For me it was the work itself that also was the problem. I love engineering. That's what's so tragic about it. I love engineering as a discipline or academic subject. But put me in front of a computer and ask me to do the same type of work for 40+ hours a week? I break.

Don't be afraid to seek outside help or to consider wildly different career options. If you can do the work just fine, maybe you should look into finding a way to exercise your skills as an independent consultant. Don't work for anyone. Just take on work and do it.

But yeah, I totally get just wandering off. At this last job, I initially quit after three days. My partner and our real need for the money at the time was enough motivation for me to give it another go, and the company was willing to work with me. But in my heart, I knew where this was headed from day one.

After about 8 months, I reached a breaking point and requested to go on unpaid leave. I took two months, worked with a therapist in the meantime, and got on some medication. I spent my time pouring myself into my hobbies, hoping to reset the burnout.

Last week I went back, and I quit after three days. When I finally got back into the work for real, nothing had changed. It emotionally felt exactly the same. (And that was enough to have me curled up into a ball, rocking myself though a panic attack at my desk.)

There might still be a way to make it work for me. Maybe on the right medication and therapy I could find a way to make it work.

But frankly, I just don't want to anymore. I'm tired of the pain. I've built up so much emotional scar tissue relating to office work. I'm just done.

I'm just going to do teaching now in whatever form I can. Maybe someday I find a way back to an engineering classroom. Maybe I just be a career tutor. Maybe I become a high school math teacher. I don't know. All I know is if I keep doing this to myself, I'm going to end up on a bridge somewhere. It's gotten that bad.

Teaching abroad is tempting, and if I could give advice to my younger self, I might encourage her to take that path. But for a variety of reasons, it's not viable. First, don't imagine my life as a total basket case. I'm not on the edge of homelessness or something. We're very far from that. I've been fortunate enough that while I do burn out from positions, I've been able to bring in enough money to keep a roof over my head. It's taken a lot of work, but I've been able to plan around career instability:

Long description of a life planning around AuDHD career instability:

Stability and concurrent obligations that come with a long-term partner:

Other factors making relocation difficult:

That's why I'm looking into K12 teaching. I can jump into substitute teaching right where I am, right as I am, right now. The only requirement to be a substitute teacher in my state is to have a bachelors degree and a clean criminal record. (Thankfully I've avoided any trouble with the law.) I've never worked in a K12 classroom. But I have taught extensively at the undergraduate level, and I have 20 years of experience tutoring K12 students. In the past, I had always focused on university teaching. I like that you get more academic freedom at the collegiate level, and dealing with things like parent-teacher conferences does sound like a PITA. And being trans in teaching is a bit riskier at the K12 than the university level. But at this point, I'm just tired of describing my teaching in the past tense. I want to get back into a classroom however I can.

Thankfully there is a pretty easy ramp. My local district always has needs for substitutes. You sign up for short 1-10 day jobs one at a time, but you could easily make a full-time job out of it. Doing that every day of the school year would only pay $50k without benefits, less than half of what I was making in industry, but that still is a non-trivial portion of our household income. And if I like that, they frequently hire people on for full-time but temporary positions (like covering for maternity leave.) And those positions pay actual proper teacher's salaries with benefits. I think if I was a regular teacher in the district I would make $65k-75k starting (depending on how they count my prior work experience), plus great benefits. That's not as good as the $125k I made at my last engineering job, but good enough. I'm not trying to get rich. I'm actually pretty modest in my wants and desires. I just want enough to provide peace and stability.

Hell, even while teaching undergrad, that's all I really wanted. I was perfectly happy with the modest salary from being a full-time lecturer. I also totally get the idea that academia has too few constraints. Teaching is great - you have a clear body of work you must teach students, and then you can practice creativity within those constraints. But research? Trying to justify one particular research path over the infinite number of possibilities just breaks me.

In my head, the way I think of it is, I'm a performer that needs a stage to dance upon. I paradoxically need both freedom and structure. I need to be able to practice creative freedom, but I also need a structure to scaffold that. Restraints breed creativity.

Anyway, sorry this turned into such a brain dump. There's obviously a lot going through my head right now. In short, while teaching abroad is very tempting (especially with how the US is with trans rights,) we really can't relocate at this time. We just moved cities. And any international relocation would involve moving myself, a husband, two cats, and a big house full of stuff. And we already relocated across the country once for reasons of my career. Where we are is where we are. For good or for ill, this is where we make our stand.