For the first time in my life, I quit a job without having another job lined up to immediately jump to. Ever since I started working in 2015, I have always had a job. I am unemployed for the first time in my adult life. I do recognize and acknowledge the fortune and privilege I have to say that and also the ability in the first place to have been able to quit my job with nothing lined up. And yet, I still feel dread, anxiety, and stress, and I think it’s eating away at me.

I quit my job because I had been burned out since November and along with many other reasons, I hit a final straw with my employer when she shorted my last paycheck by over $1,000 and refused to pay me for my wages earned. And I know this is not the first time she hasn’t paid someone before.

In relevance to the burnout, the biggest manifestation that made me realize that I needed to leave the job was that I was having ideations of death solely as a way to get out of work. Every other aspect of my life has been relatively healthy – socializing, family, relationship, finances, community, etc. The only thing that I was deeply stressed and anxious about was work.

And it wasn’t the work itself at my job that I dreaded – it was my boss and the endless, inefficient, hours-long, soul-sucking phone calls and meetings. I would leave each conversation/meeting with my boss dejected, unmotivated, overstimulated, overwhelmed, flustered, and with an additional 10 things added for me to do. There was never a second to think, breathe, or process. I just had to do in order to keep things moving forward. I was the sole employee for her business from October to February so if I didn’t do it, cases and peoples’ livelihood would get jeopardized. That’s a lot of responsibility for someone who had only come aboard just three months prior.

At first, each time there was a small trip out of town, I secretly hoped some miraculous event would happen that would leave me stuck somewhere without access to a computer so that I wouldn’t be able to work the next day.

Each time I drove somewhere, in the back of my mind, I would think, “If I got into a car accident, I wouldn’t have to go to work.”

I’d make up wild scenarios in my head of all the possible things that could happen in any moment that would let me get out of work.

Then one night, I was lying in bed, unable to sleep because I was flooded with thoughts of everything I had to do the next day at work. I felt the scars on my arms from my previous suicide attempt and thought, “If I died, I won’t have to go to work.” And that was my final sign that this work environment was not healthy for me. I had to leave.

I talked about it extensively with my partner, my friends, my mother – even my doctor. I figured out the practical means to make it work and I quit. I should feel liberated by leaving an unhealthy situation. So why don’t I?

I think it’s one of two things:

(1) The financial aspect. I no longer have a steady stream of income in my control. However, my employer already failed to pay me for wages earned, so I would still be financially insecure whether I stayed or left anyway. This is the first time I’ve not had a steady income (again, I recognize the privilege in saying that) and it’s something that’s difficult to adjust to. No pay days to look forward to or estimating how much money I earned in a pay period. No more spending money willingly.

(2) I’m not sure if I want to stay in the legal field. This could just be the burnout talking. With the experience I’ve had in the legal field, I’ve learned that the work itself is pretty much all the same across the board, no matter where I work: learn the procedure, learn the deadlines, have a calendaring system, fill out forms/templates, and learn who/what/where your resources are. Research, writing, and organization also come with the territory and those are things I am naturally skilled at and enjoy. With that being said, it’s the team/attorney you work with that makes or breaks job satisfaction and it’s a lot to gamble. It’s a risk everyone takes when they get a new job, but for me, it carries a lot more weight because I know now that the physical work comes easy to me and I know I am highly sensitive to mental/emotional fluctuations (see my previous post about Highly Sensitive Persons).

I’m considering going back to the veterinary field as a veterinary assistant or a Registered Veterinary Technician (RVT). I know – me? Go BACK? After I’ve openly spoken about all the reasons why I left in the first place, how I made a career change, and helping others navigate through their career changes? Veterinary medicine and animal care seems to be the only thing I get truly passionate and excited about. Yes, I’m good at paralegal work and I like helping others. But how much does it really fulfill me? Animal care and medicine on the other hand, I actively enjoy talking about with other people and it’s something I can actually educate people about and feel the hands-on reward of helping an animal and their owner. As a paralegal, I’m not able to give legal advice and that restricts a lot of what I’m able to actually talk about when it comes to law.

I realize that even when friends ask me questions about their pets like what food I recommend or certain animal behaviors, I am actively happy talking about it and enter a “flow” state where I word vomit my previous pre-veterinary education and experience and I’m happy to offer my help. When it came to law, I’d offer maybe one or two sentences at most and refer them to a better source of information.

One of the best moments in my education is still the time I was able to palpate a cow for a pregnancy check and felt a live calf inside her. A majority of people might think that’s disgusting (especially when you learn exactly how that’s done) but I genuinely think it’s one of the most amazing moments I ever got to experience.

It’s possible it may be more of the aspect of being knowledgeable and confident in a specific area to be able to educate/teach others rather than animal care/veterinary medicine itself. I’ve been told I have a natural ability to teach others and I have the potential to be very influential and make a difference through education. Admittedly, I’ve taken much more than one personality/career test and they each have stated that a career in education would be a good fit for me. It’s something to consider, but I never really gave much thought to a job in teaching. It’s not something that seems exciting to me. I am good at training others on the job, but it’s all very informal usually, with no true structure and usually not something I enjoy doing – it would just be another task hoisted on me. But maybe that’s why I didn’t enjoy it – because it wouldn’t be my own choice to train someone else at a job, I would be instructed to do it or it would be because I was training a replacement for my position as I was on my way out. Training, especially talking for long periods of time, tires me out quite a bit, too.

With both my experience in animal care and as a paralegal, I considered combining these two and doing something like regulatory compliance within the veterinary industry. It would be a great combination of my skills, but I wouldn’t get much hands-on work and I think that’s what I miss most about the veterinary field. I also miss the great quality of the education I had, both in school and in practice. Although, there’s no guarantee that things are the same now.

So at this point, I am leaning more towards going through an RVT program. I am excited at the thought of going back to school and brushing up on my skills and acquiring new skills. It’s a topic of education I know I’ll love. And although compassion fatigue and difficult/demanding clients still exist in the field, I think I can handle those situations better now with the resources and skills I learned regarding my mental health over the years. I believe I’ve grown a thicker skin compared to when I was previously in the field. But I’ll never know unless I try! First thing’s first though: recovering mentally and re-regulating my nervous system from all the previous work burnout so I can even be ready to get back in the workforce or school.

We live in a society where you’re expected to always be doing something – working, getting more work, advancing in your career, going to school, looking for your next job, making more money, doing everything you can possibly do. But at this moment, I feel like I was given the opportunity to pause and rest, to evaluate and reflect and decide where I want to go next. And I’m going to take advantage of that opportunity while I have it. I’m still doing work for my non-profits and attending networking events. I’m able to spend more time with my support system and enjoy quality time with my friends and family (I’m trying not to let money be a deciding factor in my quality time spent, but it’s hard not to consider.)

I want to use this time to really recover my mental health and nervous system from all the “go” I had to do with no real breaks. The last time I took a vacation was pre-COVID. The last time I traveled was for a friend’s wedding and I was still working that entire weekend.

So now, we rest.