Now at the Ontario government, she's found mentorship, inclusion, and room for healing and growth
When Yadesha Satheaswaran wrote her chapter for The Right Not to Remain Silent: The Truth About Mental Health in the Legal Profession, she didn’t know how it would be received – or how exposing her personal battles might shape her future in law. But she did it anyway.
“I don’t regret talking publicly,” she says. “Every time I do, however, there is a fear associated with it… I don’t know what the ramifications of talking so publicly about my mental health will be.”
A first-generation Tamil Canadian lawyer, Satheaswaran grew up in the Toronto area of Scarborough, raised by a single mother who left an abusive marriage. Her early exposure to the justice system – criminal, family, immigration – fueled her ambition to become a lawyer. But what followed was not a linear path of triumph. Instead, it became a stark reflection of the realities of navigating law while managing mental illness.
After law school, Satheaswaran articled at a leading civil litigation firm in Toronto, clerked at the Court of Appeal for Ontario and then practised at another leading litigation boutique. Despite the pedigree of her workplaces, she found herself stuck as a second chair. “I wasn’t running my own cases. I wasn’t running client meetings on my own,” she says. She longed for control and mentorship – both in short supply. “I had three mentors in the time I was there, and I only ever met with each mentor once.”
That wasn’t the only disconnect. The workplace culture didn’t reflect the diversity she needed to thrive. “It was very important for me to be… in a workspace that was progressive in its values,” she says. So she left private practice and joined the Ministry of the Attorney General. “It was young, it was female. There were a lot of people of colour, so the diversity was astounding… it just felt much more welcoming and at home.”
But her decision was also shaped by health – not just values. In her chapter, Satheaswaran wrote about skin-picking disorder, or dermatillomania, a type of obsessive-compulsive disorder she was diagnosed with during the pandemic. “I was secluded… I leaned into my work to keep myself distracted. My employers were more than happy to exploit my seemingly renewed commitment and productivity,” Satheaswaran wrote.
Even as her injuries mounted – from bleeding fingers to lost toenails – she felt unable to stop. “The reality was that my nail biting and skin picking were not just ‘bad habits.’ They had evolved into something insidious – intentional forms of self-harming behaviour,” she wrote.
That stark realization came during a Zoom consultation in 2020. “Skin-picking disorder,” the psychiatrist told her. She was stunned. But diagnosis alone didn’t change the culture of the profession she worked in. “We function on a billable hour model that… pressures lawyers to ‘hit’ a certain target,” Satheaswaran wrote. “The effect is that an alarming number of lawyers in the profession are suffering from poor mental health and burnout.”
When asked how the legal profession can better support people like her, she doesn’t hesitate. “The legal profession as a whole needs to talk about mental health more,” she says. “Mental wellbeing is the same as physical wellbeing. The absence of a mental health diagnosis does not mean the presence of mental wellbeing.”
That’s the first shift she hopes to see. The second is more about who leads the conversation. “It can be very discouraging when it’s young lawyers or middle-level lawyers who are having these conversations. It would be very impactful to hear from professionals who’ve made it very far… judges, managing partners at firms,” she says.
Beth Beattie, who co-edited The Right Not to Remain Silent and has spoken publicly about her own mental health experiences, is one of the rare senior voices doing just that. In an interview with Canadian Lawyer, Beattie described how the book emerged as a vehicle to confront the stigma surrounding mental illness in law, particularly among high-achieving professionals expected to be invulnerable. That context is not lost on Satheaswaran, who contributed her story to make sure others didn’t feel as alone as she once did.
When she disclosed her condition to her current employer, the Crown’s office responded supportively. “They were very accommodating… I was able to put together about a week of mental health leave time,” she says. In June, they approved her to take an art therapy course during regular business hours. “I have the hindsight to appreciate that ‘my problems’ were not entirely mine at all,” she wrote.
Her identity – as a South Asian woman in a white, cis, heteronormative profession – remains a source of both purpose and pressure. “Even when I am not mistaken for an accused person or a staff member, I am frequently expending my energy to try [to] ‘fit’ in,” she wrote. “I have still not been able to shake the belief that I have to work twice as hard to get half as far.”
And yet, despite everything, Satheaswaran continues to hope. She aspires to perhaps one day sit as a judge. Still, she’s realistic. “I would be remiss if I… didn’t recognize the potential implications of my mental health disclosure on that future dream.”
For now, she’s channelling her voice into helping others find theirs. She offers advice for those dealing with similar diagnoses: “You have to recognize the need to take care of yourself, because if you don’t, you won’t be around to do the work that you are potentially killing yourself to do.”
Her decision to write publicly about mental illness is not something she expects everyone would choose. “I don’t think there’s any obligation on people with lived experiences to teach others,” she says. But for those who do choose to speak, she offers reassurance. “There are people out there who are willing to talk to you about it… but ultimately, the decision has to be yours.”
Satheaswaran is not pretending to have all the answers. But in speaking, she’s made one thing clear: no lawyer should have to choose between their career and their health.
