Barista Magazine

APR-MAY 2017

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ACCORDING TO THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE of Mental Health, anxiety disorders are the most common illness in the U.S., affecting 40 million adults in the United States age 18 and older, or 18 percent of the population. While we know anxiety disorders are highly treatable, only about one-third of those suffering receive treatment. The unrelentingly active and social pace of café work means that baristas are especially susceptible to issues of anxiety and depression. These disorders develop from a complex set of risk factors, including some that are out of our control, such as genetics, brain chemistry, and gender (women are twice as likely to be affected by Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Major Depressive Disorder as men), but also life events. The Icelandic and Danish coffee communities were rocked in October 2016 when 2012 Barista Champion of Iceland Finnbogi Fannar Kjeld took his own life after a long and intense struggle with depression. He was 25. As is common with people suffering from severe depression, Finnbogi kept his struggles private from everyone but his closest friends, and even to them was convincing in brushing his disease aside as something he could handle. In fact, his friends now understand that leaving his native Iceland in late 2012 to work in Copenhagen, Denmark, at the Coffee Collective, was his fi rst attempt to escape his depression. When it didn't work, and having come to understand that his depression was more than he could manage, Finnbogi returned to Iceland in hopes of seeking help. Three of his closest friends, Ingibjörg Ferrer, who met Finnbogi when they were both baristas at Kaffi tár in Iceland; and Signe Holm Pedersen and Christian Gøhler Ryberg, who worked with Finnbogi at the Coffee Collective, enjoyed a rambunctious and highly social side of their friend, which they now recognize could have been a result of bipolar disorder. In retrospect, they have blamed themselves for not identifying his acute de- pressive behavior for what it was, even though there's no way they could have helped him if he didn't want to be saved. Ingibjörg, Signe, and Christian have learned a lot from the tragic experience of losing one of their best friends to suicide. "I would defi nitely advise others in this situation to confront [the person] more. I knew that he only shared a bit about his problem with me, but deep down, I felt that there was more to it," says Signe, who remembers Finnbogi disappearing for days at a time. "The thing I thought of as control was in fact the force that pulled him further down. I lived with him for periods of time, and living with someone in this state makes you more blind, I guess—blind in faith that he had it under control, and that he would ask for help." In a Boston Globe article examining an unusually high number of suicides among Massachusetts service-industry professionals in 2016, Todd Farchione, a clinical psychologist at Boston University's Center for Anxiety & Related Disorders, noted the dichotomy of the café and restaurant environment as both accepting and welcoming, as well as demanding and relentless. "It's a diffi cult environment for a number of reasons," he told The Globe. "It's not the same level of stress you see with surgeons perhaps, but it's very unpredictable. I think whenever you see something that is unpredictable, where someone doesn't have the ability to control the environment very well, it's fertile ground for anxiety." Make no mistake: It is not the responsibility of a café owner or barista peers to diagnose depression and anxiety among staffers. However, being tuned in and aware of the people with whom you share a workspace should be a given. "I think people fi nd themselves in an uncomfortable position when friends have a broken soul," says Christian. "Don't be afraid. Don't be uncomfortable. A coworker isn't necessarily the same as a friend, and that could limit you in terms of helping someone you don't feel you know well enough. I think the signs of depression are something you can sense even if you aren't that close to a person." Ingibjörg says she didn't know how to handle Finnbogi's depression when she came face to face with it. "Even though I know depression, I had no tools or knowledge for how to deal with it," she says. "My [solution] was to just fork him out of bed and do something fun. Finnbogi didn't talk to me about his struggles until 2012, even though we both knew he was ill. It was like he didn't know how to put it into words how he felt. But when that changed, I was glad that he could open up and talk about it. But he didn't talk about it with his employers." "Most depressed employees would rather eat dirt than admit to their managers that they're depressed," writes psychologist Dr. Joni E. John- ston in a June 2014 issue of Pyschology Today. "Part of this is because of the shame many depression sufferers feel about what they feel is their 'weakness.' However, a large part of their silence is due to the stigma many people continue to experience around mental illness." She stresses the importance of remembering that a manager's job is not to talk about medical problems, counsel, or diagnose. "They are there to talk about work performance and behavior," she says. "They are also there to care about their employees' well-being." (For advice on how to talk to employees about depression and anxiety, see box on page 105.) Having suffered from depression and anxiety herself, Ingibjörg has given a lot of thought to the importance of keeping the human factor in mind. "I have called myself in sick in the past even though I wasn't 'sick,' but my anxiety and depression got the best of me for a day or two," she says. "If I wouldn't have, I know that I would've just felt worse, like when you have a fever and you know you should rest, but you don't. I didn't tell my boss—I just said I had a fever. Now, I wish I would have [told the truth]. I wish we could just be honest about it and tell each other about our mental health without getting looks of horror or that people then question if you can do your job or not. We're all human, and we all have some sorts of anxiety or winter depression or stress, etc. That does not make us unfi t. But the severity is different from person to person, and it's when it's open and OK to talk about these things that we can start healing and helping each other." Signe also feels some frustration about the stigmas that still exist when we talk about mental health. "We have to be able to speak about mental illness," she says. "This applies to life in general, but also in the coffee in- dustry. I think it's a matter of accepting that even in the service industry, there has to be room for the misfi ts, the people who can't provide smiles and support for others everyday…There are so many good people in the community. We have to have the courage to ask for help from the people we work with and for, but also…the courage to ask the diffi cult questions and to be able to follow them up with patience and support. We can't help Finnbogi now, but we can help ourselves and each other." Finnbogi's family and friends would like to note the availability of the Icelandic organization Utmeda (www.utmeda.is), which raises awareness of and support for young people—men especially—struggling with men- tal issues in silence, and strives to provide them with the help they need. There are also resources available through the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, www.adaa.org/fi nding-help. ÑSarah Allen WHEN IT'S SERIOUS LOOKING OUT FOR YOURSELF, YOUR COLLEAGUES, AND YOUR EMPLOYEES 107 www.baristamagazine.com

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