"How do I tell work about my chronic illness?"

The decision to tell work is not one decision. It is a series of them: who to tell, how much, when, in what setting, with what supporting documentation. There is no universal right answer, because the calculation depends on you, your workplace, your role, and your needs. What is universal is that the decision is psychological as much as practical, and the psychological piece is often what is hardest to think clearly about. A few things help.

Written and reviewed by Natalia Cajide, Registered Psychologist (AHPRA PSY0002474316). 3 min read. Published 7 June 2026. Last reviewed 7 June 2026. Next review 7 June 2027.

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The legal baseline

In Australia, two pieces of legislation matter. The Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Cth) prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability, which includes chronic illness. The Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) sets out reasonable-adjustment provisions. Your employer is legally required to make reasonable adjustments to enable you to perform your role, where doing so would not impose unjustifiable hardship. You do not have to disclose to access these protections, but in practice you usually do have to disclose to access the specific adjustments they enable.

Why most people default to not disclosing

A study of research findings by Tomas, Ahmed, and Lindsay published in 2022 on workplace disclosure of invisible disabilities found that most employees default to concealment, disclosing only when concealment becomes untenable (Tomas et al., 2022). The reasons are recognisable: disclosing risks judgment, pity, being seen as less competent, being passed over for opportunities, being defined by the illness rather than the work.

An Australian qualitative study by Vickers on people with multiple sclerosis described the everyday work of what one participant called "wearing a mask": the daily impression-management of looking well enough to keep going (Vickers, 2017). The mask works. The cost is that it takes energy, and the energy is taken from a body that does not have much spare.

What I notice with my clients

The clients of mine who have made disclosure decisions they do not regret tend to have done a few things in common. They thought about who to tell first, and chose a person who would be safe to test the conversation with. They prepared a short factual version of the illness and what they needed, separately from the emotional story. They asked for specific adjustments rather than open-ended understanding. And they kept the option of further disclosure open without committing to it in advance.

The clients who regret disclosing usually share a different pattern: they disclosed in a moment of crisis, to someone who had not been chosen carefully, without preparation, and without a clear ask attached. The disclosure itself often went better than they feared. The relationship with the workplace, afterward, was harder to manage.

If you are thinking about telling work, what I most want to say is that this is a decision that can be made well, with thought, and that doing the thinking before the conversation is part of how the conversation tends to go better. The decision is yours. The protection is in the law. The hard part is the part the law cannot help with, and it is worth giving that part the care it deserves. The companion guide on invisible illness develops the wider experience of concealment, and the companion guide on the relational map sits alongside.

This content is general information only. It is not a substitute for individual psychological or medical advice. Reading this does not establish a therapeutic relationship with Equal Psychology or any of their clinicians.