5 people who quit their job for their mental health share exactly how they did it

How 5 people actually quit their jobs for their mental health

The following stories have been edited for length and/or clarity.

“I just kept thinking to myself, ‘Am I going to survive this?’ and the answer felt like no.”

“I was working for a labor union in health care that involved a lot of vicarious trauma. We heard heartbreaking stories all the time, just a lot of pain and anguish. I also managed a team, so it was not uncommon for my day to be filled with managing other folks’ emotions and helping make sure that they were OK, too. I had started therapy prior to working there for other reasons, but during the job, I got on medication for depression and anxiety.

“At a certain point, those tools weren’t enough. Officially, I used my dad’s health as my reason for quitting—he had a heart attack, and the mix of work stress and personal stuff led to a breaking point. But I don’t think I would have lasted much longer in that job, regardless. It was getting harder and harder to get out of bed every day because I was dreading going to the office.

“I took about a week of mental health days to really think it through. I was lucky I was in a situation where I had a partner who was supportive of me quitting and able to float our rent for as long as it took me to find another job. But I still worried about the impact on my career. I just kept thinking to myself, ‘Can I keep functioning? Am I going to survive this?’ and the answer felt like no. So I typed up my resignation letter and the relief I felt just from putting it on paper made me feel like I was doing the right thing.

“Once I gave my resignation, all the weight in the world left my shoulders and I felt free. The couple months that I spent unemployed, I did a lot of self care to help my body and mind recover. It was a solid six weeks before I started looking for work, and when I did, I avoided jobs with direct reports and looked for better work-life balance. It can be paralyzing to realize that a job doesn’t suit you or bring you joy, but there is life outside of work and there are jobs that will work for you.” —Kevin S., 24, Portland, OR

“I took two months to focus on resting and exploring what my ADHD meant for my career.”

“My first job out of college was a pretty mundane office job, but I was convinced it was the most toxic job ever. There was constantly more on my plate than I could reasonably accomplish and I felt like I couldn’t do anything right. Looking back, parts of it really were bad, like my manager, but I also learned over the course of the job that I was struggling so much because I had undiagnosed ADHD.

“I started therapy pretty early in the job just because I was getting depressed and anxious and burned out from work taking over my life. When I got diagnosed with ADHD, it didn’t really help at first. I actually started beating myself up more. It was like, ‘Oh, OK, so this is my fault. I can’t handle the job.’ I didn’t feel comfortable asking for accommodations—I wish I had, but it felt like asking for accommodations would be cheating before I tried managing my ADHD on my own outside of work. That pretty much went on until I was so burned out that I was spending my weekends sleeping and crying and not seeing my friends. I was too overwhelmed to think about looking at other jobs.

“I finally took some time off using FMLA after a friend of mine did something similar. I talked to my therapist about it and she helped me through the process. I also had short-term disability insurance through my employer, which I applied for on the basis of depression and anxiety, not ADHD. I took two months to focus on resting and exploring what my ADHD meant for my career. I realized pretty quickly I didn’t want to go back to the job and planned to quit. It would still be a few more months after I got back before I did, but the time off allowed me to recover a bit and explore other options now that I knew that kind of office work wasn’t for me.” —Frances W., 29, Chicago, IL

“I might be the cautionary tale of how not to go about it.”

“I worked at a public safety notification app, initially on the graveyard shift from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. My job involved listening to police and firefighter dispatches—around 10 to 12 hours of radio content per shift because we played it at 2-3 times speed.

I started dreaming about radio calls, developed intense anxiety about house fires, stopped seeing friends and writing, and was hospitalized twice while working there. I eventually moved into a 9-5 content role, which was better for my mental health, but by then, I felt like it was already too late.

“The final straw came when our CEO did something I found extremely unethical. Between that and how I was already mentally unwell from the work, I just couldn’t reconcile staying. I quit within a month without another job lined up. At the time, I had a decent amount of savings and no credit card debt, and a pretty big credit allowance, so I had access to about $15,000. I thought that’d absolutely get me through five or six months of rent and living expenses while I looked for a job. I was pretty optimistic about the job market and was already interviewing for a few positions.

“I wound up spending the next 14 months job hunting, either unemployed or underemployed, and eventually went to grad school. I scraped by through freelance gigs and chance breaks—one month, a refund from my program was the only reason I made rent. I eventually found a full-time job, but it paid significantly less, and I never fully caught up. It’s been about five years of financial precarity. Soon I’ll be moving out of the city to somewhere with a lower cost of living. So quitting did come with sacrifice—I might be the cautionary tale of how not to go about it.

“Still, it gave me time to return to creative writing, which I had barely touched during that job, and I got a literary agent and self-published a book. What got me through the uncertainty was my community. Sometimes you need people to remind you, ‘Yes, it was absolutely the right move to quit that job.’” —Karis R., 33, New York, NY

“Rather than put myself into major debt, I decided to move back home.”

“I’d been a federal employee for about seven years and I already had one foot out the door because I was ready for something new. But then the administration changed and a lot of things happened that made the environment worse for me as a queer person. On top of that, we were warned about a reduction in force every few months. It was a constant environment of anxiety that you were going to be fired.

“The final blow was when a project I’d been working on for years got canceled a week before we were meant to exhibit it. By then, nearly every project I really had my heart in had been scrapped, and I thought, ‘There’s nothing left for me here.’ I planned to apply for another position internally as a less drastic solution, but a hiring freeze meant it was never posted. So after months of hurry up and wait, I finally gave my notice.

“I’d been diligent about saving a significant portion of my salary in an emergency fund. But I still couldn’t afford to spend months paying $2,000 in rent while competing with thousands of laid-off government workers for another job. So rather than put myself into major debt, I decided to move back home. My property manager allowed me to break my lease, and my family let me stay rent-free for up to six months, so I used that time to give my body a break from the constant turmoil.

“Moving home came with worries, especially as a queer person returning to a rural Midwest town of about 1,000 people, but it also gave me valuable time with my grandmother as her dementia progressed. We gardened, raised quail, and just had chill time in the woods. It was two or three months before I started looking for jobs again, and I do wish I had started the search sooner since it took awhile—but I also know I needed time to recover.” —Saint R., 27, Tampa, FL

“I wanted to make a transition plan instead of quitting cold turkey.”

“I worked in a mental health outpatient clinic that specialized in addiction recovery, starting as an intern and getting my clinical hours there as I trained as a therapist. The for-profit clinic expected us to see seven or eight people a day without the right supervision. I found myself drowning in emotional and administrative work, staying late trying to catch up, and waking up in tears because I didn’t want to go in.

“I went back and forth about quitting for a long time. I was very passionate about my clients, but I didn’t want the work to kill me. I was in a privileged position to still live at home, so it wouldn’t put me at risk of homelessness, but it went against everything in me to walk away. Then one day I had a dream where someone at work handed me a literal timer counting down—three, two, one—and it said, ‘Times up.’ I woke up and thought, I’m going to take that as a message.

“I wrote a resignation letter and kept it saved on my desktop for weeks. I wanted to make a transition plan instead of quitting cold turkey, and that involved figuring out what was actually next. I was so traumatized from being in the mental health outpatient space that I didn’t want to jump to another clinic. So I started looking at what other opportunities and options were out there, asking: What are non-traditional ways people are doing this kind of work? That led to me diversifying my income streams—working part-time at a tea shop, running corporate wellness workshops, and taking steps toward opening my own private practice.

“Eventually, I felt ready to send in my letter. There was never going to be a perfect moment to leave, but I just hit a point where I thought, ‘OK, I haven’t found exactly what I’m looking for yet, but I’m too depleted to stay here. So I think I just have to let this job go and see what happens next.’

“As a therapist, I know everybody’s path is going to look different. Some people will transition into different fields. Some need a true break. I always say exhaust every single one of your options until you find one that makes the most sense and feels like it will give you the most relief and reprieve.” —Naiylah W., 36, Charlotte, NC

5 questions to ask yourself before quitting your job for your mental health

Even if you know that quitting is your ideal option, it still might not be the most helpful or realistic choice at that moment. So before handing in your notice, Maddy Brener, Psy.D., a licensed clinical psychologist at Thriveworks, recommends asking a few more questions to suss out whether quitting your job will actually help your mental health:

1. Is it this workplace, this type of work, or your mental health overall?

A few different things could be contributing to how you feel, Dr. Brener says—and getting as clear as possible about what’s driving your distress can help you identify what you actually need, whether that’s a healthier workplace, stronger boundaries, a different field, or time away from work altogether.

For example, the strain might be specific to your current workplace, such as an unsupportive boss, an unmanageable workload, or a toxic culture. It could be tied to your relationship to work more broadly—like if your field is naturally high-stress or emotionally demanding. Or you might be struggling with your mental health more generally, with working taking up the time and energy you need to address it.

These possibilities can overlap, and all may be valid reasons to quit—but the more you understand what’s going on, the easier it is to guess whether quitting is a necessary next step or a Band-Aid over a bullet hole.

2. What new problems might quitting create?

There are times when practical realities might have to outweigh what would bring you the most immediate relief. As Dr. Brener says, “We have to keep in mind the context of the capitalist hellscape.” You can’t predict the future, but she recommends running some risk assessment and evaluating the safety nets you have in place.

Take a hard look at things like your savings, monthly expenses, health insurance, treatment costs, household responsibility, and the job market—and then weigh your concerns against the mental health costs of staying. “Sometimes you do have to accept that facing homelessness or going without food or losing access to your therapist probably isn’t going to make your mental health recovery go smoothly,” Dr. Brener says.

3. Could anything realistically make the job more sustainable?

Quitting isn’t an easy decision if it involves giving up income, health insurance, or job security in your industry. Unless you have a dependable safety net in place, Dr. Brener recommends exploring smaller breaks first. “Really explore whether there are feasible changes within your control that might reduce your stress, anxiety, or whatever is going on with your mental health,” Dr. Brener says.

Depending on your job, that could mean adjusting your schedule, transferring to another team or department, requesting accommodations, or discussing more options with your manager or HR. Or it could mean tweaks outside of work, like seeking mental health support, leaning on your support system, setting firmer boundaries, or making more room for rest and meaningful activities that could counter some of the toll work takes on you.

You don’t have to exhaust every theoretical option or wait indefinitely for a toxic workplace to transform. “If you keep coming back to ‘I have to get out of here,’ then maybe you have to get out of there,” Dr. Brener says.

4. Could you step away temporarily before making a permanent decision?

If your mental health is compromised to the point that you’re considering quitting, some distance from the job may help you decide with a clearer head. You might be able to take a leave of absence if you qualify through the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) or a short-term disability insurance. It’s worth looking into whether or not you have these benefits. If you do, a good first step is talking to your therapist or primary care provider about your symptoms, whether you might qualify, and what documentation you might need.

Another option is to use your vacation days or scale back on your hours. The goal is to find some true time away to rest, seek treatment, apply to other positions, or just evaluate the situation and think through the decision more clearly.

5. Who can help you gut-check this decision?

When you’re worn down from depression, anxiety, or burnout, it’s not always easy to trust your own instincts. Maybe you keep falling into a loop of telling yourself that if you just try a little harder, you can make the job work. Or you’re so desperate for relief that you want to quit immediately without thinking about what comes next.

“No matter what, you’ve got to have a sounding board,” Dr. Brener. “Whether you need that person to be a voice of reason, offer some perspective or help, or just say, ‘You can’t keep on going like this, it’s not sustainable’—talk it through with a therapist, a friend, or anyone you can trust to support your best interest.’”