I'm a high flyer but I hate my job and it's making me ill

The Indy's agony aunt Victoria Richards is here to help

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Dear Vix, I have a very demanding job in the City that pays well, has good benefits - a great pension, generous holiday allowance, private healthcare - but I am utterly miserable.

I can’t sleep, I have heart palpitations and I don’t even breathe properly. The stress and worry of what’s on my morning “to do” list just makes me feel like I'm drowning. I never get to pick my children up from school - the nanny does that – and I miss all the important moments, like their end-of-term assemblies.

As a senior woman in a male-dominated industry, I've had to work twice as hard to smash the glass ceiling to get where I am. It feels like too much to give up. But the sacrifices I've been forced to make with my family - and the impact on my health are starting to make it all not feel worth it.

I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place - if I leave, I risk impacting my career and finances and progression up the ladder (and that has a very real effect on my family and our lifestyle, too). If I stay, I seriously worry about what else I will lose. I don't think it's too much of an exaggeration to say I fear one day my child will hear that I've been rushed to hospital. At my lowest moments, I wish for it - at least then I'd get a rest.

I can't go on like this. I just don't know what to do.

Desperate

Dear Desperate,

The name you've used to describe yourself, I think, says it all – you are desperate. Desperate for something to happen; to yank you out of this self-perpetuating loop of worry and stress and burnout and overwork. Desperate to make a decision. Desperate to be freed, somehow, from what's making you ill.

How awful to feel the way you are feeling. I think many of us can relate.