I am trying hard not to feel like I am failing career-wise. In the past, I managed to keep jobs for quite a while, even get promotions.

However, since 2012 when I was laid off from a job due to a change in how the company did business, it has been tough. I did various freelance things for a while. Sometimes I did fine, other periods were pretty rough.

In 2016 I took a job with a new company that someone I freelanced for was starting. Working for him on certain freelance things was fine. But, when I started working with him more permanently, and he had all the stress of trying to get a business of the ground, it was something else. He had serious anger management issues, he put me in some really uncomfortable positions with clients, gaslighted me, etc. After I started having panic attacks, when I’d been there for a year and a half, I quit for my own mental health.

I was unemployed for 6 months and took a position at my present company, which was freelance and then became full-time. That started off okay. My boss was always kind of weird but seemed happy with my work. But, things have gotten really toxic in the last months. She is constantly playing favorites, I feel like last month I was completely sabotaged and I am being nitpicked over things that before were okay or that I was even told to do by the editor. More on that here: https://forums.psychcentral.com/work...anagement.html . She wants a meeting with me to discuss my supposed lower performance and I think it is a step towards firing me. If I am fired I will get two months’ salary as severance, at least. If I quit, which she is probably trying to get me to do, I get only vacation pay and a small unemployment account. I’ve seen it before, she suddenly decides she doesn’t want someone around, and does what she can to get them to leave.

I am trying not to feel like I am a failure for two jobs not working out, but it is hard. Thinking logically, I know that in both situations, management is poor and turnover is extremely high. At the place where I worked starting in 2016 only one person that started with the company is still there. Many positions have had 3-4 people cycle through. In my current department, in the year and a half I’ve been there 11 people have quit or been fired in an 8-person department. So, I shouldn’t take it personally, but some days it is so hard. I just feel so discouraged. It was hard to even get out of bed this morning and I cry before I start working because I don’t want to even deal with my boss.