To leave my professional career for a low paid job?

[raininginbaltimore]

I'm a teacher. Been teaching for 8 years, I'm a Headnof department for a small dept in secondary school.

I have bipolar disorder, diagnosed two years ago an have just had my second dc. As a family we have had a rough few months, I've been in a mother and baby unit and dd has been ill. I cannot face going back to work. Teaching just doesn't seem doable anymore. I can go back 4 days, but nothing less. I can't move schools as I am too expensive, and not many local jobs.

I am so exhausted with the job. I have been made aware of a job in a local charity. Two days a week, much lower salary etc. however after childcare costs etc we wouldn't be much worse off.

Has anyone done this?

theoriginalandbestrookie, I've been there. I had a lot of shit from my boss over serious physical health problem when working as a web designer. It was totally against employment law but I just didn't have the strength to fight it at the time, and it's too long ago to do anything about it. The company didn't pay a pension or sick pay. I think that's quite normal these days.

I usually worked a 50 hour week, maybe more. I was at their beck and call, even at home. If something needed doing, I just had to do it. It was a small company, and I thought I'd get the experience in the area I wanted to get into.

I had a breakdown and an episode of psyschotic depression, so that fucked that up nicely!

So, Bunfag, your recommendation to the OP would be to leave and do something else before she has a physical or mental breakdown.
One more for the 'Leave and don't look back' brigade.

I and many of my colleagues (moreso the junior ones) can stand up and leave at 5.30 and not think about work again until 9am the next day. I have visited a lot of businesses in my work and this is not in the least unusual. These jobs are out there.

To add some balance to the thread I left a pressured career that required a lot of travel to become a teacher. I was so unhappy but worried that I was being selfish in making a decision that would have such an impact on my family financially. I think going into teaching required me to take about a 70% pay cut.

It was without doubt the best thing I did, although my husband was a higher earner than me so it cushioned the financial blow. I am not sure if I would have been brave enough to make that decision without his wages coming in. I am so much happier and the children are so much happier and I love the fact that we have all the holidays together. In addition to this because I am a good teacher, because I love it, I was quickly promoted and now earn a very good wage ( although still only a fraction if what I was earning !!)

Teaching can be tough and I think that you have to love the job to want to do it and to do the job that the students deserve. I have passed through the burn out phase quoted above but would like to go part time. But because I have management responsibilities I was turned down. I went through a phase last term of wanting the car to crash so I did not have to go to work, not because I didn't like the job but because I was exhausted. I think that is a key difference, I think having daft thoughts out of exhaustion is a concern but not necessarily a reason to leave a job - but rather look at the way you work. I also had a miscarriage around this time, so I do not think I was entirely thinking straight anyway. But if you are having such thoughts because you hate the job, it is time to look for something else.

I do not think it is right to paint a picture if teaching as an awful profession that sucks the life out of people, most of the teachers I work with are very happy.

You're not a teacher. So your opinions aren't that useful really

I respectfully disagree with that. I'm a parent. I wouldn't want my child be taught by someone who wasn't happy in the job. If you're that unhappy that you contemplate self harm and dread going into work then you shouldn't be doing in that profession. It takes one flipped switch to make your thoughts into reality.

doing

Basically TheNebulousBoojum, yes. At first I hated the fact that people see you differently. When I met people and they asked "What do you do?" I would say "I'm a web designer". Cue the positive noise and approving look.

Then it was a case of "What do you do?" and I would say "I'm taking a break to do voluntary work basically unemployed". Cue look of sympathy and "oh dear" noise. Sometimes even disaproval and "why aren't you working?"

Then I though fuck the shallow twats. Why should I have to fit into their little eye-spy book of trite stereotypes.

Now I do some freelancing and it's now a case of - look of sympathy and "oh dear" noise. Sometimes even disaproval and "what are you doing to look for work?". But, most people are twats.

At least I'm relatively sane and won't kill myself or end up in hospital.

I think that's what we are saying Fakebook.
For me, I'm still keeping my balance on the highwire, but it's a week by week act.

We have a lot of teachers in our family and i over hear a lot of their moaning, rightly or wrongly.
Nobody should be so unhappy that work makes them want to harm themselves but teachers are in too an important role to be anything less than 110% most of the time. That's what our lot like you to believe so it must be true

Fakebook I agree with you in principle but I suspect lots of us have periods when we are just too exhausted by life to think rationally about anything, including work. The good thing about teaching is that often that happens just before a holiday so that you can have that much needed break and carry on.

At the end of last term I had a miscarriage and was signed of work, my immediate thoughts were " thank Fuck I can rest"

I can assure you that does not represent me as the person I usually am and that I am a very good teacher who usually cannot believe that I am lucky enough to have a job that brings me such contentment.

The OP has to consider whether her feelings are just a fleeting thing that perhaps come at the end of a long term or whether that are a more permanent thing. Also whether these feelings are about being tired or hating the job. She also has mental health considerations as well.

There would be a huge shortage of teachers if everyone who wasn't happy in it left. Fakebook, there is a very significant chance that your DC have been taught by unhappy teachers if they have been at school for a few years.

I am really sorry Mosman but I have never been at 110%. I clearly am a teaching failure

I disagree breatheslowly , most of the teachers I work with are very happy. everyone will have odd moments which like me may coincide with pressures at home .

Weell, at least it shows how good the acting skills of most teachers are if the majority of parents are convinced!
The TES forums often show the unvarnished side of the job.

'I am really sorry Mosman but I have never been at 110%. I clearly am a teaching failure'

As I said earlier, if we applied that standard to parenting we'd all be failures.

But the TES forums ( the moaning parts - I don't really go on there to be honest ) represent unhappy teachers not teachers as a whole. Or represents teachers when they are having low moments.

People tend not to start a thread saying that everything is great, what would be the point. however if you look at threads on here about people who love their jobs, they tend to have a lot of posts from teachers.

Those TES threads represent a few permanently unhappy teachers who do need to leave the profession and the rest of us just having a bad day.

I was being sarcastic TheNebulousBoojum although clearly I have never worked at 110%.

Fair enough Arisbottle.
I just think that if there was a way of getting a truthful response from every single state teacher at the chalkface about AD use, level of alcohol abuse and general depression and misery with the job, the government interference and the exhaustion, parents would be horrified.

Well OP I am not a teacher but work in the NHS in a job that's equivalent in terms of pay and responsibility.
I have been doing this for nearly twenty years and still care passionately about the patients I work with.
Despite this The 'job' overall is now taking such a toll on me mentally that I am now almost certainly going to be leaving to take a position in the charity sector for just over half the pay (can't hunk far enough ahead to really factor in the pension etc as. To be honest I feel I might not make it that far if I stay in this job. if indeed there is even a retirement age at all by the time I am in my sixties (20 years or so)
It won't be easy but is just about possible for me to do this financially but I feel I need to release myself from the constant stress, anxiety (sometimes overwhelming) working at 150% capacity and having nothing left over for my family and friends.
Good luck to you I hope you find a way to make the changes you need to stay well and happy. X

But you could be on AD for reasons that are nothing to do with the job.

Maybe I work in a school that does not reflect reality but I work with people who genuinely love their job, you can feel the positivity in the air.

There are a lot of very unhappy, overworked and stressed teachers at my school. I am on maternity leave at moment, so in theory having a rest. I love teaching, but I can't do it well enough in the time on given. So I feel like I am always doing a crap job. I just don't have the ability to work every evening and weekend like I used to.

Also I think people are maybe confusing being unhappy with the job and under performing in the job. It is perfectly possible (although far from desirable) to perform well and care massively about the field you're in, but still suffer because of it or feel unhappy overall.

I have a friend who was a deputy head in a primary, but was at breaking point. She moved to another school, and in the application process explained she wanted to return to being a classroom teacher, without all the additional responsibilities. As a deputy head, she was 75% timetabled to teach, was the SEN co-ordinator etc etc.
A salary drop back down the scale was negotiated, and I think she agreed to take on a specific aspect of SEN, supporting the SEN co-ordinator in the new school.
She's happy and relieved and the money is still good enough, plus she has much more of her life back,

Just thought I'd post this as an alternative view.

I don't think it is possible to be that unhappy that you are hurting yourself and be performing at a satisfactory level tbh. In any job.

I was being highly sarcastic myself in the "most important job" comment but teachers do set the bar for themselves pretty high so if they aren't hitting the spot they fall further than most I guess.

"Wow. Poor pupils."

I think Fakebook is right.

It must have an effect on pupils if teachers are so stressed and unhappy in their work that they dread the working week and wish accidents upon themselves to avoid it.

It is a massive, massive failure by the people paid goog money to run our schools and manage our education system if teaching has become an unattractive job where the rewards don't make up for the drawbacks.

Teaching is a creative job. That means teachers need mental space to develop their ideas and practice.

Our children deserve better than this.