Will I ever have a proper career again?

[wordywitch]

I am a 40-something capable and reasonably intelligent woman but I feel like a complete failure when it comes to work and could use some advice and/or commiserations from anyone who feels or has felt similar.

The current situation is that my relatively well paid WFH job for a charity came to an end in November (they ran out of funding) and my DH and I agreed I’d have a few months off while I dealt with some significant health issues and regained control of my stress levels which had been very high towards the end of my job to the point I was very unhappy and it was affecting my mental health too. So the break was very welcome.

Before I had the charity job I was a frontline health care worker who ended up in burnout and with PTSD which resulted in me leaving my profession a few years ago. Though I loved my job and gave it my all, the NHS broke me in so many ways - emotionally, mentally, physically. I had to go through years of therapy and self reflection to recover from that experience. It also left me with a chronic pain condition that has impacted my life and health significantly and has taken me years to get a handle on. This health condition means my mobility is somewhat limited in that I cannot stand for long periods doing a physical job OR sit for long periods at a desk.

After my charity job ended the idea was that I’d have some time off to regroup and focus on my health and family for awhile, which I have done and have been very happy. The happiest and healthiest I’ve been for several years to be honest. It’s been a revelation being off work these few months and my whole family have benefitted from me being there for them more and being less in pain and therefore less snappy and stressed, more calm and patient. I’ve taken on most of the cooking and domestic chores which I couldn’t do before while working, which has left DH less stressed as he works FT.

The problem of course is that we’re feeling the strain financially without my income and though I’ve done some freelance work that has kept us afloat these past few months and we can just about pay the bills on DH’s salary alone, things are very tight and we are unable to save money, finish needed work on our house, go on holidays, go out for meals, etc.. without me working. It only needs to be part time as I need to bring in £1-2k/month max, but I’m struggling with the thought of returning to a stressful job that sets off my health conditions and worsens my MH, leading me back into burnout and misery. I WANT to work, believe me, but it almost seems like ever since the NHS burnout, I am incapable of handling stress. I feel pathetic saying that but it seems true. Am I just broken forever now?

If I could get a low stress job (maybe in a shop?) I’d happily do so but am unsure I’d be able to do it physically given my limitations. I did a 4-hour stint on my feet with a client recently and was in agony on the way home and consumed with pain and fatigue for 24 hours afterward so I’m not sure a retail job would be possible plus I have no retail experience so not sure I’d get one anyway?

I guess what I’m looking for is either advice on what kind of work I might do that is low stress and not too physically demanding or to hear from others who have suffered professional burnout and if/how you recovered and went into another career. Also maybe good to hear from those with chronic health conditions that aren’t a disability per se but restrict your ability to work in certain jobs.

I resonate a lot with your post. I have since retrained as a psychotherapist and I am working in third sector.

Was going to say similar, there must be so many of us who have gone through the same. I'm trying to reduce the work part of my identity and how I see myself. I am the same so really concerned of the mental health issues escalating again.

You sound like you would suit self employment better than employment, at least until your health properly recovers.

@Sparklybutold The health care job was my mid-life career change (I was a freelance writer before which paid hardly anything) so I don’t feel I can retrain again and undertake more education, though I’d love to. Are you enjoying working in the third sector? I liked it for awhile but started to find it tedious and stressful 😩

I have a chronic condition that means I can't sit or stand for long. My work bought me a sit stand desk for WFH days.

Were you in healthcare as well?

I’ve done loads of work on not beating myself up for this and letting go of being ‘a good worker’ as part of my identity, but I can’t help but feel a bit useless when my DH is working so hard and bringing in a very good wage that we should be comfortable on but due to the COL rises and taking on a bigger mortgage than we should have to get out of London and have enough space to both WFH, we are barely surviving. It’s hard to not know how I can contribute more without it leading to misery again.

That’s what my plan is though it’s not working very well. I tried to go self employed in a role that uses my healthcare knowledge and skills but finding clients has proven to be very difficult, only had one client in six months. No one can afford private care at the moment.

Trying to get back into freelance writing as that’s what I did before getting into healthcare but that is also difficult work to get now due to AI. Seems like my two degrees and skills have either become obsolete or detrimental to my health.

I would say definitely have a look around on Charityjob etc. I find there's a lot of variety in charity work so just because one job was becoming tedious doesn't mean they all would! You can do many different roles and often with a lot of flexibility - the trade off being that you earn less than in the private sector. I swapped from teaching (definitely not as stressful as healthcare, but I still feel you) and have much preferred the third sector.

I resonate with what you’re saying as well. I strongly suspect I have CPTSD and burnout but wouldn’t openly admit that to anyone. I also think I am autistic which is probably where all the issues stem from. There are a lot of us in the same boat I think and so many bloody stressful jobs out there.

I’ve given up on the idea of a career and have decided to focus on work that was previously a hobby. It’s currently part-time and low paid but I love it. I have no idea where I’m going with it but I’m hopeful it will morph into something bigger and better.

I’m using the extra time and headspace to sort my life out, exercise, eat better, shuffle savings about to maximise interest and sell a few bits to generate some extra money.

What are you good and what do you love to do? Could you use the extra time you have at the moment to improve your fitness and mobility? I’ve started doing YouTube workouts that are literally 5 to 15 minutes long.

I have adhd, possibly asd and a long term health condition. I recently had emdr therapy and found it very helpful. I work in the 3rd sector in a pressured role. It's a work in progress managing stress. As PP mentioned I have a sit stand desk that I was awarded through Access to Work. I've also had coaching through Access to Work. There's a version of Access to Work that is for mental health conditions. Have you thought about applying for PIP or do you claim PIP? I do honestly think mental health matters more than money.

Probably the least stressful job I had ever was in a customer service role for a family company. It was inbound calls to either purchase a product or get some very limited technical advice on the product. It was a high end luxury product so most of the people calling were pretty polite. It was very much clock off at the end of the day and don't give it a single more thought. After maybe 3-6 months I got bored though, I think that can be a problem if you are used to high stress environments.

Another option is to work on either things like short term or mat leave roles and have breaks between them, or do a job for say anything from 6 months to 3 years and then just leave and have a few months off. It's obviously not ideal financially but it's always in my mind as a backup plan as I'm prone to Asd shutdowns.

How would you go about searching from charityjobs website? Heard horror stories of bullying although recognise that it can happen in any job.

You sound very switched on an capable. If I were you, I would be designing what you want your life to look like, not just your career. Your health is great when you’re not working, so you want to work as little as possible but get income. How much? What is the minimum you need to be earning to make your life more comfortable?

How many hours could you work? What timings (e.g. work part time every day or three full days? Evenings? Nights?) Where do you want to work? (Home / office?)

Once you know what you need to earn and how many hours you can work you need to design your life around this. Are there ready made jobs out there that could give you this life? If not you’ll have to make this opportunity for yourself.

Let go of not retraining, as this might be exactly what you need. Or you need to build up a business or go freelance.

Also what else could you be doing to ease your outgoings? If you’re not working then you have more time to shop around for deals, make sure you’re taking full advantage of tax and savings opportunities, swapping providers to keep your bills low, looking for deals on holidays and doing diy to the house.

@ZippyDoodle Funny you should say that as I suspect I may be autistic too and have realised that a lot of the things that end up driving me mad and making me leave jobs is either sensory overload (hello, noisy hospitals!) and/or my sense of injustice when management don’t do what they’re meant to and don’t look after their staff. I haven’t sought a diagnosis as I’m not sure what that would achieve but knowing why I struggle so much with most work environments has been eye opening to me, even if frustrating.

I have been using this time to really work on my health, which has been fantastic and I have definitely improved my pain levels and fitness plus am losing the weight I piled on a couple years ago when my pain was at its worst.

@CherryBlossomPie I do think that my physical health, mental health and probable neurodivergence make it hard for me to work ‘normally’ and I’d love some support with making work more accessible to me. I’m not sure I’d qualify for PIP though as my husband is a high earner and I assume it’s means tested on household income - or is that not the case? Do you have to be on PIP to get help from Access To Work? I’d love a sit stand desk.

Doing short term roles is a good idea, I’ll look at mat leave cover and things like that, though I can realistically only do part time and most of the cover roles I’ve seen are FT. I’ll keep looking though.

@Reachoutreachout Those are great tips, thank you. I’m working on building up some freelance work but have kind of dropped the ball on that lately so will get back to that and see if anything manifests, I do have a bit of freelance work coming in here and there, I just need it to be a bit more regular.

Outgoings have already been gone through with a fine tooth comb and we’ve made as many savings as possible.

That resonates with me too.

I have some long term issues with depression, anxiety and chronic fatigue and I am neurodivergent.

I have worked in the third sector for two decades but many charities are badly run and treat their staff and volunteers poorly and don't deal with staff with mental health issues particularly well.

I have had several episodes of burn out and two years ago I had a complete breakdown and had to take two months off work. My employer handled it badly and added to my stress in many ways.

I am still working there (I just about manage it as it is part-time and I am looking for something less stressful) and I freelance the rest of the time.

So no magic solution, but I wanted to say that you are not the only person struggling and that I completely understand where you are at.

I receive PIP by the way and it is not means-tested so you might want to apply with support from your GP or any other healthcare professional involved in your care.

Were you a nurse OP? I know alot of nurses who have gone into asthetics and make good money from it. You could look into training?

Not too much sitting or standing and you could schedule appointments to suit.

Not for everyone of course but it is what popped into my head

I’m not into aesthetics but I know lots of fellow healthcare workers who do it and are happy with the flexibility it gives them, it’s just not for me.

That's fair enough. Unfortunately I don't think there are many jobs out there with the flexibility and low stress levels that you need. If I were in that position, I'd have a think about what I could do self employed.

Best of luck

I feel your pain. I'm in a similar position. I think the sector is full of ex-health people looking for work, and it's only going to get worse with the massive redundancies across ICBs, Trusts, NHSE etc.

It's so hard when you are physically less capable than you were! So many employers saying they are disabled-friendly but not offering any part-time jobs. And I can't yet bring myself to apply for junior roles when I've been quite senior. It feels embarrassing.

There are so many sectors saying they have skills shortages - I wish they'd start colleges for middle-aged women!

I obviously can only speak from my own experience but have not seen bullying at any of my workplaces or heard it mentioned by colleagues coming from other charities. Charity job has decent filters for remote/hybrid roles, part-time etc. And it’s nearly all charities posting their roles directly so there will be contact details for a chat about what working conditions are like and stuff.

Yes, I get sensory overload too. I also struggle with injustice and tend to wade in to help people when I should really keep my beak out!

The best jobs for me are when I either work on my own or have a lot of autonomy. I get bored very quickly so after six to nine months I’m getting itchy feet. The difficulty for me is that I’m better with routine rather than a job that is throwing curveballs all the time. I agree with the poster who said temping and contracts are a good option.

It sounds like you are making good progress with the health and well-being stuff. Maybe make a list of all the stuff that does work for you and get clear on what you’re looking for. For me, one of the things is a fairly quiet environment with not too many interruptions.