I wake up every day, hours before my day in absolute fear of the day to come. I wake up with migraines, headaches, or simply physically ill. I live for the weekend and dread the horrible Mondays that were to come. I feel unfulfilled in my position. My management doesn’t listen and works me to the bone. I can’t stand my job anymore. I can’t quit this early or I’ll be a failure or I will come to regret it.

Does this sound like any of you? Well if statistics are anything to go by, and the fact that you found this article because it answers a question you yourself have been feeling or pondering yourself, then the chances are that it describes you even if only slightly. Maybe just hearing my story can bring you some clarity and strength, show that not everyone’s life or personal journeys are the same and that the standard suggestions to stay for a year or two, or even have a job lined up before leaving don’t fit every single personal situation.

As far as my story goes, I was a college student who graduated in the best year anyone could have ever imagined, 2020. I was always a star student through all of my years in schooling and went on to become a regents scholar at my uni and graduate with a 3.69 gpa. Sure that isn’t the top brass academically, but it sure isn’t anything to scoff at either. I was always someone who loved coming home from school and just sitting down with a great anime or video game and just playing the night away. Don’t even get me started on the amazing all nighters with friends playing games like minecraft in high-school or monster hunter on the weekends. Anyways what I am getting at is I went through life never having to think too much about what I wanted. I knew that Psychology was going to be a fun field to study and with my academic success I figured I would just go into grad school after and become a school psychologist.

I always thought that my approach to work would be the same as my approach with life. I used to go into high-school everyday and college later with the mentality of “how can I make someone’s day better today”. This would range from small things like complimenting someone genuinely to helping give people rides to their off campus cars when they needed it. Naturally I felt some sort of therapist type position would benefit me the best. Imagine my surprise when 2020 rolls around and everything in my life finally changed.

People thought I was always a stable child for the most part. They always felt I was shy and quiet but thought no more of it. Yet little did they know that my whole life I have had debilitating social anxiety. It has been something that has changed severity through my life. For some reason it mostly strikes when I am worried about what people think of me, or forging possible friendships. therefore I was never really too worried about being nice to the occasional stranger or helping someone out, but the minute that performance or responsibility entered the fray, I would clam up. This meant being frozen with any sort of authority, especially my boss at the job I quit. I was always such a nice, giving, yes man that I would give until there was none left for me. I would wear myself thin.

Inevitably I ran into college burnout when I graduated. This led to me being holed up in my room avoiding the world and doing nothing external. It was all video games and anime and no interacting with the outside world. I got possibly a bit too comfy because almost a year has passed since then. I would passively apply for employment anywhere I could find seeing that I never worked officially a day in my life, it had all been volunteer work or under the table family chores like lawn mowing and grounds keeping. Needless to say this was all a domino effect as to how I might handle my future employment.

I got a journal, I sought mental help, and I confided in whoever I could. My parents and friends all finally seeing how volatile I really was. Someone who never needed to think about what he wanted out of life that deeply and never had to deal with a hardship, seeing as I have never had family pass away until recently from Covid-19, was about to have everything hit him at once. I had no practice when it came to stress and coping skills beyond the idea of just playing games. I knew a lot of them from my college courses but they were foreign to me. I was not quite ready for the stress of a new job.

So I found myself in a workplace that was very mismanaged. I was an assistant in a family owned construction company. The day to day usually left me alone completely not a single soul was in the shop with me as I was left to do my office tasks and then guess the needs of my immediate boss who I would see for 20 minutes a day randomly. Sometimes I wouldn’t see him for 2 whole days and the isolation and the wonder of whether I did a good job that day would weigh on me. I never knew when I went in the next day if I would be scolded or not (and I was often). He would scold me like a kid make me feel so incredibly small.

So imagine all that going on with someone who may not have been equipped to handle it. All I could think about was how I wanted to quit. I discussed it between the first and second month of employment whether it was a good idea or not for me to quit with friends and family and they all said it was time to quit. The isolation, the amount of things left in the air for me to guess upon, and mostly the unsafe work environment (forced to drive a forklift day one no training or certification) were too much. I saw a lot of people saying that you should try and not run from something but towards something, so I was applying to jobs in the background. I was unsure of my next step but there was one shining light to come out of this experience.

That would be my self reflection. I thought about what I want in my life. I felt that it was time for me to put myself out there more in the form of this blog, I want to try my hand the ever so coveted YouTube sphere, and me and a partner have been wanting to start a business. I am trying all these things while studying for grad school in case none of them land. I thought of them and started immediately with my blog as my vtuber model gets created. Thankfully I had family who supported me and I saved up money from those two weeks to support myself in the meantime.

In the end there is no career advice that is a one size fits all. Humans are complex, with a lot that goes behind the scene that no one ever knows even their own parents and closest family. So hopefully my story can being you some solace. I hope you will forgive the quick contradiction, but the major reason I quit does in fact seem like the only one I could tell anyone in this situation and that is if your mental health is suffering it is never worth the job. If quitting can save you from self destructive thoughts or behaviors please don’t throw away the gift of you life as that is unique and precious. For me it was loss of appetite. I was eating only 400 calories for an entire day with a job that had physical labor and I was losing weight insanely fast. That and the stress could have really done a number on me.

Last but not least I would love to thank you all for reading. I encourage you to share this around if you know someone who you think could benefit from hearing my story and encourage them to share theirs. Lastly if you have any questions further about what happened in my own life or just want to share it directly here feel free to leave a comment, I try to read every single one and reply when appropriate. and if you would like to follow me on my few social medias I welcome anyone to follow me.