When did you realise enough was enough and you had to get out ?

[GlitteryShaker]

It was when I fantasised about breaking an arm or a leg to get out of going to work . I knew that the Job was seriously impacting my mental health and it was time to get out . No perks or job benefits was worth this .

When I was driving to work praying I’d get hit by a truck and have an arm or leg ripped off so I’d never be able to go back.
My MH was in tatters from a bullying manager, who was close friends with HR, and who had already had a bullying complaint brushed under the carpet from a colleague who’d gone off with stress and then left.
Thankfully I got out. I then sent in a very detailed document of everything manager had done to several staff. They were suspended pending investigation then sacked.
My MH has never fully recovered though.

I feel like this. I suppose it means I need to leave but am scared I won’t easily get another job :(

@Careerchange1 I was also fearful, especially as I’d lost all confidence. I ended up walking into a job and having a total career change. I had to pinch myself for the first couple of years because I couldn’t believe I’d got out!
Start applying, anything is better than the misery of how you feel right now

Seems minor but it was over a parasol I had ordered and the manner they "received it" complete with a personal attack on me in email. (Despite thr fact I'd never seen the parasol) That was the day I knew I had to get out. I left 7 weeks later having applied for a job that day I got the job and worked my notice.

I was not in a stage of life I could not afford no wages.

New job is going well and despite there being a higher level of complaints my mental health has improved so much as the complaints are not from people I know and see daily. It's not always about what is done it can be about how it's done.

When I started having panic attacks in the toilet before and after meetings with management

When I ws driving to work and considering driving my car off the road into a brick wall. Trying to work out how fast to go so that I was injured....but not too badly.
It was terrifying.

I went into work, packed up everything I wanted copies of, as well as personal stuff, left at the end of the day and called in sick the next day.

Stayed signed off as long as I could to try and get myself back on an even keel (mental health was shattered, there are months of my life i have no recollection of), whilst searching for a new job. Never went back.

I pray I have the insight to never let myself get anywhere near that state ever again. No job is worth it.

In my 20s, working for an IT consultancy. I was working all hours and then they organised a customer services weekend at a hotel atHeathrow, so we didn't get a rest. I was already exhausted, close to breaking point.

I don't remember, but apparently I walked out during the morning coffee break. I 'came round' hours later sitting on a tree stump in Burnham Beeches, crying. I have no recollection of getting there. Took me ages to find the car.
I resigned on the Monday morning. When I explained what had happened, even HR didn't argue. I took two weeks off, slept a lot and then found a more local job.

When I pulled the car over to be sick. I shortly stepped down from a manager position and left the company within a year. I couldn't have resigned with no job so had to stick it out.

For me it was when I realised I was crying several times a week every week and most evenings I left the office I was secretly hoping to have an accident on the way home so I wouldn’t have to go back the next day. I wouldn’t say I was actively suicidal but I certainly didn’t care much whether I lived or died by the end of it. My mental health was absolutely in the toilet. I’d been bullied for the best part of a year and had no support. Went off sick when I realised nothing I could do would make the situation any better. Stopped fighting it and accepted I was being abused by grown women and needed to take care of myself as a priority.

I have put off advertising a vacancy because I've realised I'm no longer prepared to lie about it being a good place to work.
It is time to get out.

When I just felt so totally overwhelmed by all the emails coming in demanding I make X Y or Z happen before the end of the financial year, my manager moved to a different team with a week’s notice and started sending me invites to the meetings she usually attended, and I realised I hadn’t slept for a week. It was only a fortnight ago and I took sick leave for a week. I have since asked to be demoted because I have lost all motivation for the job.

And yes, I too am familiar with thinking it would be nice to have an accident that was bad enough to get me signed off for a while, but obviously not life changing! That’s when you know something has to change.

When I’ve got lost on the relatively short route to work. As in couldn’t find my way around the roundabouts, could not have even told you where I was. Felt like my brain had essentially been wiped clean of the direction to go to get to work and I had worked there for sometime. Headed straight home having taken a 10 mile detour and still not managed to get to work. Signed off sick and resigned simultaneously.

I actually did break a bone and was off for a few weeks.

Still had to frickin go back there though. :( I didn't really make the most of the break from being away from the place and was anxious about being off. 🙄

I didn't get out, my colleague ended up leaving and I can't understand how I ever put up with the treatment she put me through.

We worked remotely after the pandemic and if anything it made her worse. She was my line manager for a while but this was eventually revoked from her. She still called me so many times a day, to talk about absolute shit that she'd told me many times before. Would literally call me under the guise of something work related, nit pick me or try to find out what I was doing, then go on a tangent of complete non work related BS for between 20 and 40 minutes, multiple times per day. Blamed me for absolutely anything and everything included stuff she had done, and then when I pointed out it wasn't me, she just went quiet. No accountability or apology. Awful passive aggressive behaviour and constantly trying to get me in trouble with management. Moaned constantly about everything and everyone.

I still don't understand why I put up with it, why I never felt the confidence to say no, I can't talk for this long. She was my first line manager in the company I suppose and it was a boiled frog situation.

I'm so glad I stuck around in the job as it's a brilliant job and I get to work from home, but my God working with people like that is awful. I felt so gaslit and upset all the time. I'd be physically triggered by the sound of the phone because it was always, always her.

I won't let myself be treated like that again. Its like death by a thousand cuts though isn't it; each individual thing feels to small to complain about.

When the bullying store manager who took advantage, piss out of my dyslexia. It never affected me much until he came along.

I was the 8th colleague to leave under him and he had similar figures leave at his previous store managerial role. He was not investigated. Doesn't help when him and his area boss are both of the same Asian religion. Raised grievances and that did FA. Got fed up of the crying. Had a holiday I was going to and thought - I am not going back to work after the holiday. If I didn't have that holiday, I probably ended my life around then.

When I had chest pains in morning from stress. When I was dry-wretching in my bathroom at home before going on zoom calls.

When I was sitting crying on a bench outside at lunchtimes. I was young, it was an excellent company but my manager was a horrible bully. I went in anxious and scared and spoke to her boss saying I would like to leave. He really wanted me to stay and turns out he was also trying to manage her out and the whole team were aware of her behaviour. I stayed on and eventually she left on a technicality.

When I taught the same lesson twice to one class. (The kids did tell me after about ten minutes.)

I was driving to work and realised that I was wishing I would get hit and killed so I didn't have to go in. I remember one time coming home and the freezer door had been left open and I just collapsed on the floor and cried uncontrollably at all the ruined food. I'm such a laid back person so that was unlike me.

I was in the middle of a mental breakdown, even my arse of an ex was supportive and told me to quit and we'd manage on one wage.

My manager was a massive bully and publicly told me off like a child for leaving early to take my poorly cat to the vet. Everyone else had gone off to a lunch and had no intentions of going back to work, so me leaving 30 minutes early should not have been an issue (not like we were actually busy or needed to be there). The cat actually died a few months later. The public humiliation that that manager did to not just me but other people in the department is stuff of legends but they're still working there and still acting like that. HR just told us there was nothing they could do.

When the Monday morning dread started on Saturday mornings.
When they extended my 3 month probation.
I left a few days later with no job to go to.
Looking back I'd been set up to fail and I wish I had done so many things differently, like push back on ridiculous expectations and call them out on their horrible management style.

When I realised I couldn’t deal with the micromanaging, disorganised boss who would get cross if you acted without his authorisation, but was never available to make decisions. Added to an office culture of outright greed, with colleagues who earned six figures with no responsibilities/mortgages/childcare/etc but honest to god said they were ‘the squeezed middle’ and complained about their poverty. The t was sickening.

I only stuck around as long as I did because I got pregnant. Never went back after maternity leave.

I had a terrible line manager and found myself crying and feeling hopeless every day. Some other people where I worked were made redundant and I spent ages wishing it was me that was happening too (but the redundancies didn't affect my team).

I started applying for loads of new jobs but then suddenly my line manager left abruptly. I found out later that she'd been fired for just pretending to do work and was found out because she told a senior colleague she couldn't attend a meeting as she was too busy 'dealing with yet another crisis' relating to me, without realising I had been within sight of that senior colleague all day...
Things changed after that and I stayed for almost another five years.

When my micromanaging boss tried to set up a Teams call with me to manage my workload whilst he was on holiday, in a foreign country with his family.

When the same boss phoned me 5 times in 18 minutes even after I told him I was going for my lunch.

When the two other bosses/owners refused to believe the same boss was reading my emails to them, even when I showed them proof.

When I missed bedtime with my kids for the first time ever because the boss needed something done "quickly" that took 3 hours.

When I wanted to punch him in his face every time I seen him.

Feeling every day a child could die because the way the system was set up to deal with referrals was useless and the volume was huge.
Front line social work team. 6 social workers dealing with 500 referrals a week.
I ended up with PTSD and it has taken me 8 years to fully recover. I left that job and didn't work for a long time after.