Taking a mental health leave from work is an option most people don't know about
Her first panic attack came at a company-wide meeting, right before her scheduled presentation. Carolina Lasso had given many similar talks about her marketing team's accomplishments. When her name was called this time, she couldn’t speak.
“I felt a knot in my throat,” Lasso said. “My head, it felt like it was inside a bubble. I couldn’t hear, I couldn’t see, and it felt like an eternity. It was just a few seconds, but it was so profound, and in a way earth-shattering to me.”
Lasso was struggling after a cross-country move followed by a divorce. Her boss suggested a mental health leave, a possibility she didn’t know existed. She worried whether taking time off would affect how her team viewed her or cost her a future promotion, but in the end she did.
“I’m thankful for that opportunity to take the time to heal," Lasso, 43, said. “Many people feel guilty when they take a leave of absence when it’s mental health-related. ... There is some extra weight that we carry on our shoulders, as if it had been our fault.”
Despite a fear of repercussions, more adults are recognizing that stepping back from work to deal with emotional burdens or psychological conditions that get in the way of their lives is a necessary choice, one that a growing number of employers recognize.
ComPsych Corp., a provider of employee mental health programs and absence management services, encourages its business clients to make the well-being of workers a priority before individuals get to a breaking point while also having processes in place for those who require leaves of absence.
“Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, collectively we’ve just been in this constant state of turmoil,” Jennifer Birdsall, the senior clinical director at ComPysch, said. “We just have had this barrage of change and uncertainty.”
Depression, anxiety and adjustment disorder, which involves excessive reactions to stress, were the top three diagnoses of employees who took mental health leaves in the past two years among clients of Alight, a Chicago-based technology company which administers leaves and benefits for large employers.
Structuring a leave
A mental health leave can last weeks or months. In some cases, workers get approval to work a reduced schedule or to take short periods of time off when needed, using an approach called “intermittent leave.”
At most U.S. organizations with 50 or more employees, people can request leaves through the Family and Medical Leave Act. The federal law entitles workers with serious health conditions to paid or unpaid leaves of up to 12 weeks, depending on state and local laws.
Some employers require people to use sick days or accumulated vacation days to continue receiving a paycheck while out. For longer leaves, workers can access short-term disability plans, if their employer offers one.
Lasso's leave lasted six months, and included therapy and travel to India for additional treatment. She returned to her job but decided after a year to leave for good. She later launched a business to train people on fostering a more humane work culture.
A mental health leave is “not only OK, but it can really unlock new possibilities once we have the time to do the work — therapy, medication, whatever it is — and have enough distance from work to be able to reconnect with ourselves,” Lasso said.