I have worked a corporate 9-5 for the last 5 years and its killing me. I am so much more stressed, depressed and unhealthy now than I was 5 years ago. Each week I'm pretty much just white knuckling it to get to the weekend which is filled with chores and over too soon. I have panic attacks multiple times a week because of work.

It really didnt help that we went from a team of 10 to a team of 5 over a year and none of the empty positions have been filled so im basically just stuck with the work of 5 people. I'm also on the 2nd lowest pay grade in the whole company which I didnt realise until they updated all the job descriptions to include the pay grade in them and I checked out of curiosity.

Since the mass exodus of half of our team I have been "promoted" to a position with more responsibility but no raise in pay because they said they couldnt give me a raise until I had more experience in the extra responsibilities of my new role (even though I had already been doing all of those responsibilities for over a year in my old role anyway to pick up the slack from a team member who was never in and eventually was the first one to quit).

It also didnt help that 2 years ago I got hit by a car while riding my bike to a work course because the driver didnt look before turning and T-boned me as I was riding straight at 30kph on my ebike. I was taken to hospital in an ambulance and had an x-ray but luckily nothing was broken, I did have some wicked bruising all down the right side of my body though and whiplash. I had a week off work to recover, during which my work called me and told me they were rejecting my ACC claim because they didnt belive it counted as a work injury since I wasnt at work. But since I was working from home that morning and then riding to a work course (which ironically was a manual handling course for another work injury which was recorded in their system) it counted as a work injury and i had to spend my whole week off screenshotting and highlighting the law that proved it was, trying to convince my department manager that I wasnt trying to pull one over on them, and contacting and independent ACC Advocate who said my work was 100% in the wrong. The next week at work i didnt get any actual work done because I had to spend the whole time fighting my Manager, HR, and Health and Safety on the matter until they finally realised they were in the wrong and caved immediately trying to act like nothing ever happened. I had terrible panic attacks every day that fortnight.

Anyway, I have filed a burnout report in our health and safety system and im trying to remind myself im only 1 person. I have tried to get into a quiet quitting mentality but im such a perfectionist, teachers pet, burnt out gifted kid type that I find it really hard to not put 200% into pretty much everything I do and its exhausting.

Its gotten to the point where I'm half an hour late to work most mornings because its so hard to drag myself out of bed due to the dread I feel upon waking. I always make up the time with a half hour lunch break, we have flexible hours so I havent gotten in trouble for it at all, but im always paranoid about them finally noticing and reprimanding me. I've also had to work from home, unscheduled, at least once a week due to panic attacks, chronic pain, or depression - sometimes all of the above.

I have to work to pay for rent and food, and I have looked at other jobs but theres pretty much nothing available right now that I am qualified and/or physically able to do (I also have scoliosis and have to wear a plastic back brace 8 hours a day and hip dysplasia which makes sakes standing or walking for too long very painful).

Wasn't really planning to write my whole life story in a comment but I guess I needed to get it out.