Thank you. I really don’t want to do the ECT thing, as I’m not at the point where I’m suicidal. I’m more just seeing everything as grey and full of anxiety. But it’s hard to know - how many chemicals should you try/brain zapping things should you do to try to do a job? Make your life better? What if it makes it worse? It’s all pretty hard to work through. A lot of these things seem like nasty trade offs. Like the MAO inhibitors - I’ve wonder how I’m going to feel less anxious and depressed, when I can’t eat a bunch of foods, and worry that accidentally eating some soy sauce might kill me.
To the best of my knowledge, I’ve never suffered from clinical depression. However, I have found myself, on several occasions, very deeply stuck in mental slumps related to jobs that weren’t right for me. In fact, the first job I had out of college was one of them. It took me about a year of absolutely fucking hating every day of my life to finally quit. I seriously thought there was something wrong with me that I couldn’t just sit in my cube and enjoy making my measly salary. Everybody was telling me how lucky I was and how I should be thankful, etc. I hated it. After a year, I couldn’t take it anymore and I quit. I didn’t have a plan, at the time, and ended up doing temp work for about a year after getting out.
When I quit, I finally realized that there was nothing wrong with me and there was nothing wrong with the job – I was just completely incompatible with it. I think I’m lucky that happened to me so early because it allowed me to develop a “canary in the coal mine,” so to speak, for getting into incompatible jobs. Which, incidentally, I did many more times. I started to think that I never would be able to find job that made me happy.
Eventually, I got a Public Health degree (and then later an Analytics degree) and landed a great job doing public health analytics at a large NGO. I absolutely could not fucking stand the job. It was very heavily scientific stature focused, bureaucratic, and had a caste system based on whether you had a PhD. Hint: if you didn’t have one, nobody gave a shit what you could do or what you thought. The arrogance was completely suffocating.
I’m super lucky now, however, because I finally figured out that I can do both the things that draw me in (related to public health), on a Fellowship, while working a full time job as a data scientist in a creative industry (game development). Truth be told, I don’t care much for data science, but I’m good at it and I love my work environments and colleagues, so that allows me to really enjoy work. Meanwhile, I focus a lot of my free time on trying to express my creative interests with my kids or through things like the 10 minute game jam, etc.
I’ll echo what others here have said about your job. It is imperative that you find something else. While I can’t speak to the longer-term mental health issues, I can tell you for certain that an employment incompatibility can and will make you feel like an absolute loser. You’ve just got to get out. For me, it helps to just trying to keep somewhat of a medium-term focus on employment happiness. If I can be somewhere and remain happy for 5 years, then I’ve done really well.
If you want to make a full career transition, then you’re going to need to come up with a plan for how to make that happen and you’ll have to swallow the fact that it won’t happen overnight. You know that it’s time for you to move on – that’s clear through your comments. The problem for me is that when I know that about a job, I become super impatient and I want everything. to. happen. right. now. please. Those are the times when I feel like I’m going to collapse or explode or lose my mind.
Whatever else you do, please: get some good sleep and then wake up tomorrow and do at least one concrete thing that helps you think about how you’re going to get out of that job that is killing you. Try to get excited about something. The truth is, you can do whatever you want to do – it just might take some time to get there. Do it with passion, conviction, dedication, and quality, however, because your life might depend on that, and approaching it that way will help the transition move more quickly because your passion will be evident to the people you speak and work with as you try to make the move.
Not much help, but I work as a Third Party Administrator for 401(k) retirement plans, and I find ERISA lawyers usually seem to have more sedate life styles then you would usually find in that profession. Probably because it’s a pretty boring field, but hey, the goal is to help people retire. That can mean rich alpha jerks, but also making sure that rich alpha jerks make their annual contributions to the rest of the employees as well.
My brother both have law degrees and both work in Government Jobs, but I can see that opening up another avenue for anxiety and depression, what with the Donald as our president.
I’m worried that my advice might be so awful that it could be harmful. But here’s an idea: you can do a ton of different things just with your JD. Maybe you want to work in non-profits and help people with passport issues. Or maybe become a law librarian. Or become an attorney editor. Or write for a Bob Loblaw-style law blog. There are lawyery things you can do without working for overprivileged clients.
(If I remember right, you lived in the middle of MN, right?) I’m not saying you wouldn’t have to relocate for some of these options. But there are other options out there too, where you aren’t starting, career-wise, from square one.
I don’t know how much the money matters, but just find something different. You can search for some ideal job that you are naturally passionate about, but chances are those jobs are very difficult to identify. But if you just do something different you might find just the differences enjoyable, and maybe you’ll find something about the job that does inspire a little passion. A lot of people get into a job and then discover a reason to be passionate about it.
OTOH if you can get disability, maybe it’s better to go for that. That may not solve your mental health issues, but it may relieve the monetary pressure. Then you find something to do like GM a D&D campaign. I’m sure most of us could pour untold hours into something like that. Keep detailed notes and then turn it into a fantasy novel. Isn’t that what Steve Erickson did?
I have no advice, but just wanted to pop in and say how strongly I can relate to this. I too know that if I take a vacation, I will wind up dreading the return to work, but in my case, there is no real make-up work to do when I get back, and I don’t dislike my job, so it’s a total mystery to me as to why this condition exists. I believe it is somewhat common, however.
The thing is, as much as I dread those final vacation days, I find that I absolutely must take vacations, and the more the better, or I really do suffer mentally from lack of time I can call my own.
In fact, I just started a vacation last Friday night. It’s just now Monday morning, and I still have a week to go, so I’m still in the “honeymoon” phase of it. Enjoying myself tremendously. Posting randomly on forums, wandering into the grocery store at 3:00 a.m. to do my shopping, gaming whenever I feel like it (I’m single so that helps). But yeah, I can already feel the blackness creeping in around the edges, knowing how fast this next week will fly by.
One question I do have: There must have been a reason you chose being a lawyer as a profession? Is that reason no longer valid, or does it no longer exist? Can you find any good things about what you do now?
Edit: In reading the whole thread, I kind of lost track of whether you think it’s your job that’s the problem, or something else.
I started working in retail aged 15 by the age of 35 I hated it. Had some long term time off for stress and refused the anti depressants. At 35 my best friend died of cancer and he told me before he died to go and find a job I loved or even just quit and just see what develops but do something.
So my wife was 8 months pregnant and I just quit work, no work, no income etc and the difference was amazing. I felt free again. Anyways I found a job I really liked in Document Management more by luck than judgement. I started off at the bottom and worked up to Operations Manager. I was like a new person and it was great while it lasted
2 years ago I got made redundant again and since then have really struggled to get a job I really want to do. Money is fine atm but work enjoyment is rubbish, I don’t really want to go to work and do not enjoy what I am doing. This starts to drag you down, time outside of work is wasted as you don’t feel happy and you can’t be bothered as much. I have stopped going to the gym when I spent 2 years going 4 times a week and find all my time is spent either dealing with my kids or feeling down about my free time.
I know all this is driven by my job. I am trying really hard to get a new job but no luck so far.
Changing jobs is hard, especially if it is well paid but having the right the job is so important and has a knock on effect through all of your life from enjoying the down time to looking forward to going to work after a great weekend.
One thing I did do when I quit was find things to do. I took up photography and learnt to drive a car at 44. I started playing golf again after 10 years as well as fishing.
Your job needs to go and you need to try a few other jobs, you never know what you may like but it cannot be as bad as what you are doing now. You also need to try some new stuff, doesn’t matter what it is, go to movies, take ups singing, sport, walking, photography, chess, board games, a musical instrument anything that could bring you joy and fun. My kids drive that side of it for me, fishing and golf are with them, they both have their won cameras for photography and walks in the woods etc.
But I understand the depression makes you feel like you don’t want to and that is hard but really once you break that door down it will help. I have holiday from Friday for 10 days and no one looks forward to going back but the focus is on the great plans we have for those 10 days and the late nights of gaming/movies/tv and I can also have at the end of each day.
Both my wife and youngest son have had ECT. It really did wonders for my wife (Bi-polar, suicidal) and for my son it helped with his depression and to alleviate his suicidality but it didn’t touch his extreme anxiety. We’ve also tried a full array of medications to try and help but nothing has worked so far. The other treatment we were looking at was TMS. It’s done in the office and doesn’t require the downtime that ECT has. We were told it’s a one hour treatment, 5 days a week for 4 to 6 weeks. The insurance turned us down due to my sons age (mid teens) though so we haven’t been able to try it.
You can’t really assess jobs and career paths in the state you’re in now. That’s good news because it means you may be wrong when you say nothing appeals to you. Maybe there is something, but you can’t see it because everything looks fucked up.
You ever try 12 step stuff? It might help to keep you focused on the moment. A lot of what you’re talking about is fear of the future, unknown, etc. Not that those things aren’t scary, but if you spend most of your day thinking about the future and all the things you have no or little control over, it just ends up putting you into a tail spin. I speak from experience. If you’re in the day, you can work toward making a choice about your current job. It’s either go or stay. Either way it’s a lot of work. Mental churning about what to do always burns me out. Sometimes if you don’t know, you have to take a leap of faith.
I’m not in your exact situation, but it all sounds very familiar on an emotional level to what my reality is and has been. I wish you luck.
I think the early thing is important here though. Part of my problem is now I’m mid-40s, and I have only done one job for 20 years. I have no other skillset, nothing that I can plausibly sell (my undergraduate degree is in history, which will not even buy me a cup of coffee, to mangle the old cliche).
I feel in some ways like I missed the window in which you can fail and find the next thing. Society loves that whole romantic notion of failing and finding yourself from 20 year olds, and has some understanding. Not so much for people in their mid-40s.
It’s not just about it being sedate, unfortunately. Here’s another bit of whine - being an ERISA lawyer quite possibly would make me kill myself. It’s a ton of what I hate about the job. There’s still conflict, and you basically deal in minutia and trivialities all day (that non-the-less can end up having huge repercussions). Staring at paper for 8-10 hours a day trying to find code loopholes, or reviewing benefit plans to make sure 409A is covered is just painful (for me).
Again, I know, probably a manchild reaction. But it is what it is.
I guess I’ve thought about those things, but if I move jobs now, I lose the ability to try for disability. And if I start a new job and find the same impossibilities and inability to perform (and given my depression, anxiety, and inability to perform now, I don’t
know that it would be different), then I’m very screwed. On the other hand, trying for disability screws my ability to ever find a new job (trying to explain it, explain the gap on my resume while I sought it, etc.). It’s a horrible dilemma for me.
This would be nice. I’ve felt absolutely braindead for a lot of years. My sense of imagination and fantasy are pretty much gone. But it would be nice if I discovered that some time away to decompress somehow bring them back a bit.
The reason is I had a functionally useless undergraduate degree, and needed to do something that made money. I was of course told that I was good at arguing (though the internet has told me repeatedly over and over that is wrong, and that I obviously can’t even read), good at analysis, etc., and that it was a natural fit. Well, it wasn’t. But once you go get that law degree and sign onto $150,000 in debt, well, you’re kind of riding it out, like it or not.
This is helpful, but I literally don’t understand how people go jobless in U.S. society, particularly with kids to support. My COBRA premiums alone will be $18,000-19,000 per year. Add another $5,200 for the deductible should we need healthcare. The healthcare costs more than a $10.00 an hour job, let alone rent, utilities, food, taxes, etc.
Someone else mentioned TMS to me, but my psychiatrist (whom I really don’t like) has not. Another issue I have to figure out is whether to switch psychiatrists. I’ve been looking into it, and I can’t find anyone good who has openings. (Most aren’t accepting new patients.) Of course, finding a new one may do horrible things to any disability claim as well (as you may look like you’re doctor shopping, the insurer will at a minimum say you need to be under treatment with the same doctor for a while and you’re essentially starting over, etc.).
Completely agree with this.
[quote=“SlyFrog, post:30, topic:129147, full:true”]my psychiatrist (whom I really don’t like) has not. Another issue I have to figure out is whether to switch psychiatrists. I’ve been looking into it, and I can’t find anyone good who has openings. (Most aren’t accepting new patients.) Of course, finding a new one may do horrible things to any disability claim as well (as you may look like you’re doctor shopping, the insurer will at a minimum say you need to be under treatment with the same doctor for a while and you’re essentially starting over, etc.).
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I strongly recommend at least consulting with other doctors around you. Finding a doctor you are comfortable with is absolutely critical. It’s not just about the on-paper qualifications, but also developing the ongoing relationship of trust that enables effective treatment. That’s really, really difficult if there is a strong personal aversion going on.
About 10 years ago, I made a job change that was transformative to me. I had been in my previous job for 11 years and was pretty damn miserable. Dreaded going to work every day. Didn’t see a path forward. Prospects for a new job that would be better were slim. Not to the levels you’re describing, I don’t believe, but I was not a happy guy to put it mildly.
I decided to be more open to opportunities outside of the city I was in and started looking for a new gig more seriously. Ended up getting a gig and moving to the Bay Area with no idea how I’d be able to afford it on the salary I was offered, but willing to give it a shot. Best career decision I’ve ever made. Details don’t matter much, but I’m far happier now than I’ve been in any previous job. For me a change in circumstance and employer made a world of difference, even within the same job field.
YMMV, of course, but my advice is you should change something, and something significant. There are always going to be a million reasons why it might not work and downsides to the decision. However, you know for certain that your current situation is killing you. Talk to friends, family and doctors. Lay out a few potential options in front of you, complete with pros and cons, just like you’re doing in this thread. Start figuring out how to actually take one of those paths. Yes, it’ll be a gamble and not without downsides. But it’ll be a calculated gamble and under your own control.
I know nothing about clinical depression and the legal profession, but I want to echo what several others have said: doing nothing sounds like the worst option. Yes, there are risks to changing jobs or going on disability or finding new doctors or any of the other suggestions. Making some kind of change is essential, though, based on what you’ve said about your situation.
Just want to jump in and say here: don’t let cultural machismo bullshit prevent you from being honest about your feelings. The pressures from our culture (to men in particular) to “suck it up” and “stop whining” will only prevent you from doing the right thing for you. If you don’t like something, then you don’t like it, regardless of who might think you should like it or stop whining about it. Allow yourself to really feel things and enjoy your life for who you are, rather than who others want you to be.
I’m probably projecting or whatever, but just in case this helps, I wanted to write it down.
Is there a public sector equivalent to the job you do? You could look for another job while keeping this one. My experience is that you have a whole lot less bullshit in the public sector of being paid by billable hours, of having to take vacations on your dime, of socializing to get new clients, or directly dealing with clients at all, etc… It’s not a miracle cure, but tt does cut down on the existential anguish.
I hear you. I’m also mid-40s. I went back for a Masters in Analytics (9 month program) a few years ago for the simple reason that I wanted to be able to pivot through other fields. Like I said, you can get into a different career, but you’re going to have to have the patience to work towards it. That can be difficult when you want to walk away from your job ASAP.
I know you said you are divorced and single. Are you trying to date people? Of course it comes with its own bag of problems, but finding a new partner may help with a lot of perspective and enjoyment of life.
ECT can work wonders for people who have not had success with the usual medication options. It can take a long time, but it really can be amazingly effective.
Yes, I agree with this. Can’t hurt.
There was a good story on NPR about ECT (covered on several shows):
http://www.npr.org/2017/01/17/510204486/kitty-dukakis-electroshock-therapy-has-given-me-a-new-lease-on-life