I walked away from my career

I was a teacher for 8 years. I left my career early last year and after a couple of months of not working became a caregiver for a short period and now a nanny. I have forgiven myself for leaving a great career and have stopped thinking that I failed.
Being a nanny is something I think of as short term not something I want to do forever.
I have been off and on my antidepressant finally coming to the conclusion that although I don't usually need it in the spring and summer right now I do.

Job searching isn't fun and the fear I can't get rid of is what if I find something else and the depression and anxiety get the best of me again. I couldn't continue teaching because it was too overwhelming. I was stressed out and had to give myself a pep talk just to walk into my classroom.
I just don't know what to do with myself, I feel stuck, and sometimes I think I'll settle for any job that can pay my bills and isn't too stressful. I'm a smart gal with 2 degrees. Where do I go from here?

Can anyone relate?

I also walked out of teaching 7 years ago. I was in a good position earning a good salary, but my senior management started to recognise my "moods" and "erratic behaviour" lol. I walked out one day and never returned. Classic self destructive behaviour.

I now run my own business. I'm sure that is something you could do yourself. A lot of people seem to like making things and selling them online etc. Perhaps if you're an arty person, you could do this. I'm sure there are things you could do where you can work at your own pace without any pressures.

Good luck with it all.

I can relate. I'm an attorney and have been disabled and not working since 2009.

I can relate also.

I had a great job that paid me very well, the work was great and I liked the people I worked with. The hypomanic side of me got me a long contract, recognition from the director of a half a billion pound firm for my efforts and a future that looked promising. I was focused. At the same time I wasn't sleeping, I was drinking heavily and no amount of sleeping pills were working. In hindsight, I needed meds back then.

And then the other side of bipolar took it all away in the space of a couple of months. I lost my job and it's hit me hard ever since. I've never recovered from it and years later it still breaks me.

Now I find myself struggling to stay in work.

Wow. I teach HS right now and am thinking about doing the same thing. Like any other job, it has its good and bad and I'm trying not to self destruct. But I find it boring and unchallenging. It makes me feel like I'm in a box, unable to change a lot of what is around me. It also makes me feel like this is it for me. There is no horizon.

My hypomania probably makes things worse for me in the long run. There are days when I just click - the lessons work, the kids are good, and I'm super productive. On the downside of hypomania, I'm off. But......what most of society doesn't understand is this - I need to be ON all day, every day. This isn't like dealing with adults - there is no comparison. There is no down time in a school. I'm either ON or the kids take over. One or the other. Trying to be *on* all day just drains my soul.

So, as time goes by, I'm becoming one of "them" - the teachers who come in, punch the clock, and came to the realization years ago that they can probably only reach half the kids (especially as teens). It is a self-defense mechanism. A wise colleague I respect once told me "if you let them drain your blood out of your body, they'll gladly drain every drop of it". They have so many more problems than I can fix. There's too much to do. There's too much to fix. Over time, I believe teaching has made my BP worse and I get angrier and more paranoid by the day. I'm just whipped.

You all have my sympathies. I walked away from my career as a nurse/manager and wound up on disability because I could not function in any type of work situation. I wish it had never happened; I'd been prepared to nurse till I was 70 so I could get full SS benefits. But life is one of those things that happen to you while you're busy making other plans, and this bipolar thing whipped up into a major storm that swept away almost everything---my career, my home, my place in society. I'm dealing with it but my, how it hurts sometimes.

Yes, I can definitely relate to having to walk away from a career. I am sorry you are going through this. I was a physician for 19 years and recently stopping practicing and am on disability. The stress of being a doctor ( and a mom to 4 kids, 3 of whom of triplets) was just too much. Part of me feels sad but another part of me feels relief. I am proud of the work I did and had a great career, but it just ended up being a shorter career than I imagined.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do. Is being a nanny stressful? Do you enjoy it?

Mom2trips+1

[QUOTE=Row Jimmy;4435051]Wow. I teach HS right now and am thinking about doing the same thing. Like any other job, it has its good and bad and I'm trying not to self destruct. But I find it boring and unchallenging. It makes me feel like I'm in a box, unable to change a lot of what is around me. It also makes me feel like this is it for me. There is no horizon.

My hypomania probably makes things worse for me in the long run. There are days when I just click - the lessons work, the kids are good, and I'm super productive. Other the downside, I'm off. But......what most of society doesn't understand is this - I need to be ON all day. There is no down time in a school. I'm either ON or the kids take over. One or the other.

So, as time goes by, I'm becoming one of "them" - the teachers who come in, punch the clock, and came to the realization years ago that they can probably only reach half the kids (especially as teens). It is a self-defense mechanism. They have so many more problems than I can fix. Over time, I believe teaching has made my BP worse and I get angrier and more paranoid by the day. It just drains my soul.[/QUOTE

It is a very stressful job. It takes a lot out of us. I loved what I did and the role I played but it was just all too much to handle anymore. I believe I made the right decision because not a day has gone by that I miss it.

Take care of you. Best of luck.

Being a nanny isn't stressful and that's what I like about it. I taught kindergarten and first grade so taking care of 1-3 children now is so doable. I'm good with kids. But I don't see it as a long term career. I guess I expect more for myself.

My fear as well is I'll go into something else and get overwhelmed like I did with teaching. I sometimes think I failed because I couldn't handle teaching.

I underwrote accounts for a credit card processing company. It was challenging work, I loved it, and it paid well. I had every intention of retiring with my company but I walked away to stay home with my kids. I planned to go back to work when my youngest started kindergarten. Five years later, I am 31 and my doctor has suggested disability for me. I don't know if I'll ever be able to work again and I am certain that work with so much responsibility will be out of the question. At this point, I feel I can hardly be a good mom. I'm not sure I can do anything on top of that.

I provided childcare in my home and I was homeschooling my preschoolers when I had a psychotic break. To me, that was the toughest work I had ever done. I think it was partly so difficult because of the inability to leave my house (almost ever). Being alone with little children without a break is quite challenging and I sometimes think it is what caused my breakdown (At the time, including my own, I had three who were 4 years old, a 2 year old, and a 1 year old). Don't sell yourself short!

I hope you are able to find work that is challenging for you and also does not exasperate your illness. It is hard to do! You did not fail because you had to walk away from your career. It is easy to fall into that thinking but it is false. You have an illness; you were sick and teaching was just too hard on your illness. It isn't you. I wish you well!

I walked away from a national career 12 years ago. It was a fantastic job, which I loved. But it came at such a high cost that in the end it came down to more medication than I was willing to take, so I quit. I ran my own business for the next 11 years, working when I felt able. I walked away from that last year due to not being able to cope with the stress of customer contact and making sure I earned enough money each week to pay the bills. I am a tradesman by trade. I now clean toilet and love it. It is brain dead work that pays the same amount each week and leaves me free the rest of the week to time out and actually enjoy life. We are living on so much less, but for the first time in years I actually feel like I am working to live, not living to work.

Don't be afraid to step outside your comfort zone when it comes to work. I would have never guessed I would be cleaning toilets for a living, but feel better than I have in probably 5 years. Lesson for me - do whatever it takes to reduce your stress. There is nothing worse, there is nothing more toxic than stress.

xx

I was a teacher for ten years. I also walked out and never went back....