its appearance, or its functionality. It has become an integral part of my being. 

I am neurodivergent, I have Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), and I have a life-limiting, incurable autoimmune illness. Very few people know this because I wear a mask of a neurotypical, mentally and physically healthy person. 

And it’s exhausting. 

The mask saps my energy, my spirit, my cognitive processing ability. 

Unlike the notion of “I need a nap,” which may seem relatively manageable, the exhaustion experienced when one has depleted all cognitive space to engage in conversations with one’s spouse and child at the end of the day feels more profound. In this blog I’ll talk about my experiences living with these illnesses and their impact on my life and career to date.

Working in Higher Education

My mother was employed at universities throughout my childhood and early adulthood. Consequently, I grew up in and around universities, and it’s always been my home turf. I guess I never left – I ploughed through my undergraduate degree, honours, master’s, and PhD within a decade, along with a substantial collection of accolades. After graduation, I transitioned seamlessly into academic and academic-adjacent roles, quickly establishing a reputation for delivering high-quality professional outcomes and fostering innovation. University was my home; the people who work in universities, my people, uplifting the next generation, my ‘thing’. 

Ten years into my career, I landed the job – working for and with a globally renowned leadership and women’s development expert. I saw this role as a pivotal moment in my career trajectory. I had influence and the opportunity to make a considerable impact. I smugly believed I had the opposite of impostor syndrome – a profound sense of purpose, certainty and belonging. 

A Punch to the Gut

One day, my boss shushed me during a meeting with my colleagues. For want of a better, less overused term, I was immediately triggered. The logical part of me knew this action was meant to be a mentorship moment for reflection and growth. The acronym-heavy emotional part of me dived headfirst into a never-ending spiral of self-loathing and catastrophising. 

There were a few more shushings and, later, a well-meaning professional development feedback session with my boss, during which my problem of speaking out of turn and over other people, which had been reported to her by others, was raised as something that needed to be dealt with. 

The rawness of that moment is something I can feel even now when I think back. To me, meetings had always felt like a traffic circle in Paris, and either you just joined the traffic and ended up being caught up in the mayhem, or you grabbed any tiny space and shoved in. You keep doing that until you get to where you want to go. 

Facing the fact that this was in reality, entirely inaccurate and that others had felt the need to provide this feedback to my boss left me feeling exposed and utterly ill-equipped to process this. 

So, Karen (my trusty OCD sidekick) stepped in to ‘help’. 

Side note: I named my OCD Karen as part of my OCD therapy because the OCD voice in my head reminded me of my old housekeeper, Karen, a surrogate grandmother to me with old-school advice and parenting tips like giving my colicky kiddo a spoonful of whisky. Helpful, yes, but not necessarily the kind of help I need. 

Karen assumed complete control over the situation, ensuring my safety. She meticulously prepared me for meetings in advance, recounting every word, phrase, and body movement I had exhibited during all my prior meetings. She scrutinised each element of my communication, identifying safe and unsafe speech and timing. If we got interrupted in this thought pattern, we would start again, from the beginning. 

Karen provided specific instructions on how long I should wait to speak after someone had concluded their turn, and this timing had to be reset if someone else subsequently spoke. When I had missed my opportunity, she would harshly criticise me for not being normal and capable of effective interpersonal communication. Instead of sleeping, we would repeatedly go through every aspect of the meeting to learn from my perceived mistakes. 

Karen then expanded her interest and control over all aspects of my work: 

She would reread every email I sent to ensure no unseen meaning could be present; she monitored every conversation and supervised every task completed. She hovered over me 24/7—my invisible guardian demon – ensuring my work was always above reproach. 

My Other Mask

I wear another mask – one of good health and vitality. 

I have Systemic Lupus Erythematosus, aka Lupus. I find that the only reason most people know what lupus is is because of House, MD. Still, unlike every episode where House would gleefully hope for a case of lupus only to be disappointed with some other rare disease, I have lupus, and my body is actively killing me every day. 

Karen, of course, has opinions on this, and when I’m not paying enough attention, she likes to surreptitiously add her special brand of protection to my daily physical routines – such a typical Karen move.  

The thing is, there is absolutely no way you can tell this by looking at me. You can’t see the countless rounds of chemo, the immune-suppressing therapy that list 20 different types of cancer as a potential side effect, the chronic pain, the internal bleeding, the attacks on my heart, liver, lungs and kidneys. There is nothing to see here; move along. I took immense pride in being just another overachieving, worked-to-the-bone academic woman. 

Everything Was Fine, Until It Wasn’t

I thought I was doing a brilliant job of keeping it all together. Got through the pandemic, an internal restructure, took on more people management responsibility, publications, large curriculum projects, launched my son into primary school – I could do it all.

Mental and physical health go hand in hand. Even more so when both are in crisis. I was blithely ignoring the precarity of my situation, putting medical patches on my Lupus, adding drugs to the chemo, and then chemo to the drugs. Adding a fire blanket here and there to keep it from consuming me. 

Until one day, I broke. I can’t even remember what the straw was that finally broke me. It wasn’t one obvious thing. I woke up and drove to work, and I realised, as I was sitting in traffic, that no one had crashed into my car and that I had to go to work. I had taken the ideation quite far – I wasn’t suicidal, I was hoping for a decent crash, with some peripheral injury that kept me off work for a few months and gave me a good enough reason not to have to attend meetings and respond to emails. 

I came to my senses, I did what seemed (at the time) to be the only possible solution: quit my job, burned a bunch of bridges, and ran away. 

Thankfully, I also made an appointment with my GP, who helped me navigate the chess game of getting psychological and psychiatric help as soon as possible. 

The View From The Other Side

It’s been a few years now since I finished specialised OCD therapy and made friends with Karen. I’m working in an incredible role with real impact.  I’m kinder to myself and open to sharing the real, vulnerable me with trusted colleagues and mentors. I’ve worked with a coach on operating in meetings in a way that is authentic to myself but considerate of others, and I regularly see a psychologist.  

Ultimately, I’ve learned to accept that I am a flawed, ambitious, and entirely ordinary human who doesn’t need to wear a mask to be a success. 

This blog post has been drafted with the assistance of Grammarly AI. All ideas expressed below are my own. Grammarly was used to improve written expression and brevity. 

This blog is kindly sponsored by G-Research