I am currently signed off work at the moment as I'm struggling with my mental health. I have had a really traumatic few years with a lot going on - infertility, adopting our son, adapting to life as a SEN parent, house move, promotion at work, family bereavement, (on top of a very difficult childhood.) It has all just caught up with me and my anxiety has been off the scale. I've always suffered from anxiety but it's never been this bad and has just completely floored me.
I luckily have access to private medical through work and have just started a course of intensive therapy to work through my past trauma and finally get to the route of the anxiety. It's helping but it's tough.
I feel very guilty about being off work - I've been signed off for a month but I think I'm going to need longer. I'm worried people will think I am malingering (I had 8 weeks off in 2017 due to poor mental health) and I feel bad that I will be putting pressure on my colleagues. I'm also worried about the work mounting up while I'm off as I don't think it will all have been picked up (no one's checking my emails for example.)
I have a call with occupational health today about going back and I guess I just wanted to hear from anyone that's been through something similar and whether a period off from worm helped. A lot of my anxiety centres around guilt about things that aren't really my fault so this is clouding my judgement a bit. I do feel like I need the time and space to get my shit together otherwise this pattern will just keep repeating but being off work is something I am finding hard to deal with.