The Cost of Going Back

Field Notes from the Edge

✦ Journal Entry — Post-Corporate Reckoning

Written during a stretch of intense internal questioning. This entry holds the weight of everything I feared, everything I was conditioned to believe, and the quiet truth I was beginning to uncover — that survival is not laziness, and peace is not cowardice.

If there are two words that describe how I feel right now, they’re “overwhelmed” and “defeated.”
“Exhausted” is not far behind.

The truth is, I’m still reeling from the realisation that my return to that vocational world — in any form — is officially off the table. It’s not theoretical anymore. There’s no back door. No pivot. No quiet reintegration. That chapter is closed.

And yes, there’s grief.
But what’s catching me off guard is how loud the internal questioning has become.

Am I giving up too easily?
Am I being lazy?
Am I just afraid?

Or — and this is harder to believe — am I actually doing the right thing?

The emotional toll of even imagining going back into that environment is enormous. I feel it in my chest, in my breath, in my focus. Just thinking about those systems — the metrics, the emotional load, the performance loops — and my whole body tenses like it’s bracing for impact.

The part that’s hardest to reconcile?

I used to thrive there.
And now, it would crush me.

So I keep circling the core questions:

• Would going back re-traumatise me?
• Is walking away an act of failure — or the first real act of self-protection I’ve ever made?
• Are these the choices of a good man… or someone taking the easy road?

I’ve sat with all of it — and what keeps rising is this:
Returning would not be a comeback. It would be a collapse.

The environment hasn’t changed. The systems haven’t softened. And no amount of nostalgia or loyalty can justify re-entering a space that my nervous system now recognises as unsafe.

Even those supporting my recovery — medical, personal, professional — have echoed that this isn’t avoidance. It’s discernment.

So what am I grieving, really?

Maybe I’m mourning the man who could keep pushing.
The one who could operate at all costs.
The loyal one. The high-performer. The anchor.
He served me well. But he doesn’t exist anymore.

And in his place is someone quieter.
More fractured, maybe. But more whole.

Someone who’s starting to understand that leaving a structure doesn’t mean abandoning integrity — it means returning to it.

✦ Reflection

There’s no blueprint for this. Only presence. Only truth. I didn’t walk away from a job — I walked away from an environment that made wellness impossible. And in doing so, I chose peace over pressure. That has to count for something.