Can people really take time off work for "stress"?

pimento

Diamandis wrote: »

You've also got to consider what's going on in their life outside of work. I've had people signed off for stress who are being evicted, because their family members are in hospital dying, money problems and carers responsibilities. Sometimes when so much is going on outside work dealing with stress at work is impossible. I'm glad you've never experienced stress that's prevented you from working.

I was signed off with stress for four months when my husband of 35 years was dying of cancer. Nothing to do with the job, in fact, my employer was very understanding but there was no way I could have come to work while that was going on.

shortcrust

Manxman_in_exile wrote: »

Isn't the problem that the word "stress" has more than one meaning?


AIUI, stress can be good for me. I can stress my muscles and skeleton by rowing or weight training. Apparently that makes my muscles and skeleton stronger. I can do the same for my CV system by running or cycling etc. All this stress makes me stronger. I can even "stress" my brain by intensive study and that makes my brain better. All this stress is good for you.


But if you've got a medical diagnosis of work related stress - that's something completely different and is not good for you!

Of course. But reducing a complex set of issues to a single word really helps when you're starting a troll thread.

TELLIT01

robatwork wrote: »

The problem is that this is a bit of a pointless thread. It all depends on my, your, and everyone else's definition of stress. What some are talking about here would fall into my definition of depression. Here are a couple of definitions:

STRESS a state of mental or emotional strain or tension resulting from adverse or demanding circumstances.

DEPRESSION a mood disorder marked especially by sadness, inactivity, difficulty in thinking and concentration, a significant increase or decrease in appetite and time spent sleeping, feelings of dejection and hopelessness, and sometimes suicidal tendencies

I tend to think that by my own internal definition, anyone in a job is stressed. We are paid to do something that is going to cause some mental strain. Footballer or flipping burgers, someone is paying you to do something that at least in small bursts will require concentration, mental exertion and pressure from outside forces (generally people). This will cause stress - even from its scientific definition.

So you really can't generalise unless you define it exactly.

Even GPs seem to think that the terms 'stress', 'anxiety' and 'depression' are interchangeable. When I worked on ESA we were told not to bother updating the incapacity on the system if the original medical certificate said one of the above and a subsequent one had one of the others.

I agree that there is stress in everybody's life but it's when the stress level is such that the individual is unable to function normally that it becomes a problems. Once you've seen a normally confident, resilient person break down in tears because of a work situation over which they have little or no control, you understand what 'work related stress' is.

Gavin83

I think a big issue is that unlike physical issues mental issues such as stress are easy to fake or exaggerate. I've seen people take months of stress leave as a way to punish their employer, normally because they've had a disagreement with their boss or they're going through a legitimate disciplinary procedure. The issue is though that it's difficult to prove this one way or another. It's these people who give the genuinely stressed a bad name.

ViolaLass

JReacher1 wrote: »

Being off work for stress is a difficult one. It is a serious medical condition which can seriously affect someone and is a genuine reason for being absent for work.

The problem is that I do think a small number of people do get signed off work with stress when they should not be

As an example in my department I know five people who have been off with stress. Four were genuine but one was just using it as an excuse because they knew they would not hit a dealline. They self certified for a week and did not see a doctor. It is however impossible to prove this is what they did.

Although that deadline may have contributed to the stress...

TELLIT01

Gavin83 wrote: »

I think a big issue is that unlike physical issues mental issues such as stress are easy to fake or exaggerate.

It's possible to exaggerate the extent of physical injury as well. Back pain and whiplash injuries being just two of those where a doctor can easily be conned by a determined liar.

robatwork

TELLIT01 wrote: »

I agree that there is stress in everybody's life but it's when the stress level is such that the individual is unable to function normally that it becomes a problems. Once you've seen a normally confident, resilient person break down in tears because of a work situation over which they have little or no control, you understand what 'work related stress' is.

And that again is variable, as what maybe a mild annoyance to me that I will laugh about later with my wife may make a colleague break down in tears and run screaming for the hills. So that depends on how resilient an employee is.

And while I'd agree with your assertion that if a normally confident person breaks down it would be due to unusually high stress, we are again in the realms of defining "normal".

Total min(d/e)field and I don't envy doctors dealing with this.

Smegreg

I am a cop and have been for 12 years. I have felt my stress levels go up and down throughout my career depending on my boss, my role, my workload. Police has an extraordinary level of officers off on sick with stress related health issues. I have watched my friends turn from confident, bold, decision makers and leaders, into crumbling wrecks. Its like I can see the ship around me sinking and I'm still stood there hoping it will be ok and we'll get out ok.

I've just been promoted and it is now worse than ever. I've only been there 4 weeks and already I am really struggling under the strain of trying to chase my own tail as the work is piling on. Our unit is so understaffed that we are all carrying at least the workload of 2. So the people around me are also stressed and ill as a result. However, they feel compelled to stay in work because if they go off sick, it effects our chances of moving to a different role / unit as their sick records would be too high. So they are forced keep coming in and getting more sick.

I have an exit plan as I've gone back to school, but I'm still a year off finishing my course, so still have a year left minimum of the police. The thought of this is so upsetting.

I'm sat here on a Sunday dreading going back tomorrow. I've not enjoyed my time off, for worrying about going back there. I feel sick and my heart is going faster than a resting heart rate should be. For the past couple of weeks, I have had so many stomach cramps and headaches. My skin is worse than it ever has been and I have piled on weight. If I think logically, I know this is anxiety / stress. However, I worry about not going in, because I carry so much work with such great risk and there is no one there to take it off me because everyones in the same boat. This makes it even worse.

I also worry about what my colleagues would think of me because firstly I am new in this team, so haven't even been under this stress for a long time and also they know I want to leave anyway, so believe they would just think i was skiving before I left. I'm convinced they would say i was making it up.

Stress in the workplace is very real and ends up manifesting itself as a physical sickness.

Maybe soon I will feel brave enough to acknowledge this out loud and at work rather than making myself sicker.

Rosemary7391

I've had major issues with stress twice now.



First time, I didn't take time off but it came with some pretty concerning, undeniable physical symptoms (suffice to say that men would not have the same symptom!). I guess if the source of stress hadn't been removed I would've ended up with some other physical complications from those symptoms.

FBaby wrote: »

The problem with stress is with can't help but judging others based on our own ability to cope with stress. If you are resilient, you don't have much respect for those who seem to be stressed at the slightest challenge. If your stress threshold is low, then you think anyone who doesn't have sympathy is a bully.

I am probably quite high on the resilience scale so probably fall under the former, but what really gets to me is not so much people with low resilience but people who think that all stress should be avoided and don't accept that any form of resilience can only be build by being exposed by some level of stress.

I think we also need to consider that different things are stressful to different people in different ways, and building resiliance to eg, stress from workload doesn't help with other forms of stress. I'm really resiliant to some forms of stress but others not so much.



As far as I'm aware, the person who was the main contributor to my second issue with stress still thinks he was helping me. I had to take two weeks off work. We no longer talk...

Manxman_in_exile wrote: »

Isn't the problem that the word "stress" has more than one meaning?


AIUI, stress can be good for me. I can stress my muscles and skeleton by rowing or weight training. Apparently that makes my muscles and skeleton stronger. I can do the same for my CV system by running or cycling etc. All this stress makes me stronger. I can even "stress" my brain by intensive study and that makes my brain better. All this stress is good for you.


But if you've got a medical diagnosis of work related stress - that's something completely different and is not good for you!

It can still be overdone, even those physical stresses. You can get fractures from running too far/hard before your body has time to adapt. You can strain muscles and then they need rest to recover. And you can be brilliant at lifting weights, but if you try to run a marathon and haven't trained for it you're going to come unstuck.

System

Check out the Yerkes-Dodson law...stress is important. When there's too much, it becomes a problem.