You are an anxious person and want to quit your job. Here's what to do.

Leaving a job can create worry in anyone, but especially in people prone to anxiety. Preparation and knowing that you are not alone can help.

Calling It Quits is a series about today's withdrawal culture.

< p class="css- at9mc1 evys1bk0">As someone with Generalized Anxiety Disorder, or GAD, I know anxiety attacks well. But they really kicked things into high gear after I gave my job time off in 2016. I cried a lot. A flickering nervous energy was planted in my body and did not move. A Chorus of Useless Thoughts — What have you done? Why did you do it? —became a soundtrack in my brain. It was loud and repetitive.

"Uncertainty is like gasoline on anxiety," said Craig Sawchuk, co-chair of clinical practice at the department of Psychiatry and Psychology from the Mayo Clinic. I know this from experience: major life changes have always catalyzed my worry and triggered high-octane rumination.

In 2021, when the number of dropouts rose and that Americans saw the highest dropout rate since the 1970s, according to the Department of Labor, I was envious but also perplexed. Joyfully abandoning stability in favor of stealing it? I couldn't imagine choosinguncertainty. I couldn't imagine converting my life into a mass of amorphous time instead of neatly divided segments of working hours.

Anxiety can be constructive

Hardly anyone give up or consider quitting without worrying At least a little. There are worries about food on the table, health insurance and childcare, to name a few. But for the clinically nervous, the thought of quitting even a bad job could open a Pandora's box.

The latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM-V, lists several disorders under the umbrella of anxiety. They include GAD - "excessive anxiety and worry (apprehensive expectations), occurring on more days than not for at least 6 months" - as well as phobias and panic disorder, which may overlap but are not synonymous, Jennifer said. Villatte, clinical psychologist and head of the research program on psychosocial interventions in adults at the National Institute of Mental Health.

ImageIllustration of a figure blowing into a paper bag with a bead of sweat running down its cheeks and its face turning pink. in psychology at Harvard Medical School and founder of the Center for Anxiety, said that when people have been at a job for a while, even if they don't like it, structure and repetition can be a calming force: "You know that the trip is 49 hours. minutes and you have to get to that station, which you don't like to go. You know your boss is a jerk. But when you leave, the specific reason anxiety arises is because you face uncertainty.

Despite what she may feel, anxiety is not necessarily a sign of a bad decision. It could mean the opposite, said Dr. Rosmarin, whose book 'Thriving With Anxiety' will be published in the fall: "The crazy thing is that when people experience a spike in anxiety, often but not always, if it is in the context of a change of life, it is