AUGUST 17 — The thing about chronic long term mental disorders is that you won't wake up, one day, cured. Some days, or most days if you're lucky, you'll get on with life just fine.

Then you have one of those days when you just can't bring yourself to leave your bed.

Not all of us are lucky enough to be working somewhere with discretionary leave days — days which you can just choose not to come in, without saying why. I had those when I was working with the UNHCR and with a PR firm — and I wish more people had access to them.

The stigma of mental illness is strong enough that many of those diagnosed with MI choose not to disclose their conditions. It doesn't help either that local insurance firms have no coverage for mental health.

Some workplaces, I'm told, need you to disclose your illness and will only accept medical leave recommendations from a certified mental health professional.

This will pretty much be next to impossible for people who rely on public hospitals for mental healthcare. You can't just walk in and get your medical leave from a public hospital -- you will need an appointment.

Let's not forget the discrimination faced by those with MI in the workplace, which is terribly unfair. Both Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill struggled with depression and yet neither are remembered in history books for being "crazy.”

The best advice I can give to people with MI who are unfit for work but cannot divulge their conditions: get an MC for your physical symptoms.

On my worst days, I would not be able to look at straight lines without them wavering in front of me. Simply telling my GP that usually got me bed rest, post-haste. It was still the truth, after all. How could I possibly work when I couldn't see straight? If I was driving, I would have been a menace on the road.

The physical symptoms that often accompany the worst of breakdowns or MI episodes are real ― tremors, fatigue, aches and pains. Not imagined, and not likely to be made to go away with "positive thinking”, whatever chirpy celebrity gurus may say.

In future I hope that taking a "mental health day” will be a common thing, with no shame attached. And that whether your mental health day is spent recuperating at home or taking your kids to the park, no one, least of all your colleagues, will ask or judge.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.