New job after traumatic work situation?

[MincePieQueen]

I’m a regular, name changed.

I have two professional qualifications and have worked in the public sector for nearly 25 years.

I am currently unemployed for the first time ever and even the thought of applying for part time jobs that I’d previously have been excited about, now makes me feel anxious and overwhelmed.

Some background:

I started a new job with a high level of responsibility after Christmas but due to pandemic, my induction was appalling and I was not trained in many areas effectively. Was working often at home and always autonomously. I can’t go into details but despite asking for help repeatedly, a large number of time saving hacks and systems were not shared with me and I was working more than double or even three times my contracted hours just to keep on top of the workload.

A few months in, I was already floundering due to the above and then my daughter took an overdose. (Six months on, she’s doing well).

I handed in my notice soon afterwards but somehow managed to work my full notice (effectively ten weeks) without taking compassionate leave. I still don’t know quite how I managed that.

I’ve not worked for four months and I’m getting such a strong reaction (mixture of stress, anxiety, overwhelm) whenever I apply for a job or even think of applying.

To be honest, I do feel quite scarred by the whole experience- not just my DD but work also. I feel that on some level, the fact that my workload for a 0.4 contract escalated to a full time contract was the main reason I couldn’t stay on and seems almost tantamount to constructive dismissal.

Everyone at the place of work was happy to treat the situation as leaving for personal / family reasons but this is still a blight on my CV. And if the workload has been manageable I could’ve stayed AND supported DD.

I’m now absolutely terrified of applying for responsible roles for which I’m well qualified as I feel such panic that I’ll have to bail out again.

Right now I feel like I’ll never be able to hold down another responsible professional role again. I find myself looking at NMW jobs but although I’d happily do some of them, I feel it’d affect my self esteem for reasons I can’t quite put my finger on.

Any advice, please ?

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@MincePieQueen I know your post is a few weeks old but I didn't want to read and scroll on by.

I am in a very similar situation to you. I was a very successful project manager and I ended up in a bad situation in work - overloaded, undermined, micromanaged, set up to fail. Incredibly stressful and damaging to my self confidence. I left with redundancy 4 years ago and have been at home since. It has taken me a long time to even imagine putting myself back out there. I had some counseling and career coaching. Recently I have found the women returners network and an audible book by Mel Robbins called 'Work it Out'. The women returners network do free seminars on getting back to work and framing the reason you left. The audio book by Mel Robbins has a chapter where she does a coaching session with a woman in a very similar frame of mind - it really opened my mind to why I felt so uneasy about even applying for jobs.

What you went through sounds horrendous and you absolutely have no reason to feel like you 'bailed' on work. You have learned from your experience, you are wiser now and would react differently if you were in that situation again.

After building up to it for about a year, I have my first job interview lined up for next week - first in about 15 years! Good luck in finding your way back to your confidence and hopefully finding a more supportive working environment.

Sorry you haven't had more replies - I'd imagine these feelings are more common than you expect. How are you doing now?

Some aspects of this resonate with me. It sounds as if you were under immense stress and kept going. Now that you're out of that situation, it's catching up with you.

I also wonder if you received a lot of negative feedback about your capabilities. Not necessarily explicit feedback as such, more through how things happened and your own feelings. That would then make you feel incapable of doing other jobs.

Sometimes employers or certain roles are just awful.