It sounded simple on the face of it. All I had to do was work from home and not go outdoors. I’m not a social butterfly so the staying indoors bit wasn’t too much of a stretch from normal.

However, what I hadn’t banked on was just how much impact trying to juggle the worsening heath of my partner, working from home, a pandemic and isolation from most avenues of support was going to have on my mental health.

It took a few months but, not surprisingly, looking back, the cracks started to show. I realised just how adrift I had become from myself. I was going through the motions but I wasn’t really there.

One of the things that I think contributed to the strain I was under was that it seemed virtually impossible to get away from the pandemic. Media in all it’s forms were saturated with it, stressing over and over again how horrific this was (as if most of us hadn’t worked that out in the fairly early stages), politicians waxing lyrical about how they were going to be the ones to make it all better and then squabbling on how to do so. Misinformation, runmour and speculation were abound as always but in a far greater volume. Short of going to live in a cave or hibernating, there seemed to be no relief.

I reached breaking point and I was forced to make a stark choice or face irreparable damage. I had to choose between me and my loved one or my job. After much soul searching and advice, I chose me and my loved one. I felt bad, like I was letting people down. Walking away from a job, even for a very good reason, is something that society as a whole still frowns on. We are taught from an early age how important being employed is. Something had to give and it was not going to be me.

I handed my notice and as soon as I did it, I knew that I had made the right choice. Finding work is stressful but it paled in comparison to what I was dealing with.

This pandemic has certainly been one hell of a learning curve and has served to remind me how easy it can be in times of great difficulty to slip away from yourself and abandon not only yourself but those things that are really important for those that society dictates to us to be important.

Written By Lorna Smart

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