I'm a long-time lurker, a first-time poster.
I had big dreams in college. I studied pre-law and graduated near the top of my class. I landed an internship at the prosecutor's office for a large city. I never wanted to be a corporate lawyer. I wanted to work at the government level, either as a public defender or similar. It was always about helping the little guy.
During my six-month internship, I learned about the meager salaries public defenders made. Combined with the high cost of law school, I abandoned my goal to accept a position at a major brokerage firm. I studied for and passed the Series 7 and 63 exams and was promoted to the high net worth team within a year. I made more money than ever, and the sky was the limit.
Gradually, things got worse. I can't say if it was the constant monitoring of my performance, the almost three-hour round trip commute that turned my ten-hour shift into a 13-hour monstrosity, or being treated like a piece of shit by entitled millionaires, but I broke. I switched departments to a team that worked in a back office. I no longer had to talk on the phone, so I thought it would get better. However, the damage was already done.
I fell into a deep depression. I was lucky to have good insurance and a good doctor. I went on short-term leave three times in two years. I spent hours on the therapy couch and spent four days at a psychiatric hospital. Nothing seemed to work. I finally quit in 2019 after five years. I used my 401k to survive until I moved to Seattle in 2020. It was only after leaving that my depression seemed to subside.
I'm now off my antidepressants and mostly functional. I'm in graduate school to become a mental health counselor. My studies have radicalized me even more. They say capitalism is freedom. It's not freedom to work yourself to death, making someone else rich. It's not freedom to only have 21 hours of your day consumed by commuting, working, and sleeping. It's not freedom to be committed to a mental hospital because you'd rather die than go to work.