AIBU to consider legal action after dismissal for long-term sickness?

Might learn to quote a post. Like mine.

Thank you @Shrinkhole. My first harm intrusive thoughts were around hurting my baby (who is now 30). I was petrified that if I went to sleep I would do something to him without knowing. Once that thought popped into my head it was a living hell. I had panic attacks and developed depression. I avoided being on my own with my child to ‘keep him safe’. I thought I must be evil, I really did.

I can remember the day I asked for help as vividly as it was yesterday. It was the day of Diana’s funeral in 1997 and I managed to get an emergency appt (on a Saturday 😲) with an awful doc who dismissed me and told me “everyone is sad today” and handed me a script for Prozac. Luckily I went back 2 days later, convinced I was still a bad person and that I was a danger, and that my child would be taken off me, and a different lovely doctor told me I wasn’t the only one and the fact that I was so scared of these thoughts meant I would never act on them. She gave me some different meds that had more of a calming effect and I was referred for therapy. It still wasn’t easy though, because this was back in 1997 with no easy internet access to see others going through the same, and the OCD worked hard to convince me these thoughts meant something. Nowadays, I follow a few accounts on and it’s such a massive help to be able to understand more about OCD and to know I’m not alone.

I’ve had periods of relapse where it’s been difficult but I’m mostly ok. And now when I get any kind of intrusive thought, I know it’s just a blip and it doesn’t hold the fear as it used to.

Clearly I cannot risk assess an individual person from a Mumsnet post but if the info she has given is accurate that she is correctly diagnosed with OCD (and what she has said about the thoughts and the treatment does seem consistent with that) then yes my professional opinion is that she does not pose a risk to other people.

’mental health issues’ covers a whole lot of stuff. OCD specifically is not an illness associated with risk of harm to others

Well to be quite honest, we don’t know her state of mind, only that she’s on medication and has intrusive thoughts and thinks she’s recovered. As to whether she’d act on them or not, are you really sure she would not do so, as a professional?

Maybe I’ve just seen too many media stories about some people with mental health issues attacking others after being told they’re ok by their mental health team and indeed psychiatrist. Or will you tell me that never happens?

Well you can disbelieve it if you like but it’s the truth.

There seems to be huge confusion over ‘WANTs to harm someone’ vs ‘HAD A THOUGHT about harming someone’

Do you never walk over a bridge and maybe have a thought ‘what if I jumped’ or see a cream cake and think ‘what if I just smashed it’ You don’t do it. You don’t want to do it. You have no idea why that thought popped into your mind. That’s what obsessional thoughts are and they are the basis of OCD.

It seems like people can understand ‘what if that’s contaminated I better wash it’ or ‘what if a bad thing happens because it’s Friday the 13th’ but cannot understand that the thought ‘what if I stabbed someone’ is the same kind of irrational, involuntary thought with no desire or intent to act that in fact the person is ashamed of and resists.

She did not tell a random person she told her manager who I think she had a right to expect a bit more of a compassionate response from and yes if you are someone’s manager (not a random colleague) I think it’s fair that you do inform yourself to a basic degree about an illness that affects their work and where you will be managing sickness absence, adjustments etc

Christ on a bike the level of woeful misunderstanding on this thread is ridiculous. I am a psychiatrist and no psychiatrist would ever detain someone for having harm OCD like this.

OP does not have thoughts of ‘wanting to harm someone’ she has intrusive thoughts that she will harm someone involuntarily which are abhorrent to her and which she would do everything to avoid. That’s what harm OCD is.

There is no more risk (or probably even less risk) of her having an outburst and killing someone than if you or I doing so.

I can’t allow stupid statements like this to go unchallenged because if someone having. Those thought thinks they will be sectioned if they disclose them then how will they ever get help for what is a very treatable illness.

Poor OP. I hope she has hidden the thread long ago as it will be incredibly triggering to see at first hand the stigma she faces.

In all honesty, why should they? They are in a professional place of work where personal stuff is just that, personal.

Nobody should be forced to deal with other people's crap.
For the record, been there, done that with a colleague. Some things, even if just in your colleagues head, are pretty disturbing. Nobody should have to put up with this in the workplace.

This. Even if you wouldn’t act on them. How are other people supposed to know? What if OP suddenly has a violent outburst at work? Even words?

The CBT and therapy should help with not saying these words inappropriately, I know it’s taken a while to get this though. Bit like bolting the stable door after the horse has bolted.

I do sympathise with you though OP. Mental health, especially in the workplace is still misunderstood.

In fact if she stated these thoughts in front of a medical professional, she may well be sectioned. If the doctors haven’t helped beforehand with medication. Not saying I’d want it to go this far.

How do you know her mental state of mind? Unless you’re her psychiatrist or doctor?

That won't help. It's still there in the back of your brain.

You don't tell random people what your intrusive thoughts are. It'll always get you into bother with someone. Whether it's fair or not.

They shouldnt have to if a man made a threat in the work place the management team or staff would call the police, a threat is a threat not a threat but I dont really mean it, it should be taken seriously no matter who makes it

Sure. And hopefully they read up about harm OCD before they jump to any conclusions.

Peace, obviously..,

Her colleagues are entitled to make their own judgement on the safety of working with someone who has stated she wants to injure them with a knife.
They can put their own context around op’s words.
Their piece of mind matters just as much as op’s.

I know she wasn't joking. She also doesn't really want to harm any of her colleagues with a knife. Context matters not just the words was my point.

What would you do
@bigboykitty if one of your team expressed OCD intrusive thoughts about violently harming colleagues with a knife ?

The OP wasn’t joking though. So bizarre analogy.

Added to which, if a colleague jokingly expressed to their boss that they they violent thoughts about harming colleagues with a knife - I would be disturbed!

Another comment only fit for the 🙄 as a response.

I don’t believe that is true at all. Anyone who has thoughts of wanting to injure their work colleagues and verbalising those thoughts, whether or not they have OCD, should not be in that workplace.

To be fair it's not usually colleagues that say this but parents about their kids or about their partner which you'd think is actually worse!

Again, I said those things previously.

I absolutely did read what you said

The manager only got involved at the point op disclosed harmful thoughts.

Then OP was off sick for months, after her return her manager raised concerns she still wasn't able to do her job due to the time tKen by her harmful thoughts, op herself states this was the case AND that she's still struggling to work.

HR then dismissed her as unfit to work.

Noone in this chain of events acted in a discriminatory way