Tired Hedgehog by Patty Flowers for Cat from Space

So I left my job and decided to take some time off. But because I am a bit of a control freak, I kept checking the job adverts and found one that really caught my eye. They offered 20 minutes consultations. “20 minutes??? That must feel like an eternity!” I told myself, after having worked for two years on 10 minutes consultations, which had me rushed off my feet constantly. On the interview, the practice owner seemed to really care for their employees and their well-being, so I decided that job was what I needed, even though I hadn’t given myself enough time off to rest and recover. I didn’t want to miss such a good opportunity.

When I started working there, I couldn’t believe how different it was from my previous practice. I had plenty of time for my consultations and allocated time for checking results and phoning clients, nobody seemed rushed and stressed and the nurses were extremely helpful and welcoming.

I realised that if that had been my first practice or if I had decided to quit my previous job sooner, I could have probably prevented burnout from developing into mental-health conditions. But the harm was already done, and as much as I enjoyed my new job, things didn’t go as well as I would have liked.

I still felt anxious about threats that weren’t real, I still couldn’t sleep on the days before having to work, I still thought that the worst would happen, that an animal would die under my care or I would get an emergency I couldn’t manage or a case I wouldn’t be able solve or an angry owner blaming me for something that had gone terribly wrong. The sad thing is that those things rarely ever happened and most days were manageable and fairly stress-free. It wasn’t the job itself any more that was to blame, but all the traumas and anxieties that I associated with being a vet. And for a while I really disliked and blamed myself for feeling like that towards what had been my forever dream, being a veterinary surgeon and working with animals.

In that time, Steps-to-wellbeing got back to me again and offered me CBT, which consisted in a lady talking about how to reprogram my brain to not continue with the harmful behaviours and thoughts. But there wasn’t any conversation there, it was more like a monologue or a lesson, and I didn’t feel it was for me either.

Self hug by Hala Al Asadi

So after a while they moved me to counselling and I had the loveliest lady listening to how I was feeling and doing. It was like a conversation with a very knowledgeable friend, she would give me some advice and explain why some thought and behavioural patterns originated and how to break them. She taught me the importance of “parenting yourself”, or treating yourself in a similar way you would treat your own son or daughter, with understanding, love and lack of judgement. We are always very hard and unempathetic when judging ourselves, but very kind and understanding when a friend comes to us for help or advice, and that is not fair on ourselves. Why is it so difficult to love ourselves? Why do we feel so undeserving of all that love?

And here I am now, after a lot of counselling and a lot of pestering myself and my friends with “I don’t know what the hell to do with my life, do I quit being a vet forever? Do I just do something else for a while? Am I even capable of doing something else? Can I even work full time again?”.

I have finally found the courage to quit my wonderful job and take some time off, in view to start retraining afterwards. This time, I am going to give Software development a go, something completely different, but also something I have been enjoying little bits of over the last couple of years and a career with which I have a lot of support from people close to me.

Some people will say that it’s a shame I abandon a career that took me such long time and effort to pursue, someone so vocational and passionate like me, giving up what they love. But like it happens with human relationships, sometimes it’s not about the amount of love or passion, but about whether that bond is doing you good and adding to your life or if, on the other hand, is like a life and energy absorbing parasite. I am never going to stop being a vet, but having an alternative career I can pursue means that when I do vet work, it will be because I want to and because I like it, not because I need to do it to survive. And hopefully, that will break the cycle of trauma and anxiety I got myself into.

If you are going through something similar or have any questions about this experience, please feel free to leave a us comment. I posted this story hoping all my mistakes and all the things I learnt thanks to them would be able to help someone else <3

And so I chose to begin again by Jon Tyson