Yesterday, I officially quit the workforce at 36 years old. I am now entering the world as a full-time science fiction and fantasy author.
For those of you who have known me for a long time, you may think it wasn’t that difficult of a decision. After all, I stayed with a previous, incredibly toxic company for 10 years. I always wanted to leave, and was vocal about my ever-growing distaste for that company and the people in it. But I felt stuck, trapped.
Paycheck to Paycheck – Life in the United States
While living in the United States, I was living paycheck to paycheck despite embracing an extreme minimalist lifestyle in 2015. Prior to that, I racked up at least $40,000 in debt due to irresponsibility and lack of money management education. So, I taught myself.
Embracing minimalism, I completely changed my way of thinking around material objects and spending. However, it still took me years to pay off the debt due to other bills—rent, car payments, car insurance, gas money, and constantly fighting for pay raises in a corporate world. At times, my bank account had a negative balance, and I wasn’t sure if I could afford food the next week. Yet, I stayed in that shitty company because I saw no way out.
My relationship with my family had already grown sour at this point. So, like I’ve handled most things in my life, I handled it on my own. I learned not to depend on others. I needed to dig myself out of the hole that I’d made. Buckling down, I did what was needed, all while slowly losing my sanity.
Anxiety, Irritability, Paranoia
I worked for a decade in this US company that left me beyond depressed. My anxiety sprouted through the roof. Maladaptive daydreaming and paranoia ruled my life. There were periods where I became suicidal. What kept me going was an underlying belief that I was here for a purpose.
I knew that I had a calling in this world—writing books. Yet, I had developed so much emptiness when it came to my creativity. I inched forward with my manuscripts hoping that one day the floodgates would open, and like a scene from Limitless, I’d churn out projects left and right. Of course, that didn’t happen.
I was beyond depressed. My anxiety was through the roof. Maladaptive daydreaming and paranoia ruled my life. There were periods where I became suicidal. What kept me going was an underlying belief that I was here for a purpose. I knew that I had a calling in this world—writing books.
Eliza Fabricius
Eventually, through project management, I worked my way into the IT department. My quality of life vastly increased. I sought certifications and educational opportunities. My salary grew. I was no longer sexually harassed on a daily basis, and people valued what I had to say for the first time in what felt like forever. I increased my debt payments and continued to work on myself.
People asked me, “Why don’t you just get your boyfriend to bail you out of debt?” The men I dated during this period didn’t get me into debt. It is not their responsibility to dig me out. I’m not someone who takes handouts. I value doing the work and learning the lesson.
In addition, the house I grew up in had strings attached to every favor from my mother. This taught me at a very early age that I had to do everything myself. Relying on others was not an option. Of course, I’ve healed since then and have learned to accept help more graciously than before, but I’m still a work in progress.
The COVID Years
2020. A new decade filled with hopes and dreams… then COVID happened. For years I wanted to work from home and on March 16th, my wish came true. It felt too good to be true. After all, it was something that I was always told I couldn’t or wouldn’t have. I was terrified at midnight that my carriage would change back into a pumpkin.
Working from home changed me in ways I never expected. For starters, I realized how exhausted I was. During a 2-3 year time span, I had to go into the office one or two days. When I returned home, I crawled into bed by 5 p.m. I’ve no idea how I did it daily before.
I woke up, got dressed, did my makeup, styled my hair, commuted, put a smile on my face, was pleasant to people I didn’t care about for hours on end, and would come home every evening barely able to function. After this, I realized how tired I was and that I needed to start taking better care of myself because we only live once.
The company, of course, didn’t change. More work was thrown on my plate as people left and their positions weren’t back-filled due to “budget cuts.” At one point, I had meetings for five different projects overlapping one another on my calendar. I had no breaks and people were trying to book over my 30-minute lunch period just to get a hold of me. Some meetings started as early as 7 a.m. And over-time was not allowed for my pay grade unless I wanted to work for free. I realized then that my life was not the life I wanted.
A Powerful Realization
But, I also realized that I had the power to change it.
Ever since I was a little girl, I wanted out of America. Europe called to me, but I am not someone who does something for no reason. While Europe had been calling my name for decades, I didn’t know where I would go. Learning a new language intimidated me the more I aged. However, I ended up dating a German long-distance. And as we fell in love, it became very easy to see where I needed to go.
When borders opened, I applied to 80 jobs in Germany. I had interviews as early as 5 a.m. EST to accommodate a time zone six hours ahead. Sometimes, I had up to four interviews in a day. Needless to say, I landed a job with a major German automotive company. They paid for my final flight, postage on the few boxes of books I shipped overseas, and they even paid for one month of my US apartment’s rent since I had to pay rent in both countries for one month. With a significant pay raise, awesome multi-cultural colleagues, and more freedom and autonomy than my last company would ever dream of granting, I found a wonderful match.
I realized then that my life was not the life I wanted. But, I also realized that I had the power to change it.
Eliza Fabricius
The biggest problem was that I never gave myself time to process all the crap the previous company had put me through. I held on to that trauma. With the three weeks I had between jobs, I moved cross-continent with no intention of returning. I completely uprooted my life, leaving a place I’d been since I was born. I dived into a new culture, new company, and a household that was sometimes inhabited by two small children. It was far from the serene, hermetic life I lived in Virginia.
Processing the Change with Art
I processed the overwhelming change the only way I knew how—I wrote about it. I released a book this year, Painting the Whiskey Blue, that fictionalizes a lot of the stress and bullshit from that previous company. Despite my efforts, my mental health was taking a massive hit under the pressure.
The combination of never processing and recovering from old workplace trauma was killing me. At the time, my partner had started a new job and every complaint he had after a meeting became a trigger reminding me of my last company. It was as though I couldn’t get away, or that I’d never left. And as with most jobs, my own wasn’t perfect despite being so much better than the last.
In addition, I struggled with adapting to the new culture. There’s little things that change when you move to a different country or continent that you don’t think about. Or you think they won’t affect you. It could be anything from cultural customs, to the raging hot summer temperatures without air-conditioning, to simply the dryer air. Not all changes are bad, but there are changes your body goes through, which results in adjustment shock. It all became a little too much, and I went a little crazy.
Taking a Break
In the beginning of this year, I was ill for over six weeks. My body was shutting down and forcing me to rest. In the springtime, I went on a meditation retreat in Hoisdorf for eight days. There were several times during the retreat where I could not physically bring myself to get out of bed. I was so exhausted that I couldn’t move. Unfortunately, my retreat was cut short due to a DeutscheBahn strike that ended up not happening at the last minute. My train home was still canceled, so I had to return a day early. This sent my stress levels skyrocketing.
I realized that I hadn’t relaxed as much as I’d hoped. I felt like there was no longer any structure or control to my life. It was just chaos every day.
Knowing When to Quit
Upon returning home, I went to the doctor. He diagnosed me with burnout, a term that German doctors don’t use lightly. It wasn’t the first time we’d discussed this. He immediately excused me from work for an additional two weeks. Luckily, in Europe, being excused for mental health is a reality. In my previous company, it wouldn’t have flown. While two weeks seemed generous at first, I soon learned that burnout can take years to recover from. My doctor advised I ask for part-time hours in order to reduce my workload and stress.
Unfortunately, my department recently revoked that option due to another employee’s poor handling of a part-time contract. After my additional two weeks off, I returned to work and was immediately overwhelmed by the emails in my inbox. I spoke to HR about the possibility of taking sabbatical, or a 6-12 month long-term leave, but it was not something they were willing to grant. The only option left was to quit. However, since I left on good terms, they invited me to apply again should I wish to return to the working world.
All that being said, I took it not only as a prime opportunity to leave the rat race, but also to recover by diving straight into my art—my calling.
The Difficult Decision
After many conversations, my partner switched jobs and started not only with a better company but also with better pay. We assessed our financial situation and concluded that we had saved enough to survive a few years on one income should the writing not succeed. If I needed to return to the rat race after a few years, I could. But ultimately, this was the kick in the butt I needed to pursue my dreams full-time. It’s time to spread my wings and fly.
My official last day of working was yesterday, August 31, 2023.
I was lucky to have an incredibly supportive partner and an empathetic manager. Both men understood the struggle. Despite their support, I questioned if I had made the right decision or if I was making a huge mistake. I started to second-guess myself. Had I given up too soon? How would this impact me at the age of 67? Could I have held in a little longer? But for what purpose?
As luck would have it, my partner has the strange capability of reading my mind (most times). The postman delivered an Amazon package that week with a book he had ordered. He unwrapped the parcel and handed me the book—Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away by Annie Duke.
Within the first few chapters, Duke’s words comforted me. I’d made the right decision for myself.
“Quitting on time will usually feel like quitting too early.”
Annie Duke
Expectations
It’s not exactly how I wanted things to happen. I figured I would keep working, keep releasing books, and eventually the book sales would take off to a point where their income replaced my day job income and I could gracefully walk away. I didn’t expect my health to force me out.
Parting Words
And so, I leave you with this… We only live once. It’s important that we take care of ourselves. I know a lot of people can criticize this and say, “Not everyone is lucky enough, or has that option,” but I want to remind you about the beginning of this post. There was a time in my life where I also didn’t have the option. Yet, I pushed through and I did what I needed to do to get out of the situation.
I changed my lifestyle and my mindset. I paid off my debt, found a healthy relationship and moved to a place where things were cheaper, my tax dollars went to things I could appreciate, and my doctors genuinely cared about my mental health. Whatever I needed to do, I did in order to get myself in this position so that I could make this choice.
You always have a choice.
If you feel stuck for any reason look at what’s going on in your life and at which actions you can take to make things better. Understand that it may not happen overnight. What matters is that you have a say in your life. You might have to put in some hard work and make a few sacrifices to get what you want. But it’s worth it.
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