Half days, half the stress?
After months of struggling with secondary trauma at work, I will (officially) begin working part-time soon; and there are no words to describe how happy and liberated (and exited!) I feel.
I enjoy my job a lot, but the toll of hearing people’s trauma—and feeling like shit afterwards every single time—has fucked up my mental health in ways I cannot even begin to describe. Their stories and pains are so similar to my own and having flashbacks and physical manifestations of my mental symptoms mid-job has been excruciatingly difficult. And to make matters worse, the boredom and workplace drama that I am forced to witness have not helped, either.
Only time will tell if working less, yet still working (there) will help to improve my mental space (something tells me that it will!). Some drastic changes have been on the horizon for a long time and this one was long overdue.
I shall update soon on how the endeavor is going.
Godspeed.
C. W.