I've probably talked about this before so SIAP but I need to get this off my chest. I'm seriously considering getting out of community health care. I really feel like these past 3 years have destroyed any enjoyment I had in my professional life and I find it bleeding into my personal life. Before the pandemic I was having second thoughts about my professional life. I had left a corporate job where I was being denied promotion and advancement for a different non-corporate gig that was less stressful. But this job became more stressful than my other one and I felt like I had hit a plateau rather than rising up like before. Pandemic came rolling around and I took it as a sign that maybe this is what I was put here to do. Since then everything has gone downhill. Haven't had a raise in 4 years, the public doesn't view me as a hero (if anything there's a very vocal crowd that thinks I'm evil because I give the vaccine), people are angrier and less patient (no pun intended), and I'm just finding myself getting more frustrated by my workload and who I have to deal with. I'm exhausted 24/7. I wake up at 6am every day tired, go to work and get yelled at all day by people who don't understand their health insurance plan, and then come at 6pm totally wiped out. I'm going to bed at 8pm, 8:30pm, 9pm and I usually stay up until 10. Wife wants to tell me stories about her day at work and I have almost no interest in any of it. I just want to wind down and go to bed.
I don't know how I can make this a long term career. I just can't see the light at the end of the tunnel as a health care professional working for the public. I really want to make a change but to be honest, it terrifies me. I'm terrified that it would be a mistake and that if I stuck it out further it might work out in the end. Terrified that other areas of health care will view me as damaged goods and unworthy. Terrified of disappointing family. Terrified of disappointing myself.
By the way this is NOT a cry for help. I'm not in any danger of self harm or anything like that. I just needed to vent. Thanks for reading.