Hey guys,
I remember the first time I called in sick to work because I couldn’t get myself out of bed – I woke up that morning & felt numb…physically & mentally.
I also remember feeling GUILTY for calling in – even when my body & mind had failed me that morning. Think about that – I felt bad about not being able to show up for work that day, even when I had absolutely nothing left to give.
& I don’t think that’s okay.
When you’re on a sports team – if you pull a muscle or break a bone, your coach takes you out of the game. They give you the proper time to heal & even do physical therapy to get your strength back to where it needs to be to provide your best performance.
When you have the flu, or strep throat – your manager will most likely send you home or tell you to not come into work, because you’re contagious. They will tell you to either go to the doctors or head home & drink plenty of liquids & get a lot of sleep.
I’m here to remind you that sick days are for more than just the flu.
You don’t need to break a bone or have your head in the toilet all night – just to be able to call in sick to work. You just don’t.
Signs it’s time to call in sick to work for a mental-health day:
You can’t focus – Everything that normally has your full attention, can’t even get the time of day from you. Someone will be talking to you & mid conversation you think to yourself, ‘Oh no, I have no idea what they have been saying for the past 3 minutes’.
You feel a constant build up of tears – You know what I’m talking about, right? When you look at someone or something, or when someone is just trying to have a normal conversation with you & you have your lips pressed tightly together to try & take the pressure off of your eyes, you keep blinking praying they will back off, but your eyes still continue to feel the pressure of tears pushing their way through, trying to break you down.
You can’t keep your eyes open – Whether you’re sitting in a meeting, at your desk, or on the couch watching tv & your eyes feel close to 234 lbs. Everytime you blink, your head bobs forward because you actually fell asleep for .2 seconds.
You have to talk yourself into getting out of bed – You hit snooze, after snooze, after snooze, after snooze. Until you finally wake up, your eyes are open & its time to roll over, put your feet to the ground & get going…except you can’t get up. You lay there for a minute giving yourself a nice pep talk – “You can do it”, “It might actually be a good day”, or “Maybe if you get out of bed something good will happen” & you lay there until that pep talk either does the trick or completely fails you.
Your brain feels heavy – Did my head gain weight overnight or do I just not have the energy to hold my head up? All of these thoughts & doubts, where did they come from?
Your temper is a ticking time bomb – Something as simple as someone saying “Excuse me”, might throw you completely overboard – from everything like a deep sigh followed by an over exaggerated eye roll & hopefully not guiding your fist into a mirror for no apparent reason.
Your immune system fails you – Are you getting sick time & time again? You just finished your prescribed antibiotic & here you are a week later with the same symptoms or maybe even feeling worse.
You feel ‘drugged’ – You know that feeling when you’re beyond words tired & your eyes are heavy, & the thought crosses your head ‘Maybe this is what your head feels like on drugs’, yeah – that’s the feeling. Your mind isn’t all there & you feel like a zombie.
By no means am I a mental health professional, but I have learned from my own personal experiences. & all I want to do with this post it to encourage you to know your body & to respect it.
You know when you have reached your limits.
You know when you aren’t your best self.
You know when your body is crashing.
You know the thoughts in your mind.
YOU. You are the only one who can make the calls for yourself – so please, don’t be afraid to make them.
People often see mental-health symptoms as a sign of weakness, which personally…I think that is TRASH. You are not weak, if anything, I think you are beyond brave for fighting stigma & trying to better yourself.
So, the next time, you aren’t feeling like the best version of yourself, don’t feel guilty about it. Don’t let someone tell you to get over it, or to suck it up. Take a mental-health day. Check out for a little while. Give yourself time to heal & I promise you will be better for it!