Admitting that I was not well—and was getting treatment—transformed my life, which I realize now, looking back, was headed down a very lonely and scary path. I kept waiting and waiting for my real life to begin, without making any progress to getting the things that I wanted.

Sitting in a psychiatrist’s office one day in 2008, a wonderful but steely tough doctor gave it to me straight. “Do you want to get married? Have kids?” I said yes on both counts, even though I was living alone, without real furniture or a bed, in a home that I never allowed anyone to visit. I never went anywhere or did anything that wasn’t work-related. But my work allowed me to travel the world, so that felt “normal.”

I had left a promising relationship in another state with a woman who got close enough to me to see how screwed up I really was—and somehow, was okay with me, only to propel myself into an ultimatum: we move forward, or we end it.

“Do you want to be the oldest Dad in preschool”, the doctor asked. No, I said. “Then you need to decide.” Suddenly, my treatment seemed to be clearly connected to my future—either the one where I’m alone, or married, with a family. His swift kick in the ass changed my life.

The doc made the OCD diagnosis and prescribed a medication to help treat it. The drug, Luvox, came with a boatload of baggage—it was taken off the market in the U.S. after it became associated with one of the shooters in the Columbine tragedy, who’d taken the drug—and while it was cleared for use, it had a raft of side effects (the doctor warned me my sex life would be profoundly impacted, and it was) and a “black box warning” of the potential for suicidal thinking. So, fantastic.

But the doctor’s certainty—and his belief that I could, in fact, have a real life to replace the facade I’d been desperately holding together—convinced me to follow his treatment. I took the meds, and went through EMDR treatment with my therapist, which seemed to my cynical mind to be ridiculous until a casual question during treatment about my isolation caused me to break down sobbing. I was not the type to cry in front of anyone, so that caught my attention.

And I got better. I also got engaged. And later, on a wonderful day one May, I became a father. I had somehow found everything that I ever wanted. But telling that part of my story—happy though it was—was just not something I thought wise.

Celebrating our engagement in Berlin, 2008.

And I’m not the only one.

A report by the Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand found a direct connection between self-esteem and work among people with mental illness. Not only does having a career boost confidence and self-worth, it also works like medicine. “Paid employment is a “critical component of the pathway to recovery”.

The flip side, however, is the persistent fear of being outed—and for good reason. Rob Lachenauer’s a CEO who wrote in the Harvard Business Review about hiring a candidate who disclosed her mental illness in the interview process: “My reaction to the candidate’s disclosure was, frankly, disbelief — disbelief that she found the courage to make herself so vulnerable before she was hired.” She got the job, but Lachenauer says many do not:

The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 prevents employers from discriminating against people who have a mental illness. But my experience as a consultant at a very large strategy firm whose clients are giant corporations had been that if someone admitted that he or she struggled with depression or mental illness, that would often be career suicide. Indeed, a former vice president of a major investment banking firm, when told about this blog, warned me against publishing it: ‘Clients are afraid to work with firms that have mentally ill people on the professional staff.’

According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), about 3.3 million adult Americans have OCD. And one in five adults—46 million people—have experienced some form of diagnosable mental, behavioral or emotional disorder in the previous year.

But that’s best left off the resume. Research shows hiring managers have plenty of reasons not to hire someone if they know they have a mental illness:

Nearly two-thirds of managers said they believed people with a mental illness would be unpredictable or unstable, 61% of hiring managers said it was a reason not to hire. Respondents could choose multiple answers, and close to half, or 47%, also said they believed workers with a mental illness wouldn’t mix well with other staff, while the same number said they would be unable to do the job.

That leads people to keep quiet, remain isolated, and, for many, to refuse treatment. Isolated, untreated people at best don’t get better—missing out on happier, fuller lives. And at worst, they become sicker, or die. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, 90 percent of people who commit suicide have been diagnosed with a mental illness.

As a result, campaigns in several countries seek to break the stigma—and share the facts about mental illness:

http://youtu.be/4tiYbhVBjTk

More than a year ago, I felt the urge to be one of these courageous people who could step forward and simply talk about my mental illness the way I can talk easily about topics many people don’t necessarily understand—my marathoning training or, especially, my love of the Arsenal Football Club. I reached out to some of the groups fighting against stigma and was given encouragement.

Pamela Harrington, the executive director of Bring Change 2 Mind, raised a point that impacted me deeply: the media often reinforces stigma, and people in the media can do a lot to change that. “I think every person that tells their story helps to debunk misconceptions. When you have the platform as a journalist, your story could help countless people.”

I kept quiet, but others did not.