masters - What can I do if my advisor wants me to keep working, even while I'm on medical leave for severe depression?

I'm a Master's student right now. Due to previous incidents (What can I do if a student in my lab threatens to tell lies about me, and my advisor doesn't want to fire her?), I'm clinically depressed and currently on medical leave as a result. My adviser however, still wants me to do experiments for my thesis. I have 0% energy. I don't want to wake up, and I sleep 16-18 hours per day.

He still demands results, but all I want to do is sleep. I'm seeing doctors and psychologists, and all of them agree that I should take a break. I don't feel safe at the lab anymore.

In my country, people with mental illness are incredibly stigmatized. I don't know how to deal with this whole situation, and it's causing me undue stress.

My adviser wants me to work while I'm on medical leave. Actually, I did the majority of my experiments while in that situation, but I can't take it anymore. My physician knows this, and my therapist knows too. I never took my two medical leaves fully because my adviser still wanted me to work.

Answer

There is only one suitable course of action I recommend, as an advisor and a physician. Stop with anything that has a potentially detrimentally effect on your health and focus on your treatment (thus if you believe so also your MSc commitments).

Indeed, your work is likely contributing to your depressive symptoms (irrespective of the differential diagnosis between burnout and depression; e.g. Bianchi et al, Soc Psych Psych Epidemiol 2015).

Much more importantly, if you do not treat yourself now in the best possible fashion you might fail the treatment and even face substantial complications early or later, even life-threatening ones (e.g. Mann, New Engl J Med 2005).

I would definitely inform your physician that your advisor's attitude is likely a contributory factor to your condition.

Finally, notify any oversight committee at your institution, as individual or organizational issues impacting on your depressive symptoms could and probably should be addressed thoroughly (e.g. Theorell et al, BMC Public Health 2015).