I worked in an office for 4 years after college, before the pandemic. My employer was pretty hands off, gave me decent pay and benefits. Yet something in my life still felt off - I spent more than half of the time I was awake in a windowless cube, doing work for someone else, watching the clock tick until I could go home and get ready to do it all again. Everything in my life, from trips, relationships, going out with friends, everything was overshadowed by the fact I was never more than a few days away from what felt like solitary confinement. 

Then the pandemic happened. As a person who suffers from anxiety, you can imagine what it was like for me to read the headlines and watch the news.... yet that period of time was one of the best times in my life. It was one of the best times in my life because I was sent home and told to stay there. And things just.... opened up. I still did my work the same as before, but suddenly I didn't have to worry about getting up to go to the bathroom too many times in one hour, didn't feel like I had to look over my shoulder if I wanted to check my texts, didn't have to stress about having a lunch packed up the night before, didn't have to sit and traffic and scream expletives at people. Mondays really weren't that bad when I didn't have to rush to get ready and just took things at my own pace. Not having to blast music in my headphones to block out conversations so I could work. I could go on.

It's the little things that added up. Now they want us to come back in. And I guess I didn't really think about it until I was faced with the prospect of losing it, but in hindsight, those years in the office were dark. I've suffered from anxiety my whole life, but those years were the first time it got bad enough that it turned into depression and got bad. We'll leave it at that. I went through some hard times in those years, like breakups, fallings out with friends, family drama, but I didn't feel like I was coping really at all. I thought something was wrong with me, I thought that everyone worked in an office and could handle their lives, why couldn't I? But the truth is that I CAN handle my life, but working in an office watching the clock tick 1/2 of my waking life is inhumane and that's why I had those problems. Not me. 

I don't know what to do right now. I'm an anxious wreck. I qualify for full remote jobs, but those are in high demand and half of them lie about the remote part and waste your time. I've honestly thought about just quitting and dealing with whatever comes from that. I just really REALLY REALLY don't want to go back to that existence.