I have a very demanding job in the City that pays well, has good benefits – a great pension, generous holiday allowance, private healthcare – but I am utterly miserable.
I can’t sleep, I have heart palpitations and I don’t even breathe properly. The stress and worry of what’s on my morning “to do” list just makes me feel like I’m drowning. I never get to pick my children up from school – the nanny does that – and I miss all the important moments, like their end-of-term assemblies.
As a senior woman in a male-dominated industry, I’ve had to work twice as hard to smash the glass ceiling to get where I am. It feels like too much to give up. But the sacrifices I’ve been forced to make with my family – and the impact on my health – are starting to make it all not feel worth it.
I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place – if I leave, I risk impacting my career and finances and progression up the ladder (and that has a very real effect on my family and our lifestyle, too). If I stay, I seriously worry about what else I will lose. I don’t think it’s too much of an exaggeration to say I fear one day my child will hear that I’ve been rushed to hospital. At my lowest moments, I wish for it – at least then I’d get a rest.
I can’t go on like this. I just don’t know what to do.
Desperate
Dear Desperate,
The name you’ve used to describe yourself, I think, says it all – you are desperate. Desperate for something to happen; to yank you out of this self-perpetuating loop of worry and stress and burnout and over-work. Desperate to make a decision. Desperate to be freed, somehow, from what’s making you ill.
How awful to feel the way you are feeling. I think many of us can relate.
First off, it’s vital that you take seriously the signs that your body is giving you. Chronic or overwhelming stress can take a serious toll on our health: new data released this month found that stress is a pivotal factor that stops us all – but particularly women – from safeguarding our heart health. Stress – and “a lack of time”. Amen to that.
We also know that chronic stress can cause everything from aching joints to mental fog, inflammation, heart issues and a weakened immune system. The effects are far-reaching. It’s crucial to understand how it impacts our health – and more importantly, how we can manage it.
With that in mind, even if you do nothing else, I’d like you to go and see your GP and tell them about the heart palpitations. If you do have an arrhythmia (a problem with the heart’s electrical system, which controls how the heart beats), they can measure it with tests such as an ECG or a 24-hour heart monitor. Stress and anxiety can trigger palpitations or arrhythmias – and so can perimenopause. So it’s important to be honest about how you’re feeling.
But I really don’t think you should stop there. I think that firstly, you need to give yourself the same respect and validation that you’d give a colleague at work – or a friend, or a family member – of just how much you are carrying and the extent of the strain you are under. What would you say if someone else told you this story?
I imagine you’d be simultaneously horrified but sympathetic, compassionate and understanding – while also urging your friend to make this vital change. You’d likely echo what they were telling you about being at their wits’ end; that they can’t go on like this; that it’s making them ill.
You’d reassure them that their health and wellbeing are more important. That success isn’t everything. That sometimes, we have to make sacrifices to live a more holistic life that gives us fulfilment in other ways – such as spending more time with our family. That they’re no good to their child perpetually burnt out, depressed – or in hospital. That this is a crisis point; a breaking point. That they really can’t go on like this.
I get it. You’re spinning so many plates: fighting for recognition as a senior woman in the City, with all the gendered hurdles that are placed in front of us to begin with; fighting against the long-recognised “mother guilt” which leaves us all simultaneously feeling we are both doing too much and not enough – that we can’t win, regardless of whether we are working or staying at home. The odds are stacked against us.
You’ve fought hard and have achieved an incredible amount. But it doesn’t always feel like that, does it? We often feel like we’re failing, no matter what we do.
But making a vital change to protect your health and your future, now, doesn’t negate or undermine any of your achievements. I’d urge you to take some time off if you possibly can – your GP can sign you off with a formal fit note to allow you to decompress and get the help you need for two weeks, a month, maybe even six weeks or longer. If you feel able to do that, you should.
But you’re going to need to remind yourself that asking for help is not a weakness. That even the strongest people can’t go on carrying an entire house around on their backs forever. That you’re human and (quite simply) need a rest. You need to make yourself a priority – and put your health at the very top of the list.
Speaking of lists, I’d also love for you to spend some time writing one to detail what you want and what really matters to you. If what you want is a quieter life, being able to do the school pick-ups, then there are ways of adapting and making that a reality.
It may mean making some tough choices – cracking down on disposable income, going without holidays abroad, stopping paying for a nanny, even taking a career break – but we only have one wild and precious life. Don’t waste any more of yours hoping for an accident to put you in hospital. Save yourself.
Do you have a problem you would like to raise anonymously with Dear Vix? Issues with love, relationships, family and work? Email dearvix@independent.co.uk
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