By Adreanna

A few months before my thirty-eighth birthday, I made a gutsy call to quit my job without having another one lined up. For someone like me, born in the ’80s and raised in the ’90s, this decision flies in the face of everything I was taught about being a grown-up.

Being an adult is supposed to be about doing what you have to do even when you don’t want to do it. It’s about making sacrifices day in and day out to fulfill someone else’s dream and if yours gets caught up in the process then you’re truly lucky. It’s all about the hustle, survival of the fittest, it’s eat or be eaten. It certainly isn’t about walking away from a long-standing career without a plan. But I did it anyway.

So why did I quit?

I had persevered at my job for seven years. Always being dictated to about my motives, opinions, thoughts, desires, and aims. Never truly consulted and heard. And over the years I regularly gaslit myself into believing that I could endure, that circumstances would improve, and that I would be seen as an individual and allowed to advocate on my own behalf if I just worked hard enough, kept my nose down, committed to the culture, and earned my stripes.

But then, something just clicked for me on a regular day, during a typical call, that made me wonder what I was even doing at my job and if all the self sacrificing and minimizing myself was worth it. I went into the call that day hoping to have a conversation about some time management and delegation issues I was having but was instead met with a full dictatorial speech that included assaults on my character and assumptions about my aims. It was during that call that I had a moment of clarity. I fully realized and accepted that I would never be perceived in any way other than the character that my employers had already created for me. I was stuck playing a part, and that’s all they’d let me be. The issue with the character they needed me to embody was that it just didn’t match the person that I am now, nor am I striving to be.

On the day I decided it was time to leave, I was emotional and frustrated and I let it be known. Immediately afterwards, I went into questioning my own sanity. But later, after deep reflection, I came to realize that my emotional outburst served as a clear indicator that I had been neglecting my instincts for far too long. The pressure had been mounting for a long time and I had been ignoring it for just as long. But finally, enough was enough. My emotions did something my reasoning hadn’t allowed me to do. I typed my notice.

It took me an excessively long time to recognize that I would never find the fulfillment I was looking for at that job because it wasn’t my purpose to fulfil the role that was required to maintain it.

After I submitted my notice I went to work on my after plan. I meticulously planned my sabbatical, down to the minute, with the intention of fully committing to my coaching business and realizing my dream of becoming a published author once I completed my last day of service. Nowhere in my plan did I account for a month of bed rest due to stress and anxiety. But here’s the undeniable truth about the human body: it keeps the score.

And then?

On my first day of unemployment, my physical body experienced a wild upheaval. I fell ill and I fell hard. I was hit with migraines, gastrointestinal upset, dizziness, and fainting spells. I made multiple visits to the ER, convinced that I was facing a life-threatening situation. Repeatedly, emergency room visits only resulted in being told that my symptoms were due to stress and anxiety. This was infuriating to hear because, at that point in time, what could possibly be causing me stress? It seemed that if I were to experience these health crises, they should have occurred while I was still employed, not after freeing myself from that stress. But apparently the body doesn’t work that way. My body was just like, “I need a break, dude,” and there wasn’t anything I could do or say to make it change its mind and let me go all-out and push past its limits.

Now, on the other side of this ordeal and with my physical health improving, I can look back and recognize that during that month, my body was purging all the pent-up stress, anxiety, and overwhelm accumulated over the past seven years.

So what am I doing now?

Despite my illness, I successfully managed to achieve a great deal. I dedicated time to work on my website, completed my life coaching certification, established my LLC, launched my Instagram business page, commenced classes in digital marketing, organized my birthday trip to New Orleans, devised a household budget for the next six months, designed and ordered my marketing materials, crafted profiles on freelance writer job boards, started working on a portfolio, and applied for several part-time positions for work that i feel i will genuinely enjoy.

While I haven’t landed a new job yet, I have been thoroughly enjoying the ease that I get to start my day with. I am loving the freedom to choose where, how, and for how long I work. And the best part of it all has been that I am allowed to exist and operate as the person I am and not who someone else is telling me I have to be in order to be successful and accomplished. Not to forget the improved health benefits I have been seeing since I gave my body and mind the break that it so desperately needed. I can feel my creativity and energy coming back. The color in my skin is returning to normal. The migraines are practically nonexistent and I am feeling more vibrant than I have in years.

I’m not really sure if everyone experiences this as some kind of mid-life crisis. I can’t predict if I’ll look back on this in a few months or years and regret my decision. I have no idea where this path is taking me. What I do know is that I feel physically and mentally better than I have in years. If having peace of mind now means dealing with this small bit of uncertainty, then I don’t regret a thing.