To not know what to do with my life due to my mental health?

[HippoNamedBooBooButt]

Long story... basically I'm currently signed off work as Ive reached burn out. I've been fighting anxiety for years and recently tipped over into depression and ptsd due to an event at work between September and December. I eventually gave in two weeks ago and am now on antidepressants and am signed off. I can't see an end to how I'm feeling and am just angry, lonely and sad most of the time. It is mainly due to the pressures of my job and what it involves on a day to day basis, and I just feel like it's time to think about me and my family, and possibly leave my job. I trained for this job for four years and have been doing it for twenty. I just don't know what to do for the best - my head is spinning, all Ive ever done is think about others even as a child due to my upbringing and can't get past the thought of how many people I'm letting down by being ill and how many I will continue to let down if I think about myself.

First of all, you need to start your recovery. It’s really early days. Are you having therapy as well as meds? I find that the combination of the two is needed in most situations. I have just had five weeks off because I had my gallbladder removed. I had emergency surgery and my main feeling was guilt that I wasn’t at work. If it take being burnt out or having an organ removed (similar in my books) for you to give yourself ‘permission’ to stop, something isn’t right!

I would advise not putting pressure on yourself to make decisions now. But what sector are you in? Are their any obvious ways of changing your role?

I'm in education - a head teacher x

You need to rest before you do anything, lots of soothing things, lots of connecting things. Eat well. Get some exercise.
After, and only after, you have some balance back in your life can you make any kind of meaningful, wise mind decision.
You are important to people, you do make a difference, yet if you were abducted by aliens tomorrow the school wouldn't close and everyone would carry on regardless.

@Broadbeanssleeping thank you - that's the thing that's made me fight for so long not to be on meds and not to have time off, the thought that they couldn't cope without me. Obviously they can! I just feel so guilty and confused

Could you quit and do supply teaching for a while whilst you work out what to do next? I don't know which part of the job you are finding the hardest, maybe going back into the classroom world be worse! But I don't think any job is worth more than your health and happiness.

Don't make any decisions while you are still raw from all this. Take the meds and try to do stuff for you - things you enjoy and that relax you. Work will learn to cope so don't spare any headspace worrying about that!

I am a teacher and was signed off on Monday after struggling for weeks with mental health issues. I’m exhausted, my brain is in a constant fog, I’m on the verge of tears or just sit for hours with no idea where the time has gone. The guilt is overwhelming, especially as I’ve recently been moved from a Y6 class to a Y5 class to sort them out as their previous 2 teachers have been signed off. I have no words of wisdom and no idea what to do next but I couldn’t just scroll past without replying. You’re not alone. There will be a way through this but I have no idea what that path is.