The Job That Almost Drove Me Mad.

In late 2017, I resigned from work due to PTSD.

And no, my boss was not an evil maniac.

But it would have felt like losing a limb to admit this back then.

As far as I was concerned, he was the bane of my existence, the gloom that hung over my day, the pain in all the most uncomfortable places I could imagine, the … well, you get the gist.

And if you are wondering how I arrived at my PTSD diagnosis, well, it started with the sound of a Skype call coming in.

I didn’t realize how bad the situation was until a particular day, while on a bus heading to work, I dozed off.

I am not quite sure how long it was after, but I was startled awake by the Skype ringtone. In full panic mode, I scrambled to find my laptop.

It took me a few seconds to realize that a jingle was playing over the radio and the Skype ringtone was part of their make-believe office conversation.

At the same time, the lady sitting right next to me looked at me with knowing eyes and gave me a small smile in commiseration.

It was as if she understood exactly what I was going through without needing me to explain. That fleeting moment of shared understanding stayed with me longer than I expected.

But after that incident, I started paying closer attention.

It didn’t take long to discover that I was living in constant anxiety from the demands of work.

Ringtones have become the symbol of my dread, a trigger that sent my heart racing and my mind spiraling.

It wasn’t just about the sound; it was what it represented. Deadlines, unanswered questions, and the fear of disappointing my boss.

Every time my phone buzzed or rang, I felt a wave of panic crash over me, even if it was something as innocent as a friend checking in.

My body and mind had become conditioned to associate those sounds with impending stress, and there was no off-switch button.

The proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back came on a particular day when I found myself dozing once again on a bus while going to work.

Apparently, the bus driver stopped to fill the tank and parked right next to another bus with a conductor calling for passengers.

I am not sure if it was a micro-moment of hallucination or if my mind was just sleep-drunk, but I could have sworn that particular conductor told me to help him call the attention of the guy sitting next to me.

I tapped the guy and pointed at the conductor, and said, “He is calling you.”

Looking a little confused, he looked in the direction I was pointing at; I looked in the same direction, and then two things happened:

I came fully awake, knowing that the conductor never said anything to me, and I needed to say something before things became weirder.

As fate would have it, the other bus and its conductor chose that moment to drive off.

“Oh, never mind. It seems he left already,” I mumbled, avoiding the guy’s puzzled look.

As I turned to stare out the window, embarrassment quickly gave way to something deeper: fear.

I realized my mind was slipping under the weight of stress. The line between reality and my anxious imagination was blurring.

That moment was my wake-up call. By the time I got to work, I knew I couldn’t keep going like this. Something had to change, and that meant walking away.

And that was what I did. It was a difficult decision made easy by my worsening reality.

While my shocked responses to ringtones didn’t go away immediately, a year later, I was ready to try my hands at a 9-5 job once again.

Alongside my newfound confidence was an understanding that I needed to stop seeing my previous boss as the problem.

He wasn’t the villain in my story, and blaming him only kept me in a cycle of resentment.

Instead, I began to see the bigger picture: the not-always-realistic demands of work, my lack of boundaries, and my tendency to internalize every bit of stress as a personal failure.

This shift in perspective was a whole new experience for me. It wasn’t just about finding a healthier work environment; it was also about building a healthier me.

My next shot at a 9-to-5 didn’t just test my resilience; it proved that I could create balance, even in the most demanding situations. And for the first time, work didn’t feel like a source of dread but an opportunity to grow.

Each year after that, I would repeat the same mantra to myself, “Bisola, this year you will become better, you will try new things, you will face challenges head-on, but you will not lose yourself.

Has it always worked out the way I planned? No, but I have seen that I can’t be the best version of myself, either at work or in my personal life, if I constantly allow anxiety to cripple me.

There will always be organizational and personal goals to achieve, but anxiety can’t be the driver of this bus if we intend to get to the destination.

So to you, dear reader, as we head into a brand-new year, remember that you can have a great work-life, growth, and inner peace, and it’s largely dependent on YOU.