some company's will consider a phased return to work - so you go in for fewer hours and do maybe the more simple/auto pilot type tasks gradually building up to doing the full job. It does depend on what your job is of course its not possible for everyone but it may be something you and they could consider.when my husband had his first stroke and was in hospital i used to go in at night after 10 when i got back from visiting and work through into the early hours as my job isnt bound too office hours and is more task than hours based - than when he came out and i was his carer i could drop him at a friends and work just the mornings. I went back too early when he died to make up for that, i had the option to go back later but felt i shouldn't - in part because it didnt seem fair after they were so generous before and in part because i hardly slept and i needed to do something to fill the ling days and nights and other than packing the house up to move and walking the dog i couldn't find anything .
But one thing i did do when i went back was find a run out space - one was a walk round the block, the other was behind a shed so if i started to feel overwhelmed i could go outside and be on my own have a cry or just breathe and calm down then go back in.
That became something i do to this day in social or travel situations as well as i am still not confident and back then had panic attacks which i havnt for a long time now because i have created weapons against them -If i go somewhere i look for my "safe space" as soon as i get there. I also took to taking a prop - a camera - and i would set myself a task to make a series of photos of very specific things - at a steam fair i took radiator grills of vintage cars - waiting for a long train connection in Manchester i took gable ends of old buildings - doing something so concentrated meant my mind was occupied but also in my mind i had felt the need to justify being somewhere on my own to other people - i know they werent really looking and wondering why i was somewhere at all, but i felt they were at the time and that worked for me.
Some-one here at the time said its a bit like slaying dragons - (Being part welsh and being a total softie for any kind of animals i wouldnt slay dragons only metaphorical ones)
but they dont all have to be slain only the ones that you cant avoid and i did find ways to avoid them.
There was a discussion here about eating in a restaurant alone - some-one had done it and of course we were all pleased for her - and to me that became a thing i knew i could never do it - perhaps that meant there is something fundamentally wrong with me - I still haven't done it because i then realized what is a goal for some isnt for others and it isn't my goal - If the goal is to travel somewhere there are plenty of sandwich and coffee take ways - eating for me is just the fuel to travel with - so my advice to anyone else trying to move forward is pick the dragons carefully and make sure they are yours - everyone has different ones and everyone can find props and ways to get round the ones that dont need slaying
Over time when you feel you need to step out of the bubble a bit, but have lost confidence you will find your own path but something we do find in common is loss of confidence is - yet another trick grief plays on many people.