Decision to make regarding work

Post Reply New Topic

At the moment I'm off work as I had several anxiety attacks. This will last until the end off the month, when my doctor will review my case. When I started this job more than a year ago I was happily working full-time, but now I can't even seem to manage part-time. I'm going to be moving at the end of this year across the country to move in with my partner. We lived together before but he got a job elsewhere and I'm locked into my contract on this flat until 2017, plus I'm supposed to be working.

My anxiety has decreased substantially with the time off, but I fear that the moment anything stressful happens it will come right back. People rely on me there, and I have become unreliable. My partner and my parents are happy to support me, but are worried about me - I feel the pressure to continue working. Without it I feel aimless, and useless. Yet my mind refuses to co-operate.

On top of this moving across the country is going to be a massive deal. I'm gonna have to manage so many different aspects of the move. Self-organisation is possibly my biggest weakness.

I should attempt to summarise. If I am not working I feel terrible, but I fear my job will burn me out completely. What should I do?

I'm gonna bump this once. I suspect though that people are reading it and having no idea what to say, which is what I feel with 99% of posts in here. That's OK.

Since your partner and parents are willing to support you, could you give yourself over to taking a kind of sabbatical off from working -- but because you feel bad when not working, you could do some volunteering on a limited part time basis?

It seems very like you are not yet ready to work full time or part time and you do really, really need to perhaps lean on the support your loved ones are offering at the moment. It strikes me that you're burned out and still need recovery time.

You might have to be kind to yourself by allowing yourself to go ahead and not be working for a while more, until you really feel you have more of your old self back.

But because you don't feel happy when you're not working, it may help to find something to do in which the responsibilities and burdens are not as large as they are in a work situation, but where you can still feel useful and fulfilled, such as volunteering for something you care about, for example an animal shelter if you like animals, a care home, a charity, etc.

This stage you're experiencing may not last forever, and with time and rest mentally and emotionally, it could help you regain the reserves to face work again on some basis in the future.

Just a few thoughts.

What you say makes a lot of sense. It's really what I would tell someone else in my situation. Applying it to myself is another matter though!