Family Medical Leave Act in the US allows an employee to be out of work to take care of medical needs for themselves or family. I have this at my work for my daughter who suffers from a lot of behavior issues. I had to be out yesterday because of my daughter's behavior issues and today, my wife is so sick, I have to take care of my daughter and be available to follow up on things if she has "suicidal" expressions, etc....

I feel guilty about taking FMLA though. I hate this because I have no choice, but to be home. I work so far from my home that I can't just go to work and leave as needed. I take a train that runs once every 2 hours mid-day and takes me 2 hours each way travel time, so if I had to leave for an emergency, it could take me 4 hours to line it up and get home (yes, it's happened).

But why do I feel guilty? I don't know. I just want the guilt to stop and be confident that these things are necessary for now. My hope is I won't need to take this FMLA for much longer because we are getting a new treatment option, but that will not be for a little while. My work has been helpful overall with this, so I think the guilt is my own. I just need to keep myself from expressing my feelings to work. It doesn't serve anyone if I start apologizing all the time. I am doing the best I can given what I have and it's not perfect.

It doesn't help that the doctor my daughter has isn't happy about writing letters for me to get FMLA. That makes me mad, but I have one for this year and when I have to ask again, I'm sure I'll have to go through an obnoxious conversation about why I can't just leave work at a moment's notice to get home and really get stuck taking the entire day off.

I think that it does not help that I am the only one working. My wife can't work and take care of the kids and with my older daughter, things can get out of control quickly. Lastly mental health isn't easy to define to others, so I don't even bother trying to state the exact why I had to take the day. It feels like others would consider it to not be a problem because my daughter can physically do what she needs to. We just need to keep her calm so she doesn't try to hurt herself and we are just trying to get her to go to her therapeutic school.