Holiday photos on Facebook whilst off sick

[TeaAndBrie]

Really interested to hear opinions on this one.
Staff member off long term sick (fully paid as local gov) due to mental health issues, signed off by GP for 4 months so far.
staff member is friends with manager on Facebook.
staff member has been uploading photos of holiday abroad on Facebook.
i would not expect someone who is on LTS for mental health reasons to never leave the house etc
Holiday photos seem a bit much though - especially when manager and other colleagues who can see these pics are having to pick up all of the work whilst he is away.
YABU - let them have their holiday, it’s good for them!
YANBU - let them have the holiday but would be better to have have pics on SM

You are so incorrect!! I have been signed off for 4 months by my GP for work based stress and have been able to go away. Behind the scenes I have been having panic attacks where I can't breathe, severe shaking episodes and migraines almost daily triggered by any thoughts or contact from my workplace. The ONLY thing that has started to help me has been getting away from home and forgetting some of the huge stress I have been placed under.

I was actually debating this posters version of ‘true mental illness’ which apparently only includes not being able to leave your house.
No probably not a great plan although not being able to sit still was a symptom of my relatives PTSD at times and a UK holiday was certainly possible. And the poster was also talking about nights out not just holidays.

I thought it was well accepted now that you don't need to hide in the house when you're signed off sick. I don't see what difference posting photos on social media makes.

I was / am very similar and wasn’t able to get the treatment in the NHS. If you feel able, ask your Consultant and CPN to build a case for the NHS to pay a private provider for the DBT / trauma treatment as the NHS aren’t providing the treatment you need. They will need to apply to their Trust to fund it. They will likely have service providers already identified, but it might be worth you finding a local provider you can also recommend to them (they will need to follow the medical model of treatment).

It's not about hiding in your house im a big advocate for going for a walk everyday if you can but that's a big leap from being able to go away on holiday. I feel if your at that point its time to be thinking of returning to work even if its just reduced hours.

Again you’re assuming all work places are offering that support- some can be very unsupportive. Everyone’s situation is different

Thankyou. I didn't know this was an option I will speak to my cpn tomorrow about it. I appreciate that.

Surely if someone is off sick then you’d expect them to do things that will support their recovery and return to work, which may well include a trip away.

also, if someone was off sick with a physical illness, would you have an issue with them going on holiday and sharing photos of it online?

I’ve twice been on holiday whilst off on long term sick.

First time wasn’t prebooked. I went camping and hiking for a weekend. I can’t even begin to explain how much it helped me. As a result, it didn’t even occur to me to not put some photos up on SM. My manager saw and reassured me it was absolutely fine as it wasn’t rocket science to see that was a very different scenario than working my frontline emergency services job.

The second time I was off with PTSD, anxiety and depression following an extremely traumatic and sudden bereavement. This one was prebooked. I debated whether or not to go. Not due to work really but I was struggling with being away from home for any length of time (I.e panic attacks in the supermarket kind of thing). In the end, I went because I didn’t want to let my partner down as she’d had a rough few months too. I wouldn’t say it was the best holiday of my life. Plenty of flashbacks, plenty of tears (have you ever been above the clouds and thought it looked like heaven when you’ve recently lost someone? I’m not even religious but even now it’s making the tears prickle) and I certainly didn’t have my usual energy to be getting drunk or whatever and my partner basically had to plan everything we did. But my manager (different one, same but different job) actively encouraged me to go. And it did help. Not so much at the time but it broke the rut I had gotten into with not being able to leave home and it created almost a ‘before’ and ‘after’ scenario which led to me picking up the pieces when I got home and starting to recover.

I don’t understand how anyone can’t see how different a holiday is to working.

Yeah I wouldn’t be posting it to be fair. However, if there is depression or something does that mean that if they can’t / shouldn’t go their family can’t either? What if it was booked before they went off sick?

I would still feel the same for a physical problem if your at that point where you can manage a holiday i think your capable of doing a few hours at work.

That's really no different from the days people felt they couldn't go to the shop though in case someone saw them out the house though is it? Their life is restricted because other people get their noses bent out of shape. I'm a big advocate for doing anything that feeds your soul for whatever time you're signed off and beyond. Make the most of it the break from the daily routine, nourish yourself as much as possible, and forget about work. Completely.

I could refute that but given the nature of your posts I'm not going to. Your posts are making me really angry and I don't want to get myself deleted and banned.

This is wildly ignorant (and I say that as someone who did work when in crisis as my psychiatrist recognised that my work made me feel better not worse. But it could have been quite different).

My highly respected psychiatrist was quite able to see that the fact I was continuing to function and not just care for my children but actually provide a really fun and loving environment for them was no reflection on the severity of the crisis I was in.

Comments like yours are hugely harmful and dangerous. They are the reason people end up not seeking support, or not getting support from friends and family.

I also don't think being able to go on holiday is anything like being ready to return to work. They're complete opposites 😆

Then dont im just a random on the Internet its not worth it. We've clearly both had very very different experiences of how mental illness has effected us so obviously our opinions are different and thats ok.

It’s not worth it @ilovesooty ☺️

And the medical qualifications you have to make that assertion are?

Opinions can differ but outright dismissal of others lived experience isn’t acceptable.

I would personally find going on holiday a lot more stressful then work but im not good out of routine or far from my house

I was a frontline police officer when I was off sick and went on holiday.

I went on holiday because I felt guilty enough about what my partner had been supporting me through, I didn’t want to ruin this for her too. During that holiday, she had to plan everything. From where we would eat, to what time I had to be up and dressed, to any trips. I’m smiling in the pictures but they don’t show the day I didn’t leave the hotel room, or the flashbacks or the tears. I couldn’t focus on books or television. I wasn’t capable of making any decisions but I was capable of doing what my partner told me to do with plenty of breaks when things got too much.

Would you of liked me to be trying to solve a robbery or turning up to a stabbing at that point?

But my sick brain was telling me that I needed to stick out the job for two reasons.

1. It was the one I had trained for at uni and been doing for 16 years, so what else could I do?
2. I still had to keep paying my share of the bills. My DH and I had similar salaries then - both government workers, btw, as he was in the RAF.

The prospect of giving up my teaching job was equally as terrifying as keeping going with it.

And as for travelling, I was going somewhere I had been many times before, and my mentally healthy husband was with me.

I did. When I finally cracked I was in a psychiatric hospital within days, but I'm not going to justify myself to someone who posts what you have.

My own lived experience

Depends on the work doesn't it. And depends on the health condition.
I have a fluctuating physical health condition, I still work even when bed bound. Because I can due to th nature or my job and my condition.

So, let's stop trying to generalise about other people's health and what they can and cannot do.