Hi Courage,
So sorry to hear about this, I can relate so much.
I also used to work for a multi national at the time when my depression was at its worse. I was struggling so much, arriving late every day, staring blank at the computer, ungroomed, taking 'crying' breaks several times a day, leaving early, not communicating to my colleagues, the quality of my work was terrible, I was not engaged with work at all.
In my country there is no such thing as 'depression disability' so I just had to deal with it. I had two bosses, one organisational boss (Country Manager) and my reporting boss (Regional Area Manager who was based in another country). At the end of the day I just had to speak to both and let them know what was going on. They both were extremely understanding so I was very lucky on that regard, as I know a lot of people aren't as understanding. Once I was put on meds it took me 3-4 months to be able to function again, but I was good at my job and I think that as soon as I started feeling better I wanted to 'prove' my worth and I was also very grateful I had been able to keep my job through the whole depression, so I really tried to make up for the lost time.
Yes, people were talking and gossiping but to be honest, I was so exhausted I couldn't even care!! And the minute I started caring again, I just started working really hard to make up for the lost time. I was aware that he gossip had gone around the office but there was not much I could do besides getting back to work. I know this is not very encouraging, but the gossiping around us is out of our control. If you can open a line of communication with your boss and speak honestly about the problem, make a list of priorities and tackle those, maybe that will reduce the levels of anxiety. In my case my anxiety was all related to the possibility of losing my job. Once I spoke to my bosses and I knew I had their support and that I would not lose my job, that helped a lot and relieved some of the anxiety.
Sorry, probably not very helpful advice!!! But I do hope you start feeling better soon. The gossiping makes things harder but is definitely out of our control, although I believe that if someone is being particularly vicious and one has proof of that then is perfectly ok to speak to one's boss about it. We can't change the way our coworkers react to our depression, but is a workplace after all and they everyone is expected to behave in a respectful manner.
Hang in there! Things will get better :)
