I couldn’t handle my work-life balance – so I went missing

The police probably thought I was dead when they found me that day in April 2018. Tired of driving around aimlessly all day, I’d pulled over into a layby and laid down for a nap in the car. The next thing I knew, a policeman was knocking on the window. I heard him tell his colleague to stand back as he reached into his pocket, presumably for something to smash the window with.

I wound it down before he could, but I had no idea what to say. After all, what do you say when you’ve gone AWOL for a day, your name and photo splashed across local newspapers in a missing person’s appeal?. The policemen asked if I was OK and I nodded, my eyes filling with tears of shame and embarrassment.

They didn’t ask why I’d gone missing – I wouldn’t have been able to explain it anyway – and simply took me home in their police car. Pulling up outside my house, I felt a mixture of emotions – anger at my husband Mark for reporting me missing (I’d only been missing for the best part of a day), shame at how low I’d sunk, and fear for the future.

I know now that severe personal and professional burnout led to that moment, but you don’t always see it happening at the time. My path to going missing began a year earlier. I’d been promoted to the manager of a new department at the university where I worked. It was what I had been aiming for, but it meant a lot more responsibility and pressure.

I rose to the challenge initially. I realised I enjoyed making important decisions and feeling like I was in a respected position, so I put my all into it. But when Mark and I decided to get married in December of that year, I soon found myself juggling work with wedding planning.

Add to all that raising two young children, you could say life was already pretty stressful. Soon we were also getting ready to apply for our eldest’s primary school place and weknew our address would influence where he went. Mark and I wanted him to attend a school near where we both worked, so we realised we would have to move – and quickly.

I’d always considered myself a good multitasker, but suddenly the thought of managing a house move alongside my demanding job, the kids and wedding organisation filled me with dread. My days consisted of frantically ferrying the boys to and from nursery before and after work, followed by evenings of wedding planning and house hunting. I was mentally exhausted, but even when I finally went to bed, I couldn’t sleep as my to-do list raced constantly through my mind.

After our wedding that December, some of the pressure lifted. Then we found the right house and prepared for the move. However, my nerves were still on edge. My performance at work started to unravel and I became very defensive with colleagues, feeling like my abilities were constantly being questioned. As a result, a month after we were married, I was signed off work with stress and depression.

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To make a donation to Missing People, please click here. I tried to take back control by applying for other jobs and I was offered a new role with a different company. Though it was less money, I’d also have less responsibility – a trade-off I was willing to make to try to preserve my mental health.

Come March, I was relieved to hand in my notice and we moved house at the end of the month. But without giving myself time to recuperate, I started my new job straight after finishing the old one. After just one day I realised I’d made a huge mistake. I felt completely detached from everything and the next day, rather than going in, I sat outside in the car park.

When I went home I admitted to Mark that I felt overwhelmed with anxiety and guilt and we deicded I should ring my GP in the morning for an emergency mental health appointment. But when I woke up the next day, on 11 April 2018, I was in no state to call the doctor.

I felt like I was no longer in my body. I was completely disengaged from my life – I didn’t know who my family were and everything felt wrong. I refused to contact the surgery and Mark was, understandably, furious that I’d gone back on my promise to get the help I needed. But I didn’t care. In fact, I didn’t feel anything. I just wanted to disappear… so I did.