Sick leave

Irene Oestrich, psychologist

When you are depressed, you may find it difficult to protect yourself. You protect yourself when you act like a "good parent who protects their children". This means that you must give yourself advice and instructions which protect you. You will not be able to protect yourself if you push yourself into situations which you are unable to cope with. You will also not protect yourself if you don't know what is good or bad.

Before taking sick leave, you should consider whether it would be a better solution to reduce your working hours, so that you retain your link with work and can start up again more easily.

Conflicts

Depression can lead to conflicts with the outside world. These conflicts will not arise if you are healthy. As a person suffering from depression, you may express strong feelings such as irritation, anger, anxiety and tears. You will often find this in situations where you would normally have suppressed your feelings. There is nothing wrong with these feelings, but it would be better if you could control them according to the situation.

You might be feeling tired and you may feel so sluggish that it is affecting the quality of your work. It is therefore important that you protect yourself. If you are unable to do this in your work situation, you should consider taking sick leave.

There are a number of factors which may make it necessary to consider sick leave:

• If your relationships with other people are strongly affected by feelings such as anger or irritation
• If your work rate is strongly affected
• If you are unable to concentrate and your memory is failing
• If you are easily overcome by feelings at work and cry a lot
• If you can only work when you are under the influence of alcohol

Open and honest

It is often better to be open and honest. People can then show you sympathy, empathy and relief, because they can understand and protect you. It is vital that you are not afraid of "being found out". It is also an advantage if you are not afraid of what your colleagues think about you. When you tell other people something, you will often find out that they understand more than you realised.

If you have weighed up the advantages and disadvantages and are still unsure, talk to someone you can trust such as a good friend or your doctor or psychologist. You will then be in a position to decide for yourself. Remember that it is always you who decides!