How To Professionally Address A Mental Breakdown I’ve been fairly strong throughout Covid, able to push myself to work every day (6-7 days x week) because my thesis project has been somewhat compromised by Covid that this is my unfortunate reality. However, we have just entered our country’s third lockdown recently and just yesterday - out of the blue - I broke for the first time in my life.
I won’t go into the details, and I’ve made efforts to reach out to a therapist.
I have signed a contract with another faculty member to work with them because my supervisor can no longer support me, and right now I am unpaid because of an agreement we made so that I could be paid “up front”, but I can no longer do this work given my extremely broken state of being. So in essence, I owe them hours, and I am currently on no income for the foreseeable future.
I am unsure how to communicate this in a professional manner, though, because I don’t want to hold the project back out of respect, and I also signed a contract. So I’m hoping to get some advice on the best way to approach this. Unfortunately, taking an official/medical leave of absence is not possible for me.
Ask your therapist before you do anything.  They may know something we do not.
If you have a union, they may know about local rules you need to follow.  Ask them.
Tell the faculty you have been ill.  They do not need to know the details of your illness.  Nearly all faculty know that illness, including mental illness, is a common occurrence and not under your control.