I 25F am on my 3rd full-time job out of college, and all 3 jobs were absolutely miserable and gave me panic attacks (I am unfortunately still employed at the 3rd job). I had never experienced so much stress, anxiety and dread all at once until I started my 1st job. Tiny start-up where I had absolutely no idea what I was doing and was amongst pure chaos – I immediately had to start therapy.
While I can say that job 1 was objectively terrible, jobs 2 and 3 are what made me realize that I may be the problem. At both I experienced similar types of stress – feeling like I'm drowning, can't keep up with my workload that's considered light compared to others. No one else seems as stressed at me, and I'm fairly certain this job is not nearly as stressful as what others have to go through. It's normal for people to have stressful jobs yet still keep a positive attitude and life. (I'm very anti 40-hour work weeks, I'm just referencing that plenty of people can suffer through hell during the day yet still have fun personal lives and be happy with themselves).
Not me – work destroys me. I become a shell of a person and obsess over it – I wake up and cry, walk to work dreading every moment, sit through work trying not to cry through every interaction, go home and shut down from emotional exhaustion, sleep, repeat. The worst part is therapy doesn't help – it helps in other aspects of my life, but it doesn't improve my work stress. Something is so wrong with me and I'm so exhausted – I just want a small break from this feeling but I can't get away from it at any job.
I know there's nothing really that can be said since therapy doesn't even work. I just needed to get this out of my system to a group who may sympathize.