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> I'm in an environment (military) were we actively work to prevent this.

Are we talking US military here? I think I recognize the pattern you're talking about when you say:

> I have lots of kids (18-20yo) with mental health issues that are not helped by being allowed to take time off so casually. Our mental health experts want to keep people working because having them sit at home drinking/gaming does nothing. I have seen kids actually react well to increased "stress" on the job. Think basic training stuff. They are worked hard, go home tired and then actually sleep. Sending them home not tired leads to drinking and late-night gaming sessions after which they do not sleep and come to work the next day like zombies.

You aren't actively doing anything. You're saturating their day so that they're distracted from whatever underlying problems they face. They're too tired to deal with them so they sleep and repeat. I'd be curious to see your solution play out in the ten years post separation, but the VA may be ahead of you. For context (if you're not American) TAPS is what you take as you separate: https://benefits.va.gov/TRANSITION/docs/pstap-assessment.pdf (Section 4.C should have some relevant quotes).

I remember at some point a Navy Corpsman explaining to me that the goal of Navy medicine isn't to make you better, it's to keep you in fighting shape. Fighting shape doesn't need to be the best or most optimal shape, just enough to do the job the military needs you to do.

People use all kinds of colloquial models for mental health that may or may not have a relationship with reality. It is not obvious to me that there is such a thing as "underlying problems" that you mask by doing something else. Maybe, maybe not-- mental health is complicated and you have to prove this stuff. An alternative model is that people get depressed when they do nothing at home, and get better when they're surrounded by other people and have tasks to complete. I don't know what's actually right, but I'm always very skeptical when people approach these things with certitude.

I was speaking from some lived experience, so I'll be a bit more clear about what I meant by "underlying problems":

There were little activities to do on my base other than drink. I was paid very little, little enough not to afford a car. The cities I was stationed in were sounded by all kinds of loan sharks as a result. There were very few activities funded by the military that weren't somehow childlike or oriented for people with families. I was forced to live in a very old barracks that at times, frankly, barely functioned. While living in the barracks you can be summoned for duty at any time, unlike people who live off-base (married people). My life was as a Marine, so I'd be curious to hear an Airman's perspective. The services also tend to attract people who are actively attempting to leave home, so read from that what you will. None of these things are really unknown to the military or military leaders.

With young people it isn't a matter of running them tired and bypassing the problem. Most aren't actually mentally ill, rather for the first time in their lives they don't have someone telling them how to live their lives on a daily basis. So they are given structure until they can work that stuff out for themselves. Extra work is often part of that structure. For instance, I know of one 19yo who was basically bored to death at work and hitting the bar every night (not in the US). So his boss put him on the unit "safety committee", which is extra work. He then had to interview people and write a monthly report to be read by the CO, which is very scary for the average 19yo kid at his first unit. That little bit of responsibility, extra work, turned him around real fast. He came to my office to have me edit his first report. He was nervous, but prideful nervous rather than scared. He didn't have bags under his eyes anymore.

I get what you're saying now. People do need billets to bridge them to some more higher official responsibility if you want them to grow. That said, I don't think this is a great panacea for mental health days. Generally I use mental health days if I'm overly stressed, burned out, upset, etc...

Would you let a troop take a sick day if they were any of those things?

Actually no. We have a procedure. Such people would be reminded of the various mental health services we have. If they don't touch base themselves, someone will touch base with them. That might be a padre or more likely a call from a mental health nurse. Those people would then authorize them staying home, or not, based on medical judgement. We don't allow people to switch off, especially when they might have access to weapons. If you call in for a mental health day, and then don't answer the call from the padre/nurse/boss, you can expect people at your door within an hour. I know of one door physically broken down after a kid called in for a mental health day, then fell asleep (very likely still drunk) and failed to answer the door.

Quite frankly, this is why I'm glad to no longer be part of such an organization. This is as close as you can toe the line of actually causing harm while still making it look beneficial.

Yeah, I agree. Somehow what they described is actually a bar or two worse than what I experienced at an infantry support unit. I'd like to be able to say that the DOD is capable of change, but the VA has been telling them about the long tail effects of "procedures" and decisions like this for decades at this point and not a thing has changed.

It varies from person to person, but speaking for myself, getting back to work is incredibly good for me after I've experienced something terrible. The structure, the feeling of "normal," is better therapy than many give it credit for. Now granted, a big part of that is because I thoroughly enjoy my work and my manager looks out for my well-being, as do I for my subordinates. I know plenty of people, friends and family, who loathe their return to work precisely because that's not the case for them.

As to the GP's question:

> Has any company come out against mental health in the past 20 years?

Certainly not, but there are innumerable companies, software and otherwise, that while paying useless lipservice to the concept of taking care of employees, absolutely do not follow through. I have one friend who's simply unable to attend therapy because his insurance is shit and he's in too much debt to take on another. His employer has all kinds of things to say about how much they take care of their own, but he gets shit from his manager for taking "mental health days" so he doesn't, he just says he has the flu. Mind you he's no burger flipper, he's a seasoned sysadmin.

And, lest we forget that outside our IT professions, it's even worse. My wife is a cook and has bounced from one awful workplace to another many times, her treatment running the gamut from benign neglect to outright hostility at the notion of needing mental healthcare.

    > I have one friend who's simply unable to attend therapy because his insurance is shit and he's in too much debt to take on another.

Most therapists offer sliding scale. Your friend should try that.

    > he gets shit from his manager for taking "mental health days" so he doesn't, he just says he has the flu

I do exactly the same, and I recommend it for others. There is still a lot of social stigma around mental health issues. Your boss doesn't need to know why you are sick. One thing I tell myself as I get older: "There is no Academy Award for the fewest number of sick days." It's OK to take a sick day every two months for your mental health.

I agree with you but I think the key point here is "go home tired and then actually sleep" which is not often the case. After a stressful day as a software engineer or other white collar job, your body is not tired. Mentally you might be tired but that just leads to doomscrolling and social media and other dopamine hits. The key point here is that one should ideally be physically tired so that after they go home they want to sleep. This is why, for example, after a stressful day I make my body tired with a long run.

You go home from the military during basic training? Curious what country that is...

Having served I agree that a military environment where your day is full and you're basically told what to do all the time, and you're maybe working extremely hard, can override some "bad thoughts". That said, it's not unheard of for soldiers to commit suicide, harm themselves or others, and generally suffer from stress related to the military environment.

I agree that simply taking a day off is not a fix and if you are worried about getting stuff done at work it might even make things worse. That said, being in a workplace where it's considered ok to take a day off if you need to, maybe go hiking or something, is probably something that alleviates stress from the employees.

>> Think basic training stuff.

Basic training is a nothing thing in the military. It does not represent what military life is like. It is just a temporary proving ground for new employees. That said, many units still do unit PT in the afternoons specifically so that people head home reasonably tired. Remember too that in the military, especially for young single people, "home" is wherever you rack out.

This isn't one size fits all. Your solution works in some circumstances and taking a break works in others.

During undergrad, I had a lot of anxiety over my future career prospects, and I recognized that the best outlet for the excess "energy" was schoolwork that would keep my mind busy. So doubling down helped there.

On the other hand, my team at work just got done a month-long process that involved training another team from the ground up, while their supervisor was traveling for work, four of the five we were training were fresh out of undergrad and speedrunning every rookie mistake possible, and the fifth was a middle-aged man who thought he knew more than he did, and his constant rebuffing of our attempts to impart institutional knowledge made this process harder for everyone. Both of my immediate supervisors had to take a couple days off during this mess to decompress. Backing off was the correct response there.

I've seen what you describe but then also can speak for myself that on my time off I'm awfully active. Building things physical and/or software, spending time outside, reading, etc. If I retired tomorrow I'd probably work just as much, if not more, because I'd work on my interests and not what I was assigned. This is common for the majority of adults I know.

I'd say I'm far from fully burnt out (we've all had our moments) but I think there is some career saturation point where people feel ownership over their free time and treat it with respect instead of "drinking/gaming".

Is wasting days off a symptom of youth? Is it because military employees lack autonomy? Is it just natural after years of selling your time to an employer?

leisure isn't wasting time. Not everything you do has to have economic value

> with mental health issues that are not helped by being allowed to take time off so casually. Our mental health experts want to keep people working because having them sit at home drinking/gaming does nothing.

This sounds more like like papering over the underlying causes and likely exacerbating the problem; the fact that they're drinking heavily may be as an escape from the environment in which they are operating. I wouldn't call this active mental health prevention.

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