My boss was out of the country for all December and for some reason depression and anxiety hit me hard. They feed off one another. Something causes me to stumble, then I get depressed because something went wrong and so I have no energy to fix things, then I get anxious that I've done nothing, then I'm depressed over what a shit situation I've found myself in, then anxious over blah blah blah.

I reached out to my boss last Friday as she returned to explain that I've had mental health struggles that have caused me to just lay in bed all December. She's generally kind and understanding, I have sufficiently high hopes that everything will be fine. But I hate hate *hate* disappointing authority figures. I've always hated it. I just want her to be impressed with me and proud of my work, not trying to make a plan with me to get things back on track, you know?

I hope everything's okay. I honestly think that if she asks me what I need from her the best and right answer might be just "Tell me sincerely you're not upset about what I've missed. Without the guilt of the past weeks I think I can just dust myself off and move on, but it's the crushing guilt of doing *nothing* that's just keeping me down."

I wish more people understood mental health struggles. I feel like an idiot that all I need is for her to say "It's okay, I don't hate you." and that she won't take my issues seriously if I tell her something so *seemingly* small will probably fix things, but honestly that's what I need.