I searched and found a lot of posts about stress leave (休職), but couldn’t find anything about “after” the leave.
So any of you have experienced coming back to work post the long leave? How did you finally decided, or got diagnosed by doctor, that you have recovered and ready to work again? Did you get back to your prev work or changed job? Those who came back to the same workplace, how did your company and your co-worker treat you?
I’m in between deciding to get back in another 2 months (means 8 months total of leave) or just thinking “screw this im gonna extend till the end” since i have the right to take the leave for another year and half (my company policy is up to 2 years 休職). Financially, its tough to keep taking leave, but mentally I’m not prepared (and maybe won’t ever be lol) and my psychiatrist is not deciding for me.
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As you already know, Japan doesn’t exactly have the best track record for work/life balance or mental health prioritization
Unless you’re at a rare and wonderful company, you can expect your co-workers not to empathize or want to discuss your issue
If it’s my company I wouldn’t dare to come back, people wouldn’t be understanding but attacking.
My doctor would only let me return from stress leave (to same company) once he was satisfied that my workplace situation changed enough that he would not feel like he was throwing me back into the same environment that caused a need for stress leave. He would also be fine if I got a job at a different company.
I chose to return to the same company, but in a different department.
Those who were concerned about me from the start were sympathetic. Those who were not, were awkward. The only people aware of the details were my managers, and the rest of the team, to my knowledge, was told I was on “medical leave”. I only occasionally work with one or two people from my pre-leave team, so I don’t care how they feel about me.
I haven’t been penalized in any way for my leave.
Really individual depending on your workplace environment. Does your work offer any ways to improve the situation ? I.e. if your stress is related to work, do they offer to move you to a different department/team? If it’s not work related, just take all the time you need.
Was you work the source of your stress?
At my previous job I had to take stress leave due to ストレス反応 and my psychiatrist recommended at least 4 months of leave but I was only entitled to 20 days (holidays and weekends included).
Physically I looked terrible and my previous job was very accustomed to employees having to go on stress leave so I didn’t face any backlash due to our shared workplace trauma.
People were incredibly sympathetic and went out of their way to support me.
Going back was hard because while on leave I realized how terrible my job was despite people being kind and supportive.
I found a new job relatively quickly because I could not stay there any longer than necessary.