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Should I be honest with my job about having a mental breakdown?

TLDR; Should I tell my new job I'm having a breakdown and need to telework while I get it together, or come up with a better excuse? Hi everyone, I'm looking for some advice. Started a new job a few months back. Had to move away from my support network to start the job after waiting several months for a start date that was delayed multiple times. When I started the job, the telework policy they had hired me on had changed and as a new employee I won't have telework abilities until 6 months in. Office culture is non-existent and my coworkers all work from home most days of the week, but I'm chained to my desk. There is nowhere private for me to take phone calls, either. I also failed to realize until I started the job that I get zero dedicated sick leave. (I should have asked…


TLDR; Should I tell my new job I'm having a breakdown and need to telework while I get it together, or come up with a better excuse?

Hi everyone, I'm looking for some advice. Started a new job a few months back. Had to move away from my support network to start the job after waiting several months for a start date that was delayed multiple times. When I started the job, the telework policy they had hired me on had changed and as a new employee I won't have telework abilities until 6 months in. Office culture is non-existent and my coworkers all work from home most days of the week, but I'm chained to my desk. There is nowhere private for me to take phone calls, either. I also failed to realize until I started the job that I get zero dedicated sick leave. (I should have asked explicitly, I just couldn't imagine a full time job with a big employer that required a graduate degree would do this to its employees. This plus the changed telework policy would have made the offer a nonstarter, had I not already wasted months on what I thought would be a great starter job with major advancement opportunities.)
I also get 10 days off for vacation per year, which I haven't even earned yet.

On top of that, I've been having a mental breakdown (that tbh was a long time coming) from the isolation, financial stress, and instability that was a result of this pandemic. I thought adequate money and a job in the field of my degree would fix everything, but surprise, surprise, I am still a mess and am already struggling to meet deadlines. Lately, I've been hiding my near-daily breakdowns in the office bathroom. My behavior at home also sucks and I've been a chronically exhausted, high conflict, emotional burden on my partner. They pretty much hate living with me and are at the end of their rope, despite the fact that they love me and are committed 100 percent to making it through this. This week they gave an ultimatum, I either need to get better and show immediate results, or I need to find a new place to live. I'm trying my damnedest to get on medication and therapy now that my new health insurance has finally kicked in, and I've been doing absolutely everything I have access to in terms of self care for months, but I know that can take quite a while before meds and therapy start to work.

In the meantime, I need to at least staunch the bleeding of this situation before I wind up homeless and jobless.
I found a partial-hospitalization program that is more intensive than therapy, and should work faster, but doesn't require me to live in a hospital (I'm in no danger to myself or others, just a mess). It runs from 8am-2pm for 2 weeks.

If I can come up with a legitimate excuse, I could potentially convince them to let me “work from home” for two weeks while I did this program. It would be a lot of work to balance the two responsibilities, and the quality of my professional work would likely be shitty, but perhaps better than me going into a bigger crisis. Or, I could be honest with them. My fear there is I would potentially ruin my professional reputation at a new job, in a field where I am just starting out and have very few references. That could have potentially effects on my entire career.

Or I could suck it up and sacrifice the only vacation days I get all year. Or hang in there and hope the meds I start next week will work quickly.

What would you do?

[Will crosspost with r/careerguidance ]

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