...to ask if anyone's taken a massive risk & left a job they hate to save their sanity & to avoid getting ill!?!

[wolfgirl11]

Hello MN massive,

I'm in a pretty bad way at the moment.

Can't give too much away but I'm in a highly stressful job in a very busy environment working with really vulnerable adults.
I can feel that the exhaustion is impacting my mental health and physical health.
I am constantly tired out. Support at work from managers is very poor.

I'm a single mum & renting a house in an expensive city. I have no support from family or my children's dad. Been in this situation for 6 years. I dream of being a writer and have been published in the past year (small thing but big deal to me!)
I don't have the energy to write in the evenings but have so many ideas and notes everywhere!

I have about £5,000 in savings.

I just think life is too short to keep working in this way & really worried I'll become unwell.

Any risk takers out there who have no regrets about taking a risk? Any advice?
I'm feeling so trapped and so sad.

Thanks for reading 🙏🏽

I think I'd suggest making your plan to leave but hanging on for now to save a bit more and tighten belts. You may feel better if you know you're going soon.
Good plan on temping but I think £5k is slim.
You need to bear in mind that if your current employer pays you for sick leave, a temporary role probably won't and you could be in financial trouble if you got poorly.

But yes, work towards leaving

A mate of mine was in a job he loved but management changes made it worse over a period of time and one night i had a bit of a row with him and told him he wasnt the mate i've known for the years I had known him and they were fucking with his head and mental health at work.

Now he's jacked that job in and he's in a new one not quite so well paid but he has his health . sanity and wellbeing back again.

You OP, are not alone!

I left a very steady, secure career when my mental health deteriorated so much I wasn't actually sure I'd live to see another day. It was so hard leaving a job I'd thought I'd for my whole working life but I knew I had to escape from it. I had no job to go to when I quit but I had a similar amount in savings as you do and that kept me afloat for a few months. I managed to find a new job, in a completely different field, and started within 2 months. My mental health is now the best it's ever been and I'm so glad I made the decision to leave my previous career. I ended up taking a pay cut but tightening my belt a little each month is much easier than the strain of working a job I hated.

Hope you get sorted in something that truly makes you happy soon!

Yes. I was totally skint, but got Govt grant & studied online & temped in easy no stress reception jobs. Small 'boutique' consultancy, marketing & investments places, where I could easily get daily quiet patches to read & study. I specifically asked for small companies as its only you on front desk & as long as you smile, register them & offer coffee while they wait, job done. I was discreet about it tho, I didn't wave in anyone's face the studying,but met many temps doing the same.

I didn't do this, ended up having a mental breakdown, without going into too much detail, I have been off work for close to 6 years, while my mental health improves.

If I had done the sensible thing and jacked it in, when I knew it was getting bad, I might not of been out of work for as long

Yes...i left a job that was bulling, went to uni and retrained but i was unmarried and pretty much moved back to parents who supported by decision to leave (in fact begged me to go). Best decision ever.

Dh..bullied...left. Sofa surfed for 2 years, moved every year for next five years. Only now stable but job better and hes happy. Vvvvvvvv hard financially and i cant tell you the stress. My income didn't cover rent. Im a mntter who can fed us on less than £20 a week now. On the fence on this decision. He had to leave really but huge cost. Id say after 10 years of pain everything ok but ive been left with a fear of it happening again.

I did this but I had family backing and a lot of savings so a goodish safety net. I took 3 months off and changed roles completely. Good luck, OP!

I did, I was in a job for years that only ever kept everyone casual, I was happy, bought a house after a few years as the hours were always great.... then they started cutting everyone's hours, reduced shift lengths but expected all the same stuff done in half the time, boss became a bitch to work for/with - once yelled at me for showing up 15mins early (that's what we had all done for years), yelled at me that she wasn't going to pay me for the time..... no one ever put in a start time earlier than the actual stated start time, she was just being nasty.

The list of nastiness could go on, I got to the point where I was broke as broke, depressed as hell but still hanging in and waiting for the 'old her', the 'nice her' to come back. I waited for years, left every shift in tears just about.

In the end I bit the bullet and applied for an apprenticeship through a job agency in a completely different field. A month after I started my boss told me he couldn't afford to keep me on through the agency as it was costing him always twice as much as they were paying me. He asked me to quit the agency and promised to rehire me.

I had a mortgage to pay and let me tell you, handing in my resignation and trusting he would do the right thing was one of the scariest moments of my life. In the end he did indeed rehire me, full time and I never looked back, life got better, I could pay my bills and my mental health vastly improved almost immediately. I worked there until I had my DD and then they helped me to get a job that worked round my DD and my husband's work hours when I was ready to get back to work once my DD was old enough.

The best and scariest decision I ever made.

Oh yeah, if you're going to do temp work then go for it 😊

Do it. I stubbornly hung on in a rubbish job where I was being bullied. In the end I had a breakdown and nine months off sick. It’s really hard explaining that sickness record when I apply for jobs. it would be much easier to explain leaving a job to job hunt / retrain.

sorry, that should have said traineeship, not apprenticeship.

I also struggled to leave my job because I was very close to my bosses, I worked there for a few years before I bought my house and as I wasn't close to my family and I was only young at the time (20) they became kind of like family to me, they came and looked at houses with me when I was doing inspections and everything, no one knows what happened but one day the female boss just turned in to this nasty person.

OP, congratulations on being published!

Like thereinmadnesslies, I was being bullied at my job. My boss was narcissistic and a true sociopath and bullying by him became a daily occurrence. It was horrendous and I was sick all the time – stomach pains, flu-like symptoms, heart palpitations, headaches, pneumonia. Like you said, I was disappearing. I was clinically depressed and not at all the person I was.

I found another job while I was still employed and then gave notice. Best decision of my life. Just the act of giving notice lifted some of the weight from my shoulders, and when I was finally away from that man, the feeling of freedom was incredible. That was four years ago and I’m happy and healthy again.

I had a safety net; I was married (still am) with money in savings. I went straight from one job to the other; left the one on a Friday and started the next one on Monday.

Temp work sounds like a great idea while you write and find the perfect job. Who knows, maybe one of the temp jobs will become permanent.

You need to take care of yourself. Good luck!

It really depends how long £5k will support you for. I wouldn't leave a job without something else lined up as I'm the main earner in our family and £5k would barely cover one month for us in terms of outgoings (particularly as both my kids are currently in childcare not school yet).

Thanks for all the kind words and really helpful advice.
I need to get something else lined up, but really don't want to stay where I am as it's just making me desperately miserable. And I'm better than that.

Go to your gp get signed off (work stress) to buy time to find better job. Tempting can give you the space but no sick pay

I'm a single mum of 4. I had a job that was fine. Supportive management. Nice colleagues. Just down the road. Not too many expectations.
But the pay wasnt great, the promotion prospects were nil and most of all I was sooooo bored.
I quit last year to be a freelance writer. The money is irregular and unreliable and I am working hatder than I ever have before. But I can breathe again.
Though I have sone stressful moments when I wonder whether I can pay my bills, so far I am doing ok.
Worst case scenario, I have to get another job but it hasn't happened yet.
Life's too short to do something you hate

Yes just a few weeks ago. A year ago I left one job (which arguably was a mistake) and took another one. The job content suited me but I didn't like the commute, the organisation, or lack of support. I had already been saving hard in the previous job so when I left I had enough money to last me until the end of the year, even if I didn't earn anything.

I am doing some freelance work and earning a bit, so my savings will now last longer. Either this will work out and I will stay a freelancer or I will have had a fun year or so "off" before I have to look for a proper job.

But I think having a financial safety net is very important before you make that sort of decision. Otherwise you'll just be stressed over something else.

I did. I was single with no dependents, but had a mortgage. I'd always been very career orientated and successful, but found myself in a job which was incredibly stressful and which I couldn't get to work, partly due to personalities of others involved, partly due to me. I was walking home from work in tears frequently and drinking quite a lot. The feeling of relief I got when I handed in my notice was incredible and made me realise I was doing the same thing. I had savings, but I also found some temping work which didn't quite cover all my outgoings but which meant the savings would last a lot longer. I also spent the time re-grouping - I saw a leadership coach, which really helped me think about my recent experiences and re-frame them. The career break and the coaching put me in a much better place, and I started applying for jobs and absolutely stormed one interview and got a pretty good job as a result! So, if you realistically think you can get temping work as a short-term measure, I'd go for it - but I'd also recommend using the extra head-space you'll gain to work out exactly what you want to do next and how to get there!

You can’t OP
You are a single parent with fuck all savings !

Look for a new job

I sympathise . I hate my job . It’s making me ill

But I support 4 people
And have no choice

Find a new role
Then leave

My dh did, but we had my income to rely on, several hundred thousand in savings and our mortgage paid off.

I think you need to make sure you have a job to go to, especially as you rent.

A freelance writing career working from home online is more accessible than people realise. Some make 6 figures in it, writing articles, ebooks etc. Join Upwork (may take a couple of tries to get accepted but it's not hard) and build up your portfolio. Then you can quit your job and transition into the work full time. It's what I do and am on track for £60k this year.

Sort of.
I left my job to follow DH to a new country and be a SAHM.
4 years later, I've just insisted DH hands his notice in, and we go back to the UK. We have nothing left there except a healthy bank account, but I cant live here any longer. He will need to find a job once we get back. It's scary, but hopefully we can pull it off... fingers crossed.

3ChangingForNow you sound like you have really cracked it! On the other side, I have two friends who are freelance online writers and both have struggled to get a steady or high enough income, even with writing e-books, blogs etc. I don't think it's a path paved with gold for everyone.

Most of these stories are inspiring but pretty much all of the are not the same situation as the OP- either the people don't have children, or have considerable savings, or have a DP with their own job.

I left a job that was making me unhappy last year. i was giving up some very good perks and I had a lot of friends there, so I had a lot to lose, but my career was effectively over if I stayed there any longer and I was bored and frustrated.

I won't lie, it wasn't easy. It took 3 jobs to actually find the right one. The first one was absolutely awful and I quit after 2 months. I then took another one and knew at the end of the first day it wasn't right for me.

I then fell into a bit of a pit of despair, but am happy to announce that I started a new job last month that is going really well so I am finally seeing the risk paying off.

So, it's been a journey and there were times I wished I'd never left, but if I hadn't left I'd have remained unhappy and always wondered.

Its a very personal decision, but if like me you take the plunge and it doesn't work out at first just remember there's no limit to the number of times you can roll the dice!