Returning to work - week 3

Tuesday 18th September

The weekend passed me by. I had no energy to do anything. By Monday (I have no lessons on Monday) I was feeling unwell. I can recognise the way my body reacts to stress. In this case, the fatigue I had felt over the weekend was supplemented by a low-level but continuous headache and a general feeling of being unwell.

It is difficult to describe this feeling of being unwell. The closest analogy is the early stage of bad flu, before the fever starts. There is an oppressive feeling in my head like the approach of a thunderstorm, and my brain does not seem to follow the movement of my head. My limbs feel heavy, almost aching. If I stand up, I want to sit down; if I sit down I want to lie down.

By this morning, these symptoms had disappeared and the headache was much reduced. I got up and had breakfast. I collected my things and got ready to go to work. Before I left I sat down for ten minutes and debated with myself whether or not I should go into school.

This was a crucial decision. Before I had been allowed to start working again I had had to be declared fit to work by the employer's occupational health physician. At our last meeting she had spent a large proportion of the time impressing on me the importance of recognising my own symptoms and taking early action when they appeared. If I followed the usual route of "grip up and get on with the job" I would land back at square one, undoing months of recuperation.

I knew all this intellectually, but it was still a very hard decision. I had not realised how strongly I would feel the perceived pressure of "not pulling my weight".

I stayed at home.

Wednesday 19th September

I felt better today, though still tired, and went to school for the whole morning - teaching two lessons and preparing others in a quiet corner of the staff work room.

In the afternoon I had a meeting with my stress counsellor. This was the first session for months and had been planned when I knew I would be returning to work.

When I had first suffered the stress injury the term "counselling" had held bad connotations of failure and inadequacy. I had a picture of excruciating embarrassment at the hands of an analyst - gleaned, I suppose, from American movies. Although I was happy to accept drugs from my GP I was taken aback when he suggested counselling too.

In fact, my subsequent experience has been that although drugs control my symptoms, they do not tackle the underlying injury. The stress counsellor is a health care professional who can answer questions, give advice and monitor your progress continually and in depth. A family doctor is unable to do anything like as much because of lack of consultation time. Counselling has helped me in the same way that physiotherapy can help people to recover from physical injuries.

My GP also told me how surprising he found it that there was no occupational scheme provided for teachers suffering from stress injury. He told me that doctors, nurses, the fire service and the police all had schemes to assist and rehabilitate them. Teachers had to scratch around to find what they needed and organise their own recovery - all at a time when they were severely handicapped by the effects of stress. It is quite clear to me why some of my colleagues are just taking the pills and doing nothing further.

Thursday 20th September

I teach one lesson today - the first lesson in the afternoon. I stayed on in the afternoon until three-quarters of an hour after the end of school to prepare lessons.

Preparing lessons at school rather than at home was one of the ideas coming out of yesterday's stress counselling session. My aim is to increase the number of lessons I prepare at school. I have to spent much time on lesson preparation - partly because two-thirds have to deliver new examination specifications, but mainly because of the sluggishness of my mental processes. Working at home makes it harder to switch off, and probably contributed to my being unwell at the start of the week.

Preparation of lessons is a "must do" task. Other "must do" tasks include hanging out the washing, mowing the lawn, washing up the breakfast and dealing with the post. They can increase pressure because they must be completed before I can allow myself to relax. My family has been very good at adapting routine to reduce "must do" pressures. I must now find a way to cope with "must do" tasks at work.

One double lesson in the afternoon - the zoo shift. I am lucky this is a sixth form group. I have been feeling a little under par today. I hope that the weekend (three days off because I do not teach on Mondays) will allow me to recover more fully.