To go off sick with stress when I can't really afford it?

[Wagtastic]

Just that.
Been I'm my job 15+ years. Dont really have much time off sick as a rule. Job is stressful and it is getting worse.

I've been off a month already as I've had covid plus 2 weeks annual leave. My anxiety has really shot through the roof. I really want to see the GP and get time off sick for stress. Probably till after Christmas.
I don't feel guilty about this one bit(as far as my job is concerned).

Only issue is financial. I get paid, but will lose lots of extra pay for overtime , which I rely on for Christmas. I have no savings.
DH does have savings and has said basically he will give me what I need/want.

Thing is I would need a LOT.

AIBU to want to have sick leave when I cant afford it?

I feel like going to with work will give me terrible stress.
But being skint will also give me stress!!!

I also have a very stressful, full on job. It doesn't even pay that well (education sector) but I'd feel so guilty and ashamed of myself if I did what you are thinking of doing.

You can't be forced to work overtime, neither can you be forced to stay past your official hours.

What happens in January? You're going to feel much more stressed and anxious at the thought of going back. You are suggesting pretending you have a MH issue to take a break from your job. Not great.

I'm minded to suggest that you might be living beyond your means OP.
If , as you say, you're in a good job and you have joint savings, which you do, then you shouldn't have large debts and need overtime for Christmas and holidays.

I imagine that the stress of this alone would cause symptoms of anxiety, coupled with a clear loathing of your job and your Company.

Staying of work is not a solution. It will make matters worse.
Your employer needs to know why you are stressed and having a 'phased return' meeting with your manager and Occupational Health will be a good start.
Reasonable adjustments can be made and will have to be adhered to as well has having regular 'check ins' with a mentor.

I hope that you are in a union as having a union rep at your 'return to work' meeting will be invaluable.

This is the route that I took and the relief of being allowed to work to my contract only and no overtime was palpable. I also reduced my working week so that I could have a better work/life balance which helped enormously and I actually enjoyed work for a couple of years until I decided to retire.
Your problem though, is that you have debt and need to earn.

I would accept your partner's offer of using his savings and find alternative work.
You cannot just ask for repeat sick notes as this just delays the inevitable and you will feel so much more anxious.

Best case scenario is that, with proper support, you can ease back into a more comfortable work schedule but you will probably be prevented from doing the overtime.

Worst case scenario is that you take too much time off and your job will be picked up by others and your job could be at risk and you could end up being 'silently dismissed.'

Just being p**d off with your employers is not a reason to keep getting signed off until it suits.

Off not of

Erm I'm not suggesting anything of the sort.
Said I'm stressed about my job. Stop making crap up. Great that you are so perfect and would feel guilty taking time off. Bet if you left your job or went on long term sick your employer would not give a shit about you.

A gp should only sign someone off if they are too sick to work, and work in any job irrespective of adjustments.

If you are unwell then you need treatment. Part of that treatment may require you not working for a bit or working differently.

But your focus should be on getting treatment for your mental health. That is what the gp is for.

OP I think your mental health is definitely suffering because a lot of your reasoning doesn't make any sense to me.

You think getting another job is too difficult to even consider. You think you can't have a Christmas with a much lower spend than usual. Both of these seem very possible to me and also a sensible way forward.

I think you do need a plan to improve your mental health which may well involve taking time off work but I think you need to try and identify some more support for yourself- does your employer offer free counselling?
Wishing you all the best and you are very right to prioritise your own mental health. I'm sorry that work has been so difficult and stressful for you recently.

Do you work in retail?

Sick leave for stress is when you are ‘sick’ because of it. Either mentally ill with depression, suffering physical manifestations of stress and depression or a combination of both. You don’t just rock up to the GP and ask to get a sick note until the date of your choosing because you don’t fancy going back to work after time off. You’ve said yourself in one of your posts that you’re not ill.

I have been genuinely sick with work related stress. Went to the GP for antidepressants and she said to me ‘you are very not mentally well enough to be at work, I’ll give you at least a week’s sick leave’. Like an idiot I said no but that was because I was so stressed I had no insight into how sick I was.

If you just feel a burnt out (who doesn’t at times) then you need to book regular leave or take some time off without pay. Just because ‘everyone else does it’ doesn’t make it right. That or get a different job.

Very well said.

Honestly, it sounds like

a) you need to take the time off and
b) you need to cut down on what you spend for Christmas

I'm probably at the other extreme with Christmas. Our family decided a few years ago not to bother with gifts for each other. Literally the only thing I buy for Christmas is food - and we all bring something.

I think somewhere between what you have been spending, and what I spend, is an affordable happy medium, where you don't have to rely on doing loads of overtime in order to afford it. Take the time off, and reduce your Christmas spending. Then maybe next year you won't feel like you have to work so much in the run up to the festive season. It doesn't sound like it's worth it - to me anyway.

But please - take the time off that you need. I didn't, not till I had a breakdown where I just could not function at work. And once you are feeling better, make the changes you need to make in your life so that you don't get to that point again.

But after years of uni etc I'm done with all of that. I cant be arsed with job interviews and all of that.

Unbelievable!!! You "can't be arsed with job interviews and all of that", but you expect to be able to take months off, presumably putting your colleagues out, not to mention your employer!! Talk about entitled. If your job is that bad then you look for a new one, you don't take time off whenever you feel like it.

Op, I have been in a similar situation, I was with my previous employer for ten years, I never had any time off sick because I was never sick, but over the years more and more was slowly being put on me, I was highly paid for my extra responsibilities but at the cost of my mental health (peri meno didn’t help). I discussed my issues with my employer who offered me a three month sabbatical, after thinking long & hard I decided to quit as the thought of returning after that long absent seemed worse somehow, my DH agreed I would take 6 months off to chill and find another job, less hours less stress, I did and I am now working normal hours but for £30k less a year, five years on,was it worth it? 100% I made the right decision, we cut our expenditure accordingly, it really is easy to adapt, being time rich & healthy far out weighs money and an extravagant Christmas, it is a bit daunting looking for work when you’re unemployed but it shouldn’t be too difficult with your excellent cv and your references from your current employer should be positive (they’ve kept you for 15 years) & as you are yet to have a poor sickness record. In short leaving is your best option. Best of luck op.

People are being unkind here I feel.

OP, I agree that after a few weeks off you've probably got a mental block about going back. I agree it would be worth going back and seeing how you get on, it might not be as bad as you imagine. If it is, you still have the option to take some time out and see how you're doing.

It sounds like a classic case of burnout to me, and if I am write in envisaging what I think you do, lots of people who aren't in the same sector won't understand it which may be why some of the posts are written as they are.

Especially as you say you don't need the OT to live excluding for Xmas, if you can cling on for a few more weeks now, and then do go off, hopefully the financial stress on you will be less, and you might get more of an actual break from it all.

I'm finding the mental load of present buying hard this year and am going to 'cheat' and buy hampers for people. It won't save me a lot of money (perhaps none) but for example DH's brother and family can have an F&M hamper and it's just one present to agonise over instead of five 🤦🏽‍♀️

How strange making a practical decision to go on sick leave . If you are genuinely ill then money doesn't come into it .
Working life isn't about oh well I've worked for ages so I'm ' due ' some sick leave and won't feel guilty . What about the colleagues at work ploughing through but now with even more pressure because you are off , doesn't their mental wellbeing matter , and how do you know you need 2 months off.

Either you are very selfish or your post is written in a way that portrays something other than what you really are trying to say .

The OP sounds extremely selfish. Being ill isn't meant to be a practical choice. You said yourself you're not ill, can't be arsed to look for another job and it's only the thought of extra money making you reconsider the 2 month break from work. Terrible attitude.

And yet somewhere else there are people complaining when colleagues turn up to work with COVID/flu/within 48 hours of d&v/colds.

So when people can go to work with a physical health issue, they are being selfish and shouldn't, but if it's possible they might be able to get through work while suffering a mental health issue, but are considering looking after their health instead, they are being selfish and should.

Double standards much?

Not really. Those are contagious illnesses you've listed which is why it upsets people to be unnecessarily exposed to infection and illness too. Of course that's selfish.

Stress is not a contagious infection. No double standards just a straw man from you.

Ah, so people only give a shit about other people's health when it might affect them?

Understood.

Your job environment won't get better for you in the long term. As a HR professional, I have to say people like you irritate me. You don't like the job/stress of the job, but seeing do anything proactive to leave and find something else....instead you want to go on long term sick leave... but are unsure because of losing overtime.

Do you have occupational health at work? If so, ask for a referral. If you keep in touch with your line manager while off sick, let then know how stressful you find work and if your organisation has something called a stress risk assessment, complete it.

I've worked in places I wasn't happy before and I looked for another job and left.

If you're employer doesn't treat you well, then look elsewhere for a job in the same field.

When you're considered whether or not to go off sick, I ask how sick you really are.

Like I said, straw man.

I disagree with you.

I think people would also be much more sympathetic about people taking time off for other non infectious illnesses. For example, someone criticised a former employer of mine because I was in working with a broken wrist. People are quite happy for others to take time off work if it's something they can see - even if they are still capable of working without it having a negative impact on recovery.

It's quite clear on this thread that the same cannot be said of mental ill-health.

The Op is sick of their job and finding it stressful - like like of jobs at times - has the option of claiming stress-related I need a holiday but wants the overtime - oh, and she is owed it because she has been employed there for a long time and cant' be assed with interviews and getting another job. When the UK wonders why its productivity is right down, there you have it.

I can't speak for the op, but when I was at the point of feeling like I couldn't face going into work, but pushed myself to do it anyway, it was very quickly followed by a total breakdown where I was off work for four months. I maybe could have gone back a week or two earlier, but my doctor refused to let me.

It's possible that had I taken time off before it got to that point, maybe a month would have been enough.

And I can tell you, my productivity immediately before I went off work was the lowest it has ever been. Pushing people to work till they break is not how to combat productivity issues

The underlying problems (and they probably aren’t all job related) will still be there. If you are going to take a breather, be constructive and don’t waste it doing the same old (including overspending). Why isn’t the overtime spent paying off your debt? Why has it become the way you pay for stuff you probably don’t need? Overtime is adding to your stress. You need a plan more than you need a breather. If you do not prioritise your mh, it will come back to bite you.

This is a very unpopular view OP, but you need to prioritise yourself and your family. As I think you said yourself earlier in the thread, when you're on your death bed, you won't be patting yourself on the head for putting yourself through hell just to please an employer. You can be sure that if an employer had to make redundancies, they won't beat themselves up. They will do whatever is necessary, and make the right decisions for their company - so you need to do the same for you.

You sound exhausted and overwhelmed. I think that's the "can't be arsed" comment. It might sound flippant but I think actually you're just mentally and physically knackered.

I'm assuming you don't work for a small, family-run firm? If you do, then my advice for you would be different. But I'm assuming from what you've said that you work for a big organisation who don't especially care about your welfare.

Your options:

1. Go back to work and just keep going - but will you end up having a total breakdown?
2. Go back to work and pick up overtime for as long as you feel able to - cut back on any unnecessary spending and try to stockpile it for Christmas. Go off sick again before you completely burn out.
3. Stay off sick and just accept your DH's offer
4. Stay off sick and have a long, hard look at what you spend at Christmas - there must be ways to cut back? Accept financial help from DH but limit this where possible.
5. Stay off sick and revisit things in the new year. With a clear head and a proper break, you might feel able to consider moving to a different job. You're overwhelmed and overloaded right now, you might feel differently when you've had some time to destress.

Don't feel guilty for prioritising your well-being over a duty to your employer. Your priority should always be your health, but so many don't view mental health as something that deserves to be properly taken care of.

And just for anyone reading, I'm self-employed now but was employed for many years in a senior role. I never, ever went off sick and I nearly killed myself during pregnancy trying to do what I thought I "should".

OP, try putting yourself in a friend's shoes. If this was a friend of yours, what would you advise them to do? That might help you view things more objectively.