Would you take time off?

[BreviloquentBastard]

I don't want to be too outing here but I have an immediate family member in hospital in extremely critical condition. I've had a couple of days off last week when they immediately went into hospital, had a few days in work and I'm just really struggling.

I can't concentrate, I keep having to take breaks to go talk to family or cry, I feel useless but I equally feel like I'm letting everyone down if I just take a week off to deal with everything. I can't actually do anything for my family member in hospital so if I was off I would just be fielding family members and dealing with the admin. I'm the responsible one in my family, it's like The Osbourne's combined with Jeremy Kyle so it all falls to me to deal with everything and keep it together.

It's a relatively new job and I'm not normally an unreliable person, I never ever phone in sick. I'm a bit old school in that I just stiff-upper-lip it through almost everything, but I'm really really struggling now.

I'm just wracked with guilt at the idea of leaving my colleagues short. Do you think this is a reasonable reason to take a week off or should I just suck it up and crack on?

I’m all for the view that family and real life comes first. Either take as stress or will your employer let you take AL?

Sorry to hear this OP

I've got no AL left to take as all hols booked for the year (first world problem I know).

They're being very understanding, we get paid sick up to 6 weeks, so I don't know why I'm stressing. They've already said I can take time if I need it, I'm just freaking out about whether it's actually a valid reason or if they'll all be bitching about me as soon as I sign off.

I think I was just raised to think taking time off work was lazy and unacceptable unless you've got a leg off or gone blind or something. Grew up with farmers so they're the sort of people who'll break their arm in the morning and be hoisting cows around in the afternoon. It's a hard mentality to break out of.