Hi everybody.
Has anyone here ever taken stress leave from work? Or has been very stressed at work and figured out a way to deal with it without quitting?
A couple of months ago I was so stressed at work that I wasn't sleeping well, my stomach hurt all the time, and I had chronic headaches. I went to see my doctor and he told me to take stress leave, but I decided that wasn't a good idea because I'd just return to the same environement. I talked to my boss about it, she was great and reorganized how work requests come in to me (I'm a secretary and tech support type person) and took a huge amount of work off of me for two weeks so I could recover. That helped for awhile, and I really appreciate that she did that for me.
Everything was fine until the week before Christmas, when things got really bad again. My boss and supervisor went on vacation, and other person in my department took advantage of that to pile all kinds of "emergency" (they weren't really an emergency but she felt they were) tasks on me. I tried to say no, and reminded her about how my work had been reorganized, but she wouldn't take no for an answer. Even 4 days into my Christmas vacation I was having heart palpitations and feeling really anxious as a residual effect of those few days before Christmas vacation.
Work started again on Tuesday. I haven't slept since Sunday night, not even a nap. My chest feels tight and I've been having heart palpitations again. I took Wednesday off, and I'm probably going to have to take today off, too. I feel REALLY guilty for taking time off. I took a lot of sick time off last year, 12 days of it. I think I got sick so much from being overstressed. I had strep throat in November. I wanted to cut down on my sick time this year and already I'm going to have two days and it's not even the end of the first week in January.
I don't really want to talk to my boss about this again. I feel like a weak person, my job isn't hard at all. I also don't want to cause problems with the person who was bullying me that last week of work before Christmas vacation, she's been very resistant and argumentative towards my boss about the changes in my work, and I can tell my boss doesn't want to push it with her. Plus, I am so overtired that I cry at the drop of a hat, I don't want to call my boss and talk to her about this and start crying during the conversation. And what if she thinks that I'm exaggerating or taking advantage of her just to get time off of work, or what if she thinks I'm histrionic and have a weak personality? I desperately wish I could sleep so I could go to work and just be normal.
I'm going to see my family doctor tomorrow if I can get an appointment. Maybe he will give me a sleeping pill so I can get some rest.
Apologies if this is incoherent, I'm really tired.