Sophie Kuester

[00:00:07] Hi everyone. Thank you so much for coming. I'm Sophie. That's me. I'm from Bonn in Germany, I work at CON as a tester. In another life, I used to be a mathematician. My pronouns are she and her. And if you want to treat any of this, my handle is Mademoiselle Sophie Poffy. Long story. But before I begin, I'm going to give you a quick content note. I'm going to talk about mental illness and that includes but is not limited to depression, anxiety, and eating disorder. I will mention verbal harassment, physical illness, in particular cancer and the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine. So if any of this is too much for you and you'd rather look out for yourself, I won't be offended if you leave. But I'm going to start now and I do that by telling you how I even got here. The girl in that picture there, that's me when I was 22 years old. I look quite happy, right? I look healthy and relaxed and living the good life on a trip to Spain, but I was none of these things. I didn't know what was happening to me. I just knew it felt completely and utterly wrong. Uni wasn't going well, my back then boyfriend and I were fighting incessantly.
[00:01:27] And without even wanting to, I was pulling away from all of my friends.
[00:01:33] In my head, there was a constant well wind of emotions, I felt sad and scared and overwhelmed and lonely. And then again, I felt nothing at all for days on end, which in turn scared me senseless. I decided I had to do something. And the thing I decided to do was to lose weight. Clever, right? Perfectionist young woman feels out of control of her life, controls body instead. It's so textbook. Half a year after this photo was taken, I had lost quite a lot. I had lost around a bit more than 10 kg of body weight, around 75 kg of boyfriend and pretty much all perspective. Now, maybe 10 kilograms doesn't sound all that much to you, but I didn't have those to spare, so it pushed me well over the edge of unhealthily underweight and made me look like a like a skeleton in a meat in skin leotard.
[00:02:31] So, I'm intentionally showing you the before picture and not one of the later ones like a drastic shocker to prove my point. The reason is that for people with an eating disorder or body image issues, looking at pictures of extremely skinny people can be triggering, and I don't want to trigger anyone, even if it's only me. When I finally admitted to myself that I needed help and went to see a doctor, I was diagnosed with depression, anxiety, and eating disorder. And I spent the next few years in therapy and on antidepressants. I don't want to dwell much on how I got sick or how I got better. That part is fairly straightforward. The pharmaceuticals helped and therapy and work on myself helped more.
[00:03:14] To get to the heart of what I want to talk about today, we have to fast forward a bit. I was finally done with Uni, but it had taken a few details and a lot longer than it should have. So my CV looked bad and I didn't want to explain the reasons why in a cover letter. That's not something you do, right? So, I was afraid I was essentially unhirable and it was all my fault.
[00:03:38] But then, I went on an interview, which seemed to go reasonably well until the inevitable question about all the lost time came up.
[00:03:47] But my interviewer obviously wasn't buying my evasive answers and called me back the next day asking again what went wrong. I decided to gamble a bit then and told him about the eating disorder, but nothing else, hoping that that would be just enough to explain the gaps, but not so bad that he'd think I'd relapse under the slightest bit of pressure. And in fact, it worked and he hired me. And I was, and to this day still am very happy at the company at con, that's our logo.
[00:04:19] But in the beginning, I was constantly worried that I'd slip up and somebody might find out my deep dark secret. You have to see, it's bad enough to live with the monsters in your head without feeding them guilt or shame. So, I had pretty much early on decided that I wasn't going to be ashamed and talked about mental illness relatively openly with friends and family, and if I'm being totally honest here, the occasional stranger at parties. But at work, I didn't dare. You just don't talk about that at work, I thought. I didn't want to be seen as weak or vulnerable or unable to stand stress. Least of all by my boss. So at work, I did a whole conceal don't feel thing.
[00:05:06] But one day, a few of my colleagues and I went to a conference together for the first time. I don't even know what I expected, but certainly not this. People there talked about mental health in a professional environment at a tech conference of all places. I was stunned.
[00:05:26] There was a talk about burnout after which I asked the speaker how he had explained his absences to his boss. And he said, the truth. And that really got me thinking.
[00:05:38] Focus, commitment, respect, courage, openness. We probably all know the scrum values by heart. Hang on. Do we all? I'm used to doing this at testing confere at adult testing conferences. Anyway, we probably all know these values. But was I really taking them to heart?
[00:05:59] Trying to hide my own history, my own lived experiences certainly didn't feel courageous or open to me. And couldn't I trust my boss and my colleagues, my new colleagues, to still respect me if they knew the truth?
[00:06:14] As it so happened, I had a performance review coming up on the very first day back at the office after the conference. So I was very sleep deprived and still in sensory overload mode after the conference and talking too much and too fast. But I was determined and probably a bit reckless and started the review by telling my boss the whole truth about my mental illness. I think I bulldozed the entire convo a little. But he was gracious enough to thank me for my honesty and he didn't even fire me for being a wimp.
[00:06:49] From that day on, I didn't hold back anymore. When the topic of mental health came up, I talk about it with anyone. And today, I'd like to share with you 10 lessons I have learned from breaking the taboo.
[00:07:02] The first one is you're never the only one.
[00:07:07] When you mention therapy or illness in any group of people, there's often enough somebody else who responds with their experiences. It's a simple matter of statistics, really. According to one report I found, it was called the State of Health in the EU Report of 2018. During the course of that year, around 17% of the population had a mental health problem. That's more than one in six. So, if the group is large enough, there's always somebody else.
[00:07:39] So, it shouldn't have come as a surprise that as soon as I started talking about my brain weasels with my colleagues, I learned that I wasn't the only one who had been through hard times or who had a loved one who had. It shouldn't have come as a surprise, but it had. You can almost never tell from looking at people or from day-to-day chit chat in your office kitchen while you wait for your coffee to brew. If people don't tell you, their struggles are mostly invisible.
[00:08:06] So, I remember feeling completely isolated when I first got my diagnosis. My disease made me so made me feel so different from other people, like the weirdest weirdo freak show girl on earth.
[00:08:19] But then it dawned on me that other people, normal people, have had the same thing and have struggled and have gotten better. And that revelation comforted me a lot. This already is one of the main reasons I talk about mental illness this openly. Maybe by speaking up, I make somebody else feel less alone. And I think paying it forward is worth it.
[00:08:44] The second lesson is openness inspires openness.
[00:08:48] One day, one of my co-workers approached me saying that there was something that he had kept to himself, a secret that he had never told anybody at work. And he didn't even want to keep it a secret anymore. But he didn't he didn't know how to start speaking about it, how do you start speaking about the bad stuff? But he said with my openness, he felt safe to confide his story in me. A short while later, he told some of our other colleagues and today it's no longer even a secret. When we were chatting the other day, I said something along the lines of I'm sorry. Um, sorry, I'm oversharing again, but if I don't mention the taboo stories, none of my other stories make real sense. To which he replied, yeah, I know what you mean. Before I started talking about the bad stuff, I simply didn't talk altogether. And that's as true as it is sad. Taboos and secrets can take up so much of your head space that they seem to overshadow everything. In my experience, however, if you bring them out into the open, they lose some of their power over you. And that gives you more room to be you, yourself.
[00:10:02] Having helped someone become more comfortable with being open, speaking about themselves, taught me something that I think is rather beautiful. Even if it might sound a little cheesy.
[00:10:13] Sharing your secrets, even the bad ones, turns them into a gift. It's like a little token of safety and understanding. It says, I share a piece of myself, so you can share a piece of you.
[00:10:29] The third lesson is openness is a habit, not a character trait.
[00:10:35] It's kind of the mirror image of the last lesson. Because at one point I then noticed a change within myself too. You know, anxiety makes it hard to voice your opinions, especially if you have to contradict people. But at work, in a team, in an agile team, you have to be able to say, hey, you know what, I think we're going wrong here. I have a different approach, let's try something different. You know, courage and openness and shared responsibility and all that.
[00:11:08] I used to think that being able to speak your mind easily and openly, that a was, sorry. Being able to speak your mind freely, easily and openly was a character trait. That you either have or you don't. And I myself was one of the unlucky people who just didn't. But once I had shared something so very personal about myself, expressing my random opinions about day-to-day work didn't seem so overwhelming anymore. So, over time, I became more comfortable with being open.
[00:11:41] I won't pretend that it's now always easy, it still isn't. But I have learned that openness, much like confidence, is like a muscle that can be exercised and probably has to be exercised your entire life. When you start out, it's hard and your muscles get sore and you don't ever want to do it ever again because it's so so so exhausting. But the next time you try, it feels a little easier and the ache afterwards isn't just so bad. So, over time, it gets easier and easier because you get stronger and stronger.
[00:12:16] Speaking of strength, the fourth lesson is showing vulnerability shows strength.
[00:12:24] I'm a sensitive person and I have depression. and anxiety, which means I have never had a thick skin. Grievances go straight to the bone, they always have. So, as a kid, I was called a wimp and a crybaby a lot, which I obviously hated. So, as a consequence, I'm naturally conflict adverse, especially at work.
[00:12:47] But conflicts do happen, right? Even in super harmonious teams.
[00:12:53] One day, for example, I had this stupid misunderstanding with a teammate. I told myself he probably didn't mean what I thought he had said and didn't say anything at that moment. But it kept knowing at me and I kept obsessing about it the entire day. The old me would have probably just let it ruin my day, put it in my full confidence while putting on a happy face. But the new and improved version of me, the open and talkative one, didn't want to do that. So, I tried a revolutionary new approach and told him I was bothered by what he had said and why.
[00:13:34] Look at me standing my ground and making eye statements, my therapist would have been proud.
[00:13:40] Anyway, we did the adult thing then, talked the problem through, sorted out the misunderstanding and have a much improved communication ever since. Admitting I was hurt hadn't made me weak in his eyes, on the contrary. He he said he appreciated me facing the issue and making him aware of it. It makes me wonder, why do we generally think of people who struggle with things as weak? We all have our vulnerabilities and our trigger points, don't we? And conflict resolution is so hard for everyone. Imagine doing that with a chemical imbalance in your brain. It takes quite a lot of strength and by admitting I was hurt, I had proven I have that strength.
[00:14:27] I'm not going to lie to you, not all lessons are learned are good lessons, the fifth one is some people just don't get it.
[00:14:36] Let me ask you something, super quick show of hands here, who here has ever had a broken bone, an arm or a leg or something? I broke my clavicle as a kid. Okay, and who of you has then been asked, have you tried like not having a broken bone?
[00:14:53] No one, really? Such a surprise. You can't just Jedi mind trick your leg unbroken, your body needs time to heal.
[00:15:04] And with some physical hurts or diseases, illnesses, you need more than time. That's why we have doctors and medicine and surgery and plaster casts and radiation and bandages and all that stuff. And there's no shame in needing any of that. But when it comes to mental illness, some people don't apply the same logic. When it's your head that's sick, it's all in your head. Yep, exactly. It's in my head, my head is where I keep my thoughts and my feelings. I don't want it in there with it, why would that even help?
[00:15:42] Some people don't understand that, so they give really unhelpful advice. Over the years, I've been told to look on the bright side, to count my blessings or to just stay positive more times than I can count.
[00:15:56] But that's not how it works. You can't just stop being sick and be awesome instead. And this lack of understanding for mental illness is more than just an annoyance, it's dangerous. When you are constantly told that it's not a real disease you're fighting, you might not see a doctor and you might not take your medicine.
[00:16:17] But it is a real disease. It's a potentially fatal disease.
[00:16:23] You don't shrug that off, don't laugh that off and don't make people feel bad about taking pills that could be saving their lives.
[00:16:34] So how do you deal with these people? Do you try to educate them or do you try to ignore them? I really have no idea what you're supposed to do. But I can tell you what I do. I have, over time, accepted that some people just don't get it. And that has meant the end of more than one friendship.
[00:16:55] That doesn't mean I've stopped caring. Not caring is not exactly easy for me because caring too much is still part of my diagnosis. So I still try, I try to explain to people what it's like and I try to let it go when that is fruitless.
[00:17:12] The sixth lesson is the most annoying one really, some people get it really badly wrong.
[00:17:20] As you can see, I speak quite openly about very personal things. And sometimes this openness gets misconstrued as either me being flirty or as a desperate cry for attention. Weirdly enough, it's very often specifically male attention. One day, for example, I was at a party where I found myself in a discussion with this random dude about openness. And when I was done rambling, he said, You know what, Sophie, I really do like your openness. And while we're all being so open here, here's what I like in bed. And oh, by the way, I've been thinking about doing that to you the entire time you were talking. Not cool, dude.
[00:18:09] Don't get me wrong, I don't mean any kink shaming, he can be into whatever on earth he wants to be into. But this situation, what he said and how he said it,
[00:18:21] To me, felt like he was verbally waving his genitals in my face.
[00:18:26] And maybe he didn't even mean any harm by it. Maybe by some twisted logic, he convinced himself that he was cheering me up by complimenting me or something. But maybe, and I think that's the most likely explanation, he tried to exploit my perceived weakness, my confidence issues as they have been called. And that's appalling. Because it's predatory behavior. And I'm not easy prey and I won't be made easy prey.
[00:18:58] Thankfully, I haven't had many of these encounters, so let's get back to the happier ones. This one is one of my favorites and I still should get it tattooed on my forearm because I keep forgetting. People want to help you, let them.
[00:19:17] Let me tell you a story. When I was first planning to fly on the job to the conference I mentioned earlier. I had a problem because I have a phobia of flying and it's a bad one. I cry, I yell, I hyperventilate. I completely lose my cool and it's not pretty to watch.
[00:19:39] So to get ahead of the embarrassment, I told one of my colleagues and said, Just so you know, I'm going to go completely unruly passenger up there, he said. So me. But she didn't laugh.
[00:19:53] She didn't tease. She didn't find it embarrassing, she said, what can I do to help?
[00:20:00] Mind blown.
[00:20:03] Um, I told her what she can do to help me, it's distracting me. Getting me talking, reminding me how to breathe in case I forget how that works. And that's what she did during the entire flight.
[00:20:17] Not only that, there were six of us on that plane and they all chipped in keeping my mind off the fact that we were trapped in a tiny little metal box riding an explosion that has no business being that high up in the air.
[00:19:49] Assami. But she didn't laugh. She didn't tease. She didn't find it embarrassing. She said, what can I do to help? Mind blown.
[00:20:02] Um, I told her what she can do to help me. It's distracting me, getting me talking, reminding me how to breathe in case I forget how that works. And that's what she did during the entire flight. Not only that, there were six of us on that plane, and they all chipped in keeping my mind off the fact that we were trapped in a tiny little metal box. Riding an explosion that has no business being that high up in the air.
[00:20:34] None of them laughed. My fear of being laughed at for my silly phobia made me forget one very important thing. Most humans are kind. And they will want to help you if you let them. It's no wonder really. Helping others is very rewarding. We all know the warm fuzzy feelings in our tummies it gives us.
[00:21:01] Psychological research shows that helping others boosts your own well-being and even lowers depression. Still, asking for help and accepting help is really hard, I know. But look at it this way, if you do, you get the help you need, and the other person who helps you will get the endorphins. It's a win-win situation, actually. And if that doesn't convince you and you think that people will like you less for being a burden, consider that guy over there, that guy over there. Um, a person who has helped another person before will be more likely to help them again than if they had been the ones who had been helped. Cognitive dissonance tricks them into thinking that if they have helped you, they must obviously like you. Duh. And then they do. It's called the Ben Franklin effect, and I'm pretty sure it's the reason why people who bum cigarettes at parties make friends the easiest.
[00:22:06] Friends brings me to lesson eight. There's strength in numbers.
[00:22:13] People who struggle with mental illness become at some point masters at coping mechanisms ranging from breathing exercises to mindfulness journaling to stress buying pretty sequin dresses online. That's what I do. Maybe not the healthiest one of them all, but helps.
[00:22:34] We have all these mechanisms, but someday, on some days, none of them seem to work. And there are days when you are sick and tired of even fighting, of coping, because you don't want to be coping all the time. Why can't it be easy just for once, please?
[00:22:54] But at least you don't have to do it all on your own. Once you start speaking, you find others who've been through the same thing. Sometimes it to me even feels like people with mental illnesses flock together somehow. Maybe it's even before they know they have that in common. It's maybe some kind of shared language or vibes or I don't know, an aura or something. Everybody's fighting their own battles, that is true. But that doesn't mean you cannot help each other out. I now have friends and even colleagues with whom I can have converses that go something like this. I say, hey, hey you, do you have the head space for me to whine about something to you? And then they say, yeah, sure, what do you need? Do you need to vent or do you need advice? And then, depending on what I say, they say, okay, Sophie, let me rephrase that for you. Or they say, deep breath, another deep breath. Okay, tell me five things you can smell. Or they say, okay, I'll be your void to scream into then. They can share concrete coping mechanisms with me in times of need, and I can share mine with them.
[00:24:07] In this stupid, annoying, exhausting battles, we have each other's swords and bows. Access. It's access.
[00:24:20] Anyway, we have each other out. And isn't that something?
[00:24:28] Lesson nine is bluntness, uncomplicate things. It's it starts out a bit painful, but I promise it gets better.
[00:24:38] I wrote the first proposal for this conference talk a while ago. It was back in early 2020. Let's say around the beginning of February, beginning of March, maybe. And back then, I was going to say it's been years since I needed therapy or meds. And I've been doing just fine, and look, mummy, no training wheels.
[00:25:04] My sweet summer child.
[00:25:08] Maybe I jinxed it because since then, a lot has happened. First, you might have heard of it, there was a pandemic going on. That would have been enough for me. Staying at home all the time, not meeting friends and family, and always being in sweatpants reminded me an awful lot of my most depressed days. It would have been enough to top me. But it got worse for me when in April 2020, just when the first wave of COVID was beginning to ab down a little and things were beginning to look a tiny bit better, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I'll spare you the details about how much going through cancer therapy during a global health crisis in a hospital on lockdown just sucks. Suffice it to say, it sucks a lot, and I'm back in therapy. If I had never opened up about having struggled with my mental health before, would I be able to say that now? Or would I try to hide it and make up different reasons every time I leave the office early and go in order to go to therapy? Or would I trust in the fact that under the circumstances everybody would understand this time? I don't know what I would have done, but I know I'm happy I don't have to think about it. I can now simply say, goodbye team, I'll be AFK for the next hour or so, I'm going to get my head shrunk, and just leave.
[00:26:32] And that makes my life a whole lot easier right now.
[00:26:38] Last lesson, it's a bit of free therapy for all of you. Everybody should know the oxygen mask rule.
[00:26:46] Sometimes people ask me what the most helpful thing is I learned in therapy, and I always tell them the story of the oxygen mask rule.
[00:26:56] During one session that I remember vividly, clear as day, my therapist suggested that maybe I needed to stop thinking about how to make others happy and put my own happiness first for once. And she did have a point there. I was constantly worried about making my parents proud, being a good friend to all of my friends. And an amazing girlfriend, but I never stopped to wonder how I was treating myself. Now that she made me think about it, I realized I was rather mean to myself. I was constantly nagging, calling myself names, I was literally starving myself. And I never took care of my emotional well-being at all.
[00:27:42] I thought that as long as I was nice to others, that was okay. I even fancied myself a bit selfless.
[00:27:51] But as my therapist said, taking care of your emotional well-being is not only not selfish, it's part of your job as a fully functioning adult. It's like brushing your teeth.
[00:28:03] I say this fully aware of how hard self-care can be, and how even brushing your teeth can seem like a horribly daunting task. But as with your teeth, making an effort is worth it. Because if you don't make an effort with your mental health, you will have to make an effort with your mental illness. And if you don't take care of yourself, somebody else has to.
[00:28:27] It's like what they tell you on a plane, in case of emergency, put on your own oxygen mask first, and then you can help others. It's not selfish, it's purely logical.
[00:28:40] I think this particular session helped me a lot.
[00:28:45] It's still hard, self-care is still hard, and I can be incredibly stupid when it comes to actually acting on that rule. But it completely reframed self-care and being kind to myself in my own mind.
[00:29:01] It's still hard, yes, but I don't think of it any longer as a frivolity that I shouldn't allow myself in to indulge in. It's a necessity.
[00:29:12] And I know it's not only me who needs the reminder to be nice to themselves sometimes, and with everything going on in the world right now, maybe somebody in this round needs to hear this today. So I'm going to say it. Being kind in times of crisis, but on any normal day too, being kind is essential.
[00:29:32] To yourself, to to.
[00:29:35] to others, sure, but you can never forget also being kind to yourself. Give yourself air to breathe.
[00:29:49] Okay, all 10 lessons done, and I'm nearly at the end. But I'd like to take two more minutes to tell you why I'm telling you all of this.
[00:30:02] I think it's about time we all get used to talking about mental health. The numbers of people who suffer from depression and other mental health issues have been high for years. Even before the dumpster fire that is 2020 has happened. Before the war in Ukraine, before the cost of living crisis, and every single one of all these crises of the last years. These are horrible, stressful times we live in, and they are taking their toll.
[00:30:34] Not many of us will come out of this with their psyche unscathed. Some will need psychological help, but not everybody will be able to get it. Some will be too ashamed, and some will not even see the symptoms as symptoms.
[00:30:51] So knowing the warning signs, knowing what you can do after you're what you can do to look after your own mental health, and where and how you can get professional help if you need it, is more important than ever. Thankfully, mental health related topics are discussed much more openly than they used to be, say, 30, 40 years ago. But the way we talk about them is still influenced by taboo and stigma and stereotypes.
[00:31:20] It's often still seen as something dark, shameful, even evil. You can see it in the way it's used to explain away lone wolf shooters and warmongering oligarchs.
[00:31:33] You know how they say, he's not a terrorist, he's mentally ill, or he's a psychopath, what did you expect? And I am sick of that. Because the vast majority of people who suffer from depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, any mental health issue, are normal people. People like you and, as you can see, me. And I promise I'm harmless. Odds are, you all know somebody who does. But maybe you don't even know that they do. Because how often does anyone say, I'm sorry, I haven't called, I've been too depressed and too anxious, but I'm a tiny bit better now, so I'd like to have coffee with you now, please. So the image we have of mental illness is badly distorted.
[00:32:20] Sorry, I skipped a slide here, symptoms. I'll share the slides afterwards.
[00:32:27] Where was I? The image of mental illness is badly distorted.
[00:32:34] I realize not everybody will even want to talk about their mental disorders, especially in the workplace. And nobody should ever have to if they don't. But for me personally, it was the right decision. I have been so lucky to have been met with a lot of kindness, understanding and support. And if there was something like a depression fairy godmother, I'd wish for everybody to be safe enough to speak about it if they want to.
[00:33:04] But as much as I hate being the bearer of bad news, there is no such thing as a depression fairy godmother. So it's on us to do something about psychological safety. Making the realities of a once hushed up secret disease more visible and understandable is the first step. And we do that by having an open, unprejudiced conversation about it. So let's normalize talking about mental health.
[00:33:39] Thank you so much for your

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