Hi all,
I was super excited to accept an internship in corporate at the start of the summer, and signed a 6 month internship contract.
However, 2 months in, I entirely regret this decision and feel like I’m drowning. I would be immensely grateful for any advice on how I can persevere and literally just survive this situation.
For overall context, I have not had a corporate internship before, though I have interned in a government position and at a think tank. During the interview process I was excited about the company’s values, since they seemed to align strongly with mine.
However, in the time that I have been interning, it has been completely different from how they depicted it. It was overwhelming to begin with, and only got worse. I am being given way too much work for me to handle, but my supervisor has said that I need to manage because “all of my other team members are 110% busy”. Which is true- and all of them seem overworked and over stressed. But I’m left to feel like I’m drowning without a safe space to reach out for help.
It reached a boiling point a few weeks ago (god bless that I am on vacation now and not still in this), where it was a clusterfuck of everything going wrong all at once. I have done my absolute best to show up and give it my best try, but I am feeling physically unwell as a result.
My resting heart rate was consistently 100-110 bpm. I was nauseous from Monday to Friday. And on Friday, when I was working from home, I couldn’t stop dry heaving and spitting up from nausea. I couldn’t sleep through the night, at one point I consciously remember waking up 5 times.
Here is where I need help- I feel screwed because it’s a 6 month contract that I don’t feel confident that I can just leave. Please Reddit- if you’ve read this far and have considered my above situation, what would you recommend to make this work just so I can make it to the end?
For additional context to consider, I wake up at 7 am so I can commute and arrive to my internship by 9 am. I do my best to leave right at 6 pm so I can get home by 7:30/8 pm. I meditate and practice gratitude as much as I can on my commute. I can work two days per week from home. It is also more difficult because this internship is in a foreign country, and I live alone.
Thank you again if you’ve read this far, and any advice is welcome.