Over the last ten years, since I was formally diagnosed with bipolar, I’ve been lucky enough to attend several workshops and conferences. These are spaces where people with lived experience of mental distress come together to share their stories. What happens is inspiring. Empathy and awareness are built, and you leave with practical ways to support one another and reduce stigma.
I’ll never forget one workshop where someone walked up to me at lunch and said: “I’ve never met anyone else with bipolar before.”
Oof.
This moved me for a few reasons:
1) Bipolar’s not uncommon. Not really. 1% to 4% of adults are estimated to live with bipolar in Aotearoa New Zealand and around 45 million people worldwide.
2) How alone this person must have felt, how isolating it is to not have someone else close to you who knows what you’re going through.
3) A sense of relief she’s not by herself.
Compare this story to the feedback I get when I share my story or talk about my pocketbook:
1) My wife, son, parent, niece lives with bipolar.
2) You’ve helped me see them through a totally different perspective.
3) I’m a trained paramedic and you’ve helped me see the person and humanity behind the diagnosis.
That’s why we need more lived experience stories shared in workplaces this Mental Health Awareness Week.
And it’s why I want to speak to your organisation.
Having said that, I know it’s a big decision and you have lots of options to choose from. You’ve got a budget, competing priorities, and you’re understandably worried the information won’t stick. You’re concerned it’s just another 90 minutes your team are taken out of their work and time they won’t get back.
I’ve spoken to workplaces, churches, and community groups. And to music therapy students at Victoria University of Wellington every year since 2018. The thing that nearly everyone comments on later is how moving and profound it was to hear my real story.
To make lessons stick, lived experience often trumps theory
When I describe what it was like to live with undiagnosed bipolar, to work in a workplace that was making me sicker, to go through the extreme highs of mania and extreme lows of depression, and I talk about what helped and what didn’t, people lean in. They ask questions.
A person at Drowning Prevention Auckland, who used to be a paramedic, attended one of my sessions last year. He put this sentiment beautifully:
“It was very insightful to hear a different perspective of the story that we, as paramedics, don’t often get to hear due to the limited time spent with patients. It was very humbling to hear the personal story, opposed to the medical ifs, whys, and treatments.”
What to ask before you book: does the lived experience story sit at the centre of the session? Clinical expertise is important, and you’ll likely feel more informed, but it’s unlikely to spur you to act if you can’t see the human story behind it.
My sessions draw on my lived experience, with both the difficult and hopeful parts left in. I still draw on research and statistics to prove it’s not an isolated experience. This will open up profound conversations that carry on long after I’ve left.
Safety in the room decides whether anyone speaks
I know your team will likely come to a session with wildly different starting points. Someone has lived it. Someone is struggling with mental distress right now. Someone loves a person who lives with bipolar. For some, bipolar has never been on their radar before but they care about doing the right thing by their team.
If the session doesn’t hold all these truths in tandem, the people who most need it will stay silent, and you’ll misread the room as engaged when it’s polite.
One team leader described what this looked like in practice:
“Our team had a varied understanding at the start, and your story took us through it in such a gentle and supportive way that everyone felt comfortable learning new information and asking questions.”
A co-founder of another business noticed something similar but addressed it from a different angle. Several of her team were neurodivergent and hearing an independent person speak openly meant they didn’t have to.
The emotional labour of disclosure and the vulnerability hangovers are real, which is why it helps to bring in someone who sits outside of your organisation. I have experience of sharing the hard and the hopeful in a way that keeps both you and me safe.
How to check for it before you book: ask what happens when someone in the room is struggling, or when an unexpected question comes up. A speaker who has thought about this will tell you about pacing, not skirting over the sad details but not spending too long there either, taking breaks, and staying behind afterwards for the people who’d rather ask privately. A speaker who hasn’t thought about this may look flustered or want to refer to their slides.
Change doesn’t need to be drastic. Small and incremental works
It’s often not practical or appropriate to do a major overhaul of your policies and systems. This can be too overwhelming and ignores what’s already working. Plus, you likely have limited bandwidth and resources to do this.
What’s actually useful is finding simple, memorable, practical and accessible tools. Knowing what helps and what to avoid in a conversation with someone in distress. How to respond when a person discloses something. What a reasonable adjustment looks like when nobody has asked for one yet. How to be curious rather than judgemental and how to respond in a calm and empathetic way.
Feedback from one session named the quality worth looking for:
“The techniques on supporting people with bipolar were extremely helpful and simple.”
How to check for it before you book: ask for two or three examples of what people walk away able to do. Then ask what happens after the session ends. A workbook, a resource list, a follow-up session, real phone numbers. My own sessions have a structure people can return to rather than a flicker of inspiration that fades.
The opportunity to shape conversations and policy
I spoke to a New Zealand professional services firm in June 2025 who wanted their team to understand bipolar and other forms of mental distress. Their goal was admirable: how do we support people to feel safe enough to do their best work and ask for accommodations when they need to?
They told me that the session led to profound conversations across the team about how the firm could better support inclusion. What’s even more exciting is that also led to policy changes.
That’s the difference a 90-minute session can make on Mental Health Awareness Week when it comes from lived experience and is delivered safely and meaningfully.
Mental Health Awareness Week starts 16th October
Reducing stigma and discrimination around mental distress and promoting inclusion is a lifelong commitment. You’re not going to tackle it in one Mental Health Awareness Week alone.
But this week does give you an opportunity to reflect on your values, policies, systems and structures. It gives you the space to get curious about what you’re already doing to ensure your people feel psychologically safe at your organisation. Where people can be honest about how they’re really doing and ask for the support they need. And for you to make that experience empowering, not punitive.
When you’re comparing your options for this Mental Health Awareness Week, I encourage you to ask these three questions:
- Whose experience is at the centre of this?
- Will my quietest person feel safe enough to speak?
- What will leadership and team members be able to do differently on Monday?
If you’d like to talk about what a lunch and learn could look like for your team in October, register your interest at the Business in the Bath website and we’ll start with a free chat.
During our chat, ask me anything so we can figure out if this option is right for you and your team. I’m also happy to configure parts of my presentation to fit with the requirements of your team and make it more relevant to your industry.
Mental Health Awareness Week starts on 16 October 2026. Diaries for that week fill early, so make sure to start the conversation early.
Forms really not your thing?
I don’t want that to be a barrier to access. Give me a call on 021 156 3669 or email katie@katierickson.co.nz and we’ll go from there!