Highly paid job but burnt out

[yellowflowerpillowcase]

I already know IABU but I just feel like quitting tomorrow.

I know this is a very good problem to have and believe me I started out on the bottom rung and have had many skint years. I know there are people out there who hate their jobs and are not well paid.

I work in the health field and have worked my way up in my profession. I work 4 days a week partly because of DCs at primary school and partly because I can't bear to be there any more than that, in fact I can hardly bear to be there at all.

The problem is that I know I am burnt out. It saps the life out of me (the system/ organisational stuff mainly). The parts that I used to love about the job are a smaller part of the role and I feel worn down by it. I'm not depressed. When I am not at work for any length of time I feel great. When I have time off it almost makes it worse because I feel like me again and then when I go back, its like going under a black cloud and I lose all my motivation.

I am too well paid to just turn up tomorrow and hand in my notice. My DH earns about half my salary and his contract is not permanent. We have bills to pay and I just can't be that selfish. If I train again as anything else, I will take a massive pay-cut and that will affect the whole family both now and in the future.

Has anyone been through something like this and found another way? Has anyone burnt out from a "great career" but not ruined things for their family? I know this probably sounds incredibly spoiled and first world problem and I guess it is but I don't know how normal it is to be so miserable in a career but see no other way.

I have"a great career" and hate it. Much like the way you've described it. For me it's the burocracy (Sp?) But not the main focus if my profession, and am seriously looking at alternatives. In 4 yrs I'll have 20 yrs into a good pension but I'm still v young to be thinking of stopping work. What to do?

Thanks for replying dudsvill maybe we do the same job?! People make positive comments about my great career and believe me I am grateful but it often feels that it has come at a great price. I am starting to seriously question the effect it has on me. And I have spent all my years studying and working for this great career so feel I have boxed myself in. I hope you find another way.

I was a burnt out doctor at one point. I changed speciality and was lucky enough to get my bounce back.

Do what you need to do to keep yourself healthy, physically and mentally. No major advice, just empathy from someone who has been there.

Thank you cat. I do need to consider some sort of change in area and think that may be key but I probably need a break from it all to go back in fresh. Did you change from a "high stress" to "low stress" area or was it the change itself do you think?

I hear you. I quit my very highly paid ridiculously stressful job 6 weeks ago. I was done. I managed a big team and in the end it was HR and ethics that got me. Being asked to 'engineer' successful people out the door just didn't sit well with me. I'm taking a sabbatical, spending the summer with my three year old and plotting my next move. I appreciate I'm very lucky to do so. But my god it's like the weight of the world has been lifted from my shoulders!

Changed to an area with a different kind of stress. Feel free to drop me a PM for more specifics.

My friend is a nurse and he has burnt our more than once - changes helped him too.

Working in any area of healthcare, you are so far from alone.

Good for you fruitbat! I am happy for you and hope you enjoy your time with your little one! I will say that the way things are "managed" where I work at the minute, I feel squeezed ethically very close to a line I don't want to cross, where the quality of the work I do is just not up to a standard I am happy with. Can I ask what gave you the bravery to take the leap? I grew up in a family with not much money so I have this fear that if I am out of work for a couple of months, we will be out on the street.

Thank you cat. I know it is so very very common and I have been around it so much. As you probably know there is very little recognition or support for it. I have realised recently that it might not be a long-term option for me and I didn't think of that as a naive teenager starting at university!

Start looking for similarish role elsewhere? Talk a slight paycut too? Bad jobs will turn your life into a miserable hell hole. So start looking elsewhere. Can you do the same role in a different field? Just start looking now.

I quit my job 4 years ago without bothering to find another. Best decision I made. I started back on a different ladder 6 months later and now have the career I dreamt of nearly 8 years ago but never thought I'd achieve.... But I didn't have a house or mortgage then. I do now. Just look for a role elsewhere and apply. Then hand notice in if you get it. If not, keep looking and cute back on expenses and start saving more....then quit.

Go find yourself again. Don't be somebody else anymore. Everyone around you needs you to be happy xx

I chucked my high stress, well paying job to hang out with my toddler

My husband took a two month break from his job. He used parental leave and combined it with some annual leave and had a good long rest. We were able to take a payment break on our mortgage too so we weren't worrying too much about money. Would something like that be an option for you, op?

YANBU, I've been signed off from my job due to stress and burn out and I really can't bear to go back. It sounds like you are currently in control of the situation, if on edge. If you continue as you are, will those decisions be yours to make rationally?

@Fruitbat1980 I salute you. How amazing does it feel to be YOU again? And do you feel that your 3 year old gets to see a better, happier side of you more? Well done!

Gosh thank you for your kind words. I am genuinely touched. Buns your story is inspirational. I have done a few applications recently but there is nothing right now in my area- I am online every evening looking for jobs and I think it is quite likely that I can find something by the end of this year. I think the stress of putting on a mask and turning up is the worst bit, it is definitely not the right fit for me anymore and you are right, I need to find myself again.

tootsie thank you so much. I have some time off arranged over the summer to tie in with part of school holidays. The thought of that is keeping me going at the moment. I may be able to take a period of unpaid leave or something similar from the autumn if I haven't arranged something else by then.

Just typing all of this stuff and remembering that I do have choices and options is very very helpful. It is so easy to lose perspective in a job. I think I forget that I can actually leave.

user I agree, I am headed that way. I fear if I go down the route of being signed off that I would struggle to go back at all and I would like to find some other way. I hope you find your way back to wellness and something that will work for you again. Take care of yourself.

Yellow flower I dithered over it for a good few months. In the end A couple of cancer diagnosis in wider friends and family, my bosses boss telling me to PIP someone he didn't like because he didn't like them, my three year old having speech issues (that already he's overcoming with more 'mummy 1:1 time" and a fabulous husband who kept saying "have you quit yet"

Buns of anarchy absolutely! I see now I was a complete stresshead, work absorbed me, and I was in a dark place mentally. I'm a new woman now!

"Have you quit yet" needs to be inked on my hand when I'm on my way in every morning! Maybe I need to set myself a deadline to get out of there by. I'm glad you are seeing the benefits of being with your 3 year old. I do worry about my DC seeing this ball of stress every evening and what I actually bring through the door.

The really poisonous thing is seeing the similar stress in colleagues and how the whole team is becoming dysfunctional. I don't think anyone is normal anymore.

Do it yellow flower- set a reminder on your phone to pop up each morning to tell you! my stress levels started plummeting as soon as I realised I could/ would quit -suddenly the drama didn't seem as important, and neither did the 8am meeting the other side of the country!

Are you a dentist ?

You sound like you might be a GP

I am a doctor and was starting to feel burnt out so looked at sideways moves - I took a year out to do a fellowship and there wasn't much change in pay. I didn't feel I was abandoning my field and due to my fellowship focus I was able to change my regular career in a more manageable direction on return.

Could you look for something similar? There are a number of pay protected opportunities like this in the nhs. The one I did was open to pharmacists, dentists and nurses too

Thank you I am going to set myself a reminder! Not a dentist lunch but another type of health professional. I have heard dentistry is incredibly stressful though.

Thank you Yellowflower, take care. I'm using the time to look for another job so I can go back with my notice letter! The "have you quit yet" idea (and visualising resigning), really helps, I find. Being signed off has given me the chance to properly look. If you really need that breather, don't ignore it. Life often seems better when it all stops for a second.

Thank you caor, the suggestions on here are great. I have been looking at research opportunities as it would take me out of the front line and I think could invigorate my interest. But I haven't come across anything pay protected so it would be a huge pay cut. But I probably need to consider that a pay cut for even a year might be ok.

I'm having a 'gap year' at the moment because I lost interest in the high-powered corporate world. Best thing I ever did.