People calling in with stress

[m0therofdragons]

I'm finding it fascinating how different people cope with the current situation. Some seem so self absorbed with their own situation that they forget that others around them also have families and their own stresses. Calling in sick with stress right now feels wrong to me. I'm in an acute hospital - we're all stressed and going above and beyond, working 7 days, trying to ensure dc feel loved while battling guilt of leaving them to fulfill our duty. It's been interesting to see how some people have no sense of duty at all and are happy to save themselves at the expense of their colleagues.

I want to scream, we all love our dc and yours are not more important than mine!

I'm sure I'll get slammed for not being more understanding but I've heard so much crap today and need to rant. It's just as well we don't all give up when times are hard.

Dipshit comment reported

We predicted who in the admin team would self isolate first - we were proved right within days...

Same here. It's always the usual suspects that take advantage whilst the rest of us soldier on.

My friends brother was in lockdown and after not hearing from him for 3 days she went to check. He had killed himself because he couldn't cope with the lockdown.

Stress is the same as pain or tiredness.
It shouldn’t be competitive and nobody else can measure yours or how you cope with it.
I also work in the NHS and have had a significant change to my role as a result of Covid19 which places me at more risk. I am coping with it but I understand that that might not be the same for everybody. If colleagues aren’t in work, it will put more pressure on me, I can only do my best.

I get home from work, enter through the back door using my elbow to open it. I undress in the utility room and wash my hands, go upstairs and put clean clothes on. Then I can cuddle my children. This is fairly standard for staff right now. Life is stressful for us all.

I must admit I find myself agreeing with you OP. I don't wish to minimise people who suffer from long standing anxiety or have horrendous personal issues on their plate to deal with.

But people clearly vary in their ability to cope in adverse situations, and I'm sorry but there clearly are those out there who simply lack resilience.

Maybe we shouldn't think too badly of those who find the current situation overwhelming. But I'll save my admiration for the people getting up to do essential jobs (of any kind) with stoicism and no complaining.

The thing is you really don’t know what someone is dealing with. Yes there will be cf but I think most are genuine.

I grew up in an abusive and violent home and survived that inc csa, I left home at 17 for what would now be a nmw job except there was no nmw then. I “plodded on” for many years not disclosing to anyone but my now ex husband my history until after my first breakdown.

I was raised to have a “good work ethic” and to be a “good girl” always saying yes to everyone who needed my help.

This included training and working as a nurse for a short period of time (relatively speaking).

If this had happened when I was working as a nurse and if I had felt overwhelmed and my mh had deteriorated then (entirely possible as I was also masking germophobic ocd back then which in hindsight I’ve had all my life) my colleagues then - hell those people from then I’m still in touch with NOW still don’t have the faintest clue about my childhood or ocd.

They may well have wrongly judged that I “had no reason to be stressed enough to be off work” because they wouldn’t have had all the information.

Medics are generally the worst for self care.

Also stress diminishes the effectiveness of the immune system so those colleagues would be more vulnerable to the virus - and to spreading it - too.

Maybe in a few weeks (because honestly this thing isn’t going away any time soon) you’ll be needing the time off and they’ll be back at work covering you?

I used to be the type who only called in sick if I felt like I was dying - and on a couple of occasions that was almost true, also on a couple of occasions I went in when I really shouldn’t have.

Employers including nhs really don’t value their workers beyond the minimum requirements of law and to avoid bad enough publicity that would damage the organisation/business. They don’t care if an employee drops dead on shift aside from the inconvenience and bad image!

I was a nurse back when junior drs (and nurses but nurses don’t get anything like the support or scrutiny into how they’re treated) were being literally worked to death. I actually was present when one took a heart attack on shift and died a few days later. We really don’t want a return to those days, not only for the working medics but also for patients who deserve to be treated by well rested and nourished carers at their best possibly professionally.

It continues to shock, anger and disappoint me that even hcps are STILL so dismissive of mental illness and the mentally ill. It’s a disgraceful attitude to have in someone supposed to have a caring disposition and particularly in someone who is in a mangerial position. Your job is just as much to support your subordinates as it is to support patients not least because the 2 are so closely linked.

The thing is, in the same way that covid19 affects people in different ways - some having no symptoms and others sadly dying - stress affects people in different ways too.
Surely as a HCP you know this

I’ve never really experienced proper stress until two weeks ago. I couldn’t eat or sleep, couldn’t settle, was panicking and was bursting into tears multiple times a day. And that’s with me being lucky enough to be working at home but looking after DS and worrying about my Mum who isn’t in the greatest of health but was still ah work.
Thankfully my manager told me to stop working for the rest of last week. Alleviating that pressure for a few days has made the world of difference and I’m now back to functioning again.

Maybe your colleagues currently off will be fine in a few days too and back to work. Maybe you will find you can’t cope in a few days and go off

We never know when stress might leave us unable to function

I am an NHS Admin, I had Bilateral Pneumonia in January, and had only just returned to work when all this started up, I also have asthma which is usually fairly stable, but one of my worst triggers is stress!I For the last almost two weeks I have been self isolating with my eldery father who I am carer for, after he became ill. Today my GP has signed me off for 4 weeks as my asthma has become unstable and my peak flow has dropped and my depression has caused me to have several panic attacks :( I am beside myself as I so wanted to get back to work to help the amazing team I work with. Reading this thread has just made me feel even more like I am letting the side down. Sorry

Don't apologise

Those banging on about resilience are probably WFH and have no idea how awful it is right now.

I'm with you OP. Some people are team players, others are not. Some people give, some people take. Funny how it's the same people who are always off sick who needed to self isolate first, who can't go on the key worker childcare rota etc.
Maybe I'm unkind. Maybe I'm unsympathetic. Or maybe I've just managed people for a long time and have come to realise some people are piss-takers. But luckily most people are genuine and hard working.

Those that bang on about "resilience" in the context of mh ime have sod all experience of mental illness in any empathetic way certainly not personally.

It is just as serious and deadly as physical illness. But still people think of mental illness as a character flaw which is utter bollocks!

Of course he is, its all about money for him in jis work, it is cut throat and hard faced and takes no prisoners. IT IS ABOUT THE MONEY. He isn't nursing the sick, he is making money for himself and others. That takes aggression and being a bit of a shit.

I've no doubt financially you benefit from him being a hard nosed chaser of the money so suggest you wind in your princess neck and be grateful he has a job, frankly.

I get it. I would probably be feeling the exact same in your position, which is coming from someone whose anxiety used to be so severe I’d throw up all night for nights on end. I understand what it’s like to be stressed to the point of unfit to work.

But right now I genuinely cannot imagine what it must be like for nhs staff and I completely get that you’re exhausted and anxious and worried. I think your feelings are pretty understandable. Thank you so much for helping take care of us all.

WRONG THREAD SORRY!

@cdtaylornats
''My friends brother was in lockdown and after not hearing from him for 3 days she went to check. He had killed himself because he couldn't cope with the lockdown.''

Oh that is just terrible..... He probably won't be the only person affected by the sudden changes we are all living through. :(

Incidentally, I am married to a doctor who is also extremely angry at a small number of colleagues basically abandoning their posts at literally the most crucial time in NHS history, claiming stress.

Which is rather why I feel the same as OP.

Of course, I don't think there should be ramifications for that, many will feel huge personal anxiety and feel they can't cope.

But I will always, frankly, think less of them for it, as I suspect will their colleagues, tough as that may be. Many millions of us would have the courage to do what we had to do, if we had similiarly important jobs at this crucial time.

ffks its not a race to the bttom.nor is it fair to put guilt on people who are really struggling.or to say where and how much a person czan or should cope with.opeople are made differently.thats why sdome people are nurses and some people athletes and some people farmers.we have temperaments that are great because they are so varied.that what keeps our country oing in normal times because we each have things we can do to fit how we are m ade.
plus some people infact lots of people are struggling with their mental health and on the edge before this.so add this to the mix and its floored them.
dont shit on people.supoort them to do their bit in any way they can.and care for them like we should be doing.

i think its really unfair to say that.
i have never in my life felt stressed until last year when my whole world crumbled, when i had days where i felt like not being here was easier than getting out of bed and facing life we were given.
i felt like i was drowning and nothing mattered because my body had no life in it. if this covid situation happened six months earlier on top of everything else i wouldn't have made it through.

you don't know what goes on in peoples lives. sometimes it will take something so little that will push you over the edge. for me for example, i was going through so many big things, life just kept on pushing and pushing and do you know what pushed me over the edge one day?
my electric shower broke. thats all it took ..so small, so ridiculous yet it was the drop that tipped me over. i was sick and i had two options and that day i called in sick and spent two months helping myself get better.
so to say that its somehow selfish to go off is insane. it could literally be a toss up between life or death for people who are struggling.

i think thats unfair

Would you still think it unfair if one of your loved ones needed urgent medical care and they were all at home with stress?

I completely agree with you OP. But you'll get flamed on here for saying it.

I'd imagine the vast majority of NHS workers (and private healthcare workers come to that) are under a lot of stress right now. It's a difficult situation. Stress is a very serious thing, but we need them to be at work. The more staff members that decide they can't come in, the more pressure is put on the ones who keep working. And out health service is already grossly under-staffed and has been for years. The whole thing is horrifying.

so to say that its somehow selfish to go off is insane. it could literally be a toss up between life or death for people who are struggling

And it could literally be a toss up between life or death for people who are taken ill and need medical care, and there are not enough professionals there to give them the treatment they need.

I can’t speak for the NHS as I’m private sector but I have certainly noticed a number of people seizing the opportunity to shirk from home/self isolate. Like many PPs you could have picked them out on the day this was announced.