So I’ll start this by saying my mental health is completely in the toilet. I’m on the verge of tears everyday and I need to make some big decisions, but each come with their own set of positives and negatives, and ultimately I just cannot get to the point where I can make a decision.
The short of it relates to work stress, but it’s completely consuming my life. There’s a lot of a back story, but ultimately I work for a family member (although we are not a particularly close family I considered this family member one of my best friends, although there were a lot of underlying tensions with her spouse and resentment was building on both sides). Recently, the relationship has completely broken down and communication with my boss (family member) is pretty much non existent unless she is criticizing me or undermining me. My anxiety levels are now sky high, I’m so conscious of making mistakes at work and “disappointing” her, that of course I’m making mistakes regardless.
It is such a small business, that if I do not complete my workload, it passes on to her therefore building more resentment. If I am off sick, it will be her who needs to pick up that slack.
Things have now reached a head where I’ve been prescribed medication, and I have funding in place to complete a course of psychotherapy to help me deal with my anxiety, currently trying to find a counselor with space for me to do this. The GP advised signing me off, but I refused to take a sick line as I knew I wouldn’t be able to return to work afterwards.
My anxiety has told me that there is no point explaining my health issues to my boss, because a lot of her actions which have lead to me feeling like this are completely her choices. I feel like she is doing this on purpose to impact my mental health. I had recently tried to keep things as normal as possible with conversations, just so I can provide a bit of a lead up to dropping in how my anxiety has been increasing, but communication attempts are either shot down or ignored completely, which was never like her.
Money concerns are a huge motivating factor in my next decision. I know I cannot stay at my current job, so I am looking for something else asap. But even the thought of returning to work on Monday seems like something I just cannot do. But also, not returning to work would have a huge financial impact and definitely be the nail in the coffin for ever returning to work there or having a family relationship with my boss.
Im sorry this is such a huge muddle of a post because there is probably loads I have been unable to include since it is such a big backstory. AIBU isn’t even the right topic but I’m completely at a loss on what to do. Long term, I know the medication and the therapy will be the best thing for me, but what do I do in the short term to get through this?