Back to work after maternity - struggling

[Mousse1990]

I went back to work after my maternity leave ended (I had a year) in June. I normally work 4 days per week, but used my annual leave to do a phased return and have been working 2 days per week. I'm due to return to 4 days next week.

My job has a lot of responsibility surrounding it and I've always felt it to be fairly high pressured (often short staffed and super busy as is often the case). I work in health care.

I've been super anxious since being back. So much has changed and I haven't been able to do parts of my job for over 2 years as I couldn't work in certain areas due to the chemicals. I basically have to be retrained in some areas. I feel like I've forgotten so much and have been reading and re-reading our SOP's as much as I can.

It's not been helpful that my mental health in general has gone downhill recently. After dealing with a psychotic episode during pregnancy, then postpartum psychosis after I gave birth, followed by postnatal depression and now another psychotic episode going on in the background.

Has anyone else really struggled going back to work? How did you deal with it? Any tips would be gratefully received.

I used to work in a high pressured job before I had kids. Lots of unpaid overtime, catching up on work in the evenings, always feeling stressed, a sense of dread on Sundays knowing what I was going back to on Monday. I honestly couldn’t do that job now that I have kids. Now I work 3 days a week in a good job, but one that has very little stress, where I can walk out the door and rarely need to do any work in the evenings/weekends. I look forward going to work and it is so much better for my mental health and for overall work life balance.

Maybe now’s the time to consider a job change?

@confusedlotsthanks for your post. It's not that I don't want to leave my job, it's fantastic in many other ways - great colleagues, good annual leave that you can book on the day if there aren't many people off, good sick leave etc.

My confidence had finally got to a good point before I went on mat leave, I just need to find a way to build it up again and I'm not sure where to start.