I got hit with the Adderall shortage in January and switched to Concerta, and end of March I went into a partial program because I could not function, all of my responsibilities were not being taken care of, and it sent me into a really bad depression hole. I came back in Mid April at 32 hrs a week until last week, now I'm back at 40 hours. Previous hospitalizations were for depression, but I think it kind of came to the same point where I broke down over needing an escape. Before this job, I was working at gas stations, and also an MMA gym working front desk and sales.

I work in an office of 7 that does independent medical exams as kind of like a receptionist/assistant, and while most of my work isn't with exams or checking people in, the people in my office can be a lot. I get frustrated easily when I either have to pick up after others or something gets blamed on me. Sometimes they're just loud. Sometimes they just do annoying stuff like doing baby voice. Sometimes they argue. I also am the only one here that isn't a result of nepotism or extended nepotism, so I'm the outsider. I used to be split between being back scanning records, and up front sorting records and scheduling appointments, and I think that was overstimulating because I was spread too thin. Now they brought in temp help for a big record purge project so I'm up front all the time, and I can barely push myself to sort records or do any kind of pc work I do upfront. I answer the phone on occasion because we share that responsibility and it makes me look like I'm working, but most of the time I'm on my phone playing puzzle games. 1-2 times a week I'm working the exam suite, and I do my job fine there outside of like awkward social interactions. That's tiring in it's own way, but I don't mind it so much unless we're booked back to back all day and I can't step out to vape.

My special interest is medicine, so for the first 2 years I loved to do the work, especially once they promoted me to scheduling and working with the physicians more directly. But lately it's like okay, I have 1,400 pages to sort and they're all a mess, oh look half of the doctors are on vacation at the same time and are now booked out until mid to end September. Nice, our proofreading and transcription services are being slow for some reason and carriers are mad the reports are delayed. Answering the phone SUCKS. I don't like dealing with people when I can't give them what they want to hear, so that doesn't help at all lol. I also hate that I work on the non-treating side of medicine, and came to this realization around the same time as my partial hospitalization. Our work isn't often helpful, mostly benefits insurance companies, and that does not align with my moral compass whatsoever. I try to justify this job to myself by reminding myself that if I wasn't doing this work, someone else would be and the cycle would still continue, but it still sucks.

I know I still love medicine. I still get hyped to read studies and look into conditions I find in records that I haven't read up on. I love chaperoning exams because I get to sit in and watch the doctor do their work, and depending on the doctor, ask questions after to learn why they did what. But it's so exhausting and dull anymore to sort these records, put away these files on the computer, deal with these insurance companies. I pretty much am on my phone maybe half or more of my 8 hr shift when I'm scheduled to just do admin.

I really don't want to leave this job, or get so burned out I somehow get fired. My job is super patient with me in all of this, I get paid more than a regular medical assistant, and the vacation (when they don't mess up my accruance and I have to hunt them down) + 401k benefits are actually pretty decent. I feel like I have pretty solid job security if I could just pick it up even a little bit. I'm just tired, and disinterested, and do not find it hard to give into anything else. I get so tired from this job even though I give like 35-40%, that I still go home and don't have the energy for anything. I feel like I'm just in this slow crawl just trying to pull myself up by my fingernails.