Anxiety and work

[ToBeOrNotToBee]

Bit of advice needed.

The last few years has been terrible personally and my work has suffered a bit. Enough for my manager to notice and comment on, but not enough for performance review or formal action.

2023 has been the icing on an already shit cake with the death of a family member and falling out with siblings as a result. I had some time off, which led to a backlog of work, and when I returned, struggled to get my head back in it. I've been struggling with a bit of depression which I've been able to mask but in the last few weeks my attention at work has completely gone. I can fully sit in front of a screen all day and do absolutely nothing.
My job isn't hard, it just requires attention to detail and for me to be focused.

It's now got to a stage where I'm having severe anxiety thinking of work, and I feel close to breaking.
My end of year appraisal is tomorrow and I am dreading it, genuinely having palpitations thinking of it. I wake up with a pit in the stomach and this continues through the day, everyday.

This cannot continue. This is not healthy.

I want support from my employer but I don't know what, or even how to ask for help.

Obviously appraisal tomorrow is the best opportunity.

Any advice please?

I speak from experience.... First place to start is telling them there is a problem. If you're not sure how to start the conversation you could put a few lines in an email to your manager to ask to talk about it.

It sounds like you've soldiered on for a long while and now have got to the point where you can't function properly - this is the time to speak up. You don't need to have all the answers right now eg what help you need, just start by saying you've got this going on and it's greatly affecting your work.

As a first step you can ask to be referred to occupational health, assuming your employer has one.

Have you seen your GP? If not it sounds like you need to. Do you have an employee assistance programme? If so do use it - give them a call and they will help you think about how to approach your employer.

Write it all down. Give it to them. That's the conversation starter and you don't have to actually say it. Once it's out in the open it does get easier to talk about, and so to tackle. You won't get overnight miracle solutions, but it's the first step that is hardest.