I live in Europe, and my wife and I were blessed with a handsome son this summer. We also shifted homes and I quit my job of 6 years for a new one. My previous job was far from perfect and work-related stress along with some personal issues led to several burnouts and one prolonged episode of depression and anxiety in 2021. I’ve been seeing a psychiatrist since then.
I really felt I was making progress – I had started hitting the gym, my relationship with my wife was great and I was finally making some headway career-wise. The first two months at my new job were stressful, but my colleagues were extremely helpful and friendly. Then things went downhill.
There are several reasons for this:
• The workload started to get bigger and bigger, and I was struggling to manage everything with my limited time. As I was new, I also struggled with understanding the process used by the company. Moreover, I had to take a month off after the birth of our son, just three weeks after starting the job, which obviously doesn’t help. But no regrets whatsoever, and it is a paid leave guaranteed by the state, so a straightforward decision.
• Boss who joined at the same time and who is both incompetent and unempathetic. I tried bringing up the issue of workload several times only to be dismissed and our meetings got a bit heated, and I was told the issue was with my thinking patterns – I was getting stuck and paralyzed by one project.
• Long story short, the perfect combo of a borderline toxic boss and increased workload, led to me totally be demotivated at work and my psychiatrist put me on a 10-day sick leave.
Now I have basically three options:
• Slog it out at work: I am depressed, anxious, and demotivated, so definitely not my preferred option. Only reason to stick would be out of faint hope that things will improve, a stable job to feed my family as my wife navigates transition to the workplace after giving birth. I am also thinking of giving an absolute minimum at work and getting fired, but don't think it will happen and any overt action in this regard or mention of it could be used against me, and cut me off unemployment benefits.
• Be put on sick leave again: Where I live, it is possible to be put on sick leave and get some money (although much less than my original salary and impacting the relationship I have with my manager). The reason this is less attractive to me is because I don’t see the point of taking time off a work, I hate knowing that I must go back, which creates lots of anxiety the day before joining work again.
• Quit: I feel this is best option for my mental health but goes against the conventional thinking of never quitting a job before lining up a new one + the fact that where I live quitting your job voluntarily doesn’t give you unemployment benefits, and we don’t have a fortune with my wife to live on and rent and childcare is expensive. We would burn out all the money in six months at best.
I am trying to get state-sponsored career counselling and was on sick leave last week. I am trying everything I can, but I had suicide ideation yesterday and it was a final reminder to me to put my mental health before work and just quit the whole thing. But there is this real worry about the future. I am also thinking about becoming a freelancer and have other ideas and plans but cannot act on any of them while still being employed at this toxic job.
All ideas are welcome and thanks a lot for your advice and comments.