Geez, British weather sounds very similar to Melbourne weather, four seasons in a day. LOL.

Its hard for me to say, as I don't work, and I doubt I would ever go back full-time into anything, as the stress would just be too much. Just running this network as my hobby becomes quite stressful at times, and thats from home... and a hobby.

From what I have seen from people returning to work with severe PTSD, is follows:

Initial Stage

Begin returing to work for approximately 2 hours, once or twice a week. This is to simply familiarise yourself with the work environment again.

Work Stage

This can vary per person, but generally you extend the initial stage to half days, once or twice per week, so the person is actually working, and coping with the work load and stress factors. This is generally where a person will know whether they can continue or not.

Increased Work Stage

Start pushing the work stage out across more days, and generally throw in a full day once or twice per week.

Final Stage

Basically each work day is pushed to normal hours, maybe across a four day week or even full five day week.

The return to work that I have seen done with people has stretched over months, and often gone back and forth between stages before possibly moving up a stage and increasing the work load. I have seen people successfully return to work, then crash within a couple of months after full-time return, and done exactly as you said, either did succeed or ended up quite ill as a result.

Honestly, I have seen or heard off very very few people with severe PTSD ever have a normal working life again. It is so few and far between, it is rare. Whilst some will work, they may not ever work a full five day week, or even some go on the reverse of all this, and become work acholics, attempting to suppress the stress and anxiety... which always catches up with them.

At a guess, I would certainly be medicated if returning to work, unless you are one very strong person who can control PTSD within themselves to get through. I haven't seen many of those either.

I know this sounds negative, but in fact I am just trying to fly past the bullshit and give the honest truth about the illness and what I have seen with return to work. I know that some people fall at the bottom end of PTSD, and really, their diagnosis could even be wrong... as their symptoms are very managable and allow them to carry on through life pretty normally. These are often the cases I see where doctors use them as examples. Wrong for most of us, but doctors need results!

I think it is very possible for someone with PTSD to return to work though, its more a case that our available resources to cope with work capacity, generally doesn't fit with 99% of employers, thus they push and push to get a person back full-time to please themselves, not us, and we suffer each and every time.

I would honestly say that it needs to be done very slowly...

Where I have seen positive results, is where some people work within their bounds, ie. they take up a job completely different than they may be used too, either adventurous, working from home within their own scope, running their own part-time business, and even things like becoming a personal trainer, where people can work their own hours around PTSD symptoms, or only enough not to provoke PTSD symptoms.