I had this happen once when I was admitted to the psych hospital. Fortunately, my boss was aware of some of my issues, so he just told everybody that I had taken vacation time. I was gone about 10 days, so when I returned I was still reeling from the hospital experience and it was hard for me to settle back in when everybody though I should be rested.

If you have sick leave or vacation time I don't think they can get around giving you time off, however, if you are like me now and don't have those benefits, that makes it harder to predict. But I will say I was out sick with a blood clot in my leg and they covered for and were very nice when I came back.

Good luck and hope you get your stress level down.