Do I stay or do I go
I work in a very high stress area, a lot of addiction, mental health difficulties, child protection issues ect! I love my job and I’ve work in the area for 3 years (only graduated College last year, casual work for a year and a half, full time ever since) but I feel like I’m really not coping well with the stress the job brings.
I’ve recently been diagnosed with OCD and general anxiety disorder and my anxiety has been at an all time high for the last year! The job causes me so much stress to the point of being physically sick, but at the same time I enjoy it so much. I do a lot of self care but nothing seems to be enough! I’ve always known that this area of work has a lot of burn out so I knew it was like a ticking time bomb since I started but it’s hit me so much sooner then I expected and I’m really disappointed with myself for feeling like this! The though of leavings the sector all together fills me with so much anxiety, I’ll be a quitter, people will know I couldn’t handle the stress, I won’t find something else I love to do. But I’m afraid to stay any longer Incase I break!
As I said I always knew there was a time limit on how long I could do this sort of job, and I would go through phases of “I just need to get through this week” and the anxiety would ease after a while, but since this dip in my mental health the last year I feel as though I’ve been saying “you just gotta get through this week” for a year straight and I’m exhausted!! I kept thinking this super high anxiety would fade and it really hasn’t so I’ve excepted it as my new normal and I don’t know if my new normal can cope with this job.
Has anyone ever stepped back from a job they love? Was it the right choice?