Ingredion Inc
Castellano is passionate about the need for openness in the legal profession, particularly around mental health issues. She shares her thoughts and experiences of a sector that is learning to protect its members, both senior and junior.
In February 2019, I stepped down from my position as general counsel of Ingredion after 22 years. I had a wonderful career – it’s a great company, I can’t say enough positive things about it – but 22 years is a long time. The previous year, I had taken a continuing legal education program on mental health, largely because it’s now a requirement in Illinois to maintain your bar license. The program I chose was on burnout and, as I was listening, I started to recognize a lot of these symptoms in myself: feeling continually overwhelmed, having a lack of patience and energy to connect with others, and physical symptoms including headaches and not sleeping well. I realized that I desperately needed a change. I knew I was under stress. I knew I had anxiety – I guess I just didn’t realize it was a problem. I hadn’t stepped back and taken a look at all of these disparate symptoms and said: hey, there’s something more here.
For a long time, those of us in the law thought of mental health issues as being limited to drug addiction or alcohol abuse. We didn’t realize there was so much more to mental health. And people didn’t speak about these issues – except maybe with their very close friends – for fear of being judged, losing their jobs or not being seen as good enough to continue practising law. I realized that, right now, we need to be able to speak openly about mental health. Storytelling is very important – people using their own voices and talking about their own experiences.
