Help! I’m a Mentally Ill Business Owner!

Hi, I’m Rebecca. I’m 40, have one son, and am currently the proud owner of a diagnosis of Chronic PTSD, depression, anxiety and Adjustment Disorder. You could say I’m a veritable buffet of mental dysfunction - and you’d be right. And yet, I manage Written Off alongside my full-time role. Am I mad? Well, yes; we’ve established that. But I do it - and in this blog, I’m going to let you in on how. (Hint - it isn’t easy, but I’m hoping some of you out there might learn from my mistakes!)

Disclaimer: everybody operates in different ways, and what works for me might not work the same way for you. Please take this blog as a reflection of my own experience, in the hope that it may prove useful to you.

Get to know - and love, or even reframe - your flaws.

For far too long, I held myself to standards that were impossibly high, and would chastise myself for failing to meet them. 

We live in a world that prioritises perfection, and it’s an easy trap to fall into - that you have to be up to snuff at all times. However, when you’re mentally unwell (and even when you’re not!), this isn’t how life goes most of the time, and the quicker you are able to come to terms with that, the better. 

What made the most difference for me was recognising that when I failed to meet a standard, the oppressive voice in my head wasn’t real - it was my mental illness trying to shirk off the blame. If my ‘failure’ was due to my mental illness, it was tantamount to a person with gastro taking a day off work. And yes, I know that reframing it in this way is hard, but if you tell yourself something enough, you will eventually, reluctantly, accept it. Even if my brain doesn’t feel like I’m taking time out for a legitimate reason, I just verbally (out loud!) remind myself that I’m mentally ill, and I’m protecting myself.  

When my brain is not working as it should, it won’t achieve what I want it to, but that’s OK. Brains are funny things, and everyone’s is wired differently. Some days, mine just wants to shut down - it’s one of my biggest ‘flaws’ - but I’ve learned to value the strength my body has to say “hey, you; that’s enough!” It’s actually a talent of mine to know when I need to take a break. How magic that my body knows when I’m not listening to my head! Which leads me to…

Recognise when you’re burning out.

Burnout is real, and it’s brutal. I think too many business owners fall into this trap of living and breathing their business, and whilst that’s admirable, it isn’t healthy, especially when you’re battling mental illness. Key to my developing Written Off and keeping it in operation was my growth in understanding when I was beginning to burnout. There are signs - my brain fog increases, my chronic pain gets worse, and I cry, seemingly over nothing. This is when I need to take a break. As they say, you can’t pour from an empty cup!

Now, when I feel myself heading there, I make peace with the fact that I’m likely to be out of action for the forthcoming days. I try to utilise tools to work around this - scheduling social media posts, delegating tasks to people in my circle, and tying up easy loose ends with the knowledge that I’m about to take a rest. 

And when it comes to rest, the main thing I’ve learned is to actually rest. I don’t mean take a day off - your body needs extended, lengthy rest. My last episode of burnout took two weeks to recover from, during which I lay flat and cried almost daily. It was the rest that got me through it. Our bodies aren’t built to ‘power through’ no matter what capitalism tells us. 

Nowadays, I recognise those signs, and I permit myself a good few days of rest. This allows me to avoid burning out and needing a longer time away from my business, and helps me stay in control. I’ve learned to leave the guilt behind, but this is only really due to finding my people.

Find your people.

Written Off is now a team of four amazing volunteers, but it hasn’t always been like this. At first, it was just me - and I didn’t always surround myself with those with my best interests at heart. Running a business means you are often in demand, and when your email address, telephone number and social media are all readily available, it can be hard to switch off!

In my time running Written Off, I’ve been called many things. I’ve been phoned at 10pm on a Friday night with demands on my time; I’ve been noted as ‘lazy’ or ‘greedy’ when I’ve not been able to help immediately; I’ve been hounded (on holiday!) by people unhappy with how I’ve chosen to run my company and demanding I make immediate changes. I often didn’t feel as if I could turn to anyone, and when I was at my lowest, I found discussing my mental health was often met with derision, as if I was using it as an excuse. This is a common experience, I find, with women, femmes, and anyone outside the gender binary. I started to gaslight myself into believing I was being selfish by asking people to consider how I felt in all of the melee.

In 2024, Caitlin McKenna joined Written Off as Co-Director, and my, what a difference it’s made. Shortly after, Charlie Parker joined us for sales and trade, and Alex Callaghan came on board as a General Assistant. Suddenly, I was surrounded by the right people - my people. I could unmask, air my struggles, and have my time respected. They see in me my mental heath struggles and help me strive to be better. We have open and honest communication channels where we test ideas, discuss topics, hash out contentious issues, and celebrate our wins. We also take time to commiserate our losses, and allow ourselves to feel. 

Coupled with that, we’ve put together a roster of amazing writers who also understand my team, our individual needs and requirements, and who utilise our community and forums to communicate effectively, sensitively and tenderly. We look out for each other. We help. We get it. It makes me endlessly proud. 

Building this community has been integral to the survival of my business. Letting go of what doesn’t serve you and swerving into what enriches you is very important for any business owner, but especially so for those of us with mental health battles. 

However. That doesn’t mean we don’t fuck up sometimes, too! Which brings me to my last point:

Accept your mistakes!

Man, running a business is hard. It is a truth universally acknowledged amongst most business owners that almost half of all businesses close before their third year of trading is up. The market is brutal! However, resilience and tenacity go some way to tackling the challenges - and key to this is being able to own and accept your mistakes.

Since the early days of Written Off, I’ve fucked up more times than I can count. I once ordered an entire set of books with the wrong barcode. I posted personal slides to my business IG account. I missed meetings due to lethargy, and made some very ill-advised Twitter posts during my last bout of burnout (it’s OK; they’re gone now). I spent a long, long time beating myself up for these things, and wondering if the mistakes meant I should give up and give in. However, I’ve since learned that mistakes are the only way we truly grow, and I’ve learned to be kinder to myself in that respect.

The biggest factor here is being honest. Owning my mistakes was a hard one. I live a life dictated by a need for perfection! Ultimately, though, I asked myself - what’s the worst that can happen here? Someone will no longer like me? Someone might get mad and make a negative social media post about me? I asked myself - will this kill me? Will I, or the people involved, even care in five years? 

So, I pulled on my big pants and started to say hey, I’m sorry. I messed up. And when I did, things just got better. We are all human; we all mess up sometimes. As the great Ted Lasso once said: “I hope that either all of us or none of us are judged by the actions of our weakest moments, but rather by the strength we show when and if we're ever given a second chance.” I try to extend this not just to myself, but to everyone else, too. After all, we can’t change the mistakes we made any more than we can get a banana back into its skin - so why stress ourselves trying? Better to grow, letting the shit we got into fertilise and nourish us, than to choke it down and hurt ourselves more.

The best part of all? When I started to forgive myself, it made everything easier. Everything. Mainly because I realised that even though it seems so to me, the small stuff really does not matter that much. It feels huge in the moment, but really, there’s very little that can’t eventually be solved. Sometimes you just need to take a walk, have a rant to a mate, and get over yourself.

So. That’s about it when it comes to sharing nuggets of wisdom. It’s been a wild ride, these last few years. But I absolutely love what I do, and I credit Written Off and the community we’ve built (even the negative parts) with helping shape me into who I am. 

A person who is proudly, unapologetically, mentally unwell - but getting shit done anyway.

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Rebecca Kenny - Founder and Director of Written Off Publishing