The delicate entry into the world of work for young people with mental health problems: “Disclosing it means exposing yourself to being sidelined”

For the past few months, 22-year-old Léa has officially been an emergency room nurse, just as she had hoped. She followed a classic path: her baccalaureate, a move to Lyon for three years of study, punctuated by internships, and then her first job after graduation. Yet nothing has been simple. In her first year of studies, Léa (not her real name) was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, characterized by severe emotional instability, but also by a fear of abandonment and a tendency toward self-destruction.

After about ten years of psychological support as a teenager, and symptoms accentuated by her arrival alone in Lyon, the student initially experienced this psychiatric diagnosis as a relief. "It's reassuring to put a word on your experience ," she explains. " But it's a double-edged sword, because people categorize you, and they talk about it all the time: my family, my friends... and then my studies." At the same time as she was managing several psychiatric hospitalizations, she says she had to battle with the administration of her school, which asked her to justify her absences and questioned her ability to work as a nurse.

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