How to approach mental health discussions with a manager?

+1 On FMLA as Rahul mentioned, which is none of your boss’ business, and beyond their control.

I am a big supporter of visibility for mental health. By the same token if you don’t already have psychological safety established with your manager, I am not sure if disclosure about this makes sense. I am not sure what you could gain telling them. If you need leave, your manager isn’t involved; if you want a change to your workload without official accommodation like a part time schedule, they likely can’t or won’t do that; if you want support or a sounding board or someone to listen they likely aren’t the right person. I get that addressing your lack of capacity matters, but there are people who shouldn’t be trusted with this information and you don’t know enough about this person to be able to tell if they qualify.

If your work quality isn’t suffering yet, it will. Resetting with FMLA or other leave or something else as soon as you can could be a defining factor in whether you can recover and thrive at this job. If your performance is suffering and you are already overwhelmed, trying to solve both at once is very hard.

Good luck. Get help. Talk to a trusted friend or mentor at work and get advice. If you think it’s safe and has benefit, you can tell your manager, but it doesn’t sound like that’s the situation.

What is the policy for medical leave (FMLA) at your company? For example, at Meta, as long as you have a doctor's note, you can get partial pay for a few months and take a medical leave. I would look up internal documentation and backchannel with other employees to see what the options are here.

I mention this because there's a decent chance you don't need your manager's approval at all. I would be hesitant to share too much with your manager, given that you don't have rapport with them.

Here's a Taro member who shared their experience with FMLA: Seeking FLMA because of stress and anxiety, how to apply?

Can you expand on what "no rapport" means? Does this mean that your manager is relatively new so you haven't had the chance to build trust yet? Or does it mean that they actively dislike you?

If the relationship with your manager is at least neutral, you should definitely bring it up. You aren't doing your manager or team any good by continuing to work with worsening mental health. I know that this is scary, but the best 1 on 1s are those going through more "awkward" topics like mental health. Being vulnerable is vital to trust-building; this could maybe even be the turning point where you establish a real rapport with your manager. If you have a track record as a solid performer or better, the risk here is quite low.

The tricky part is if your relationship with your manager is actually bad. In this case, bringing up your mental health issues could make matters worse as it opens the door for verbal abuse and other retaliation. My advice for this situation is to find another trusted source of authority like your skip, tech lead, or even product manager. Find someone who can make your life better, usually with lessening workload.

Lastly, I just want to remind you that no job is worth your personal well-being. If you have the resources to do so and your work environment isn't being supportive here, please quit your job. Take the necessary time to get better and come back stronger than ever. Taro will be there to support you every step of the way. 😊