I've left. I'm just not fully gone yet.

Originally shared in Tuesday Notes on October 27, 2026.

For the past few months, I’ve been feeling more and more drained. Everything I did took more energy than usual. I’ve been running on a not-quite-full tank for many years, but now I could actually feel the remaining gas deplete much faster. I was struggling more and more to concentrate and focus. The things that usually brought me joy and comfort still did, but they also drained me much more than before.

There’s never just one cause, and in my case there were several: events in my personal life, and an unhealthy work environment I had been enduring for a bit too long.

So I made two decisions. One, to go back to therapy. Two, to quit my job.

Therapy gave me a diagnosis: mild depression and exhaustion. That didn’t solve anything, but at least I had a name for what was happening. And quitting was necessary to take myself out of an environment that wasn’t healthy for me anymore.

On 1 October I resigned. My last day is at the end of February. So right now I’m in a strange in-between place: I’ve left, but I’m not entirely gone yet. I am not taking on new tasks or projects but I do still need to work on the open ones.

The limbo is strangely liberating. I can count down to a final date (124 days to be exact 😛). It’s also scary, because of all the uncertainty about what comes after. And it’s weird to keep doing the work, and stay motivated, knowing that it “doesn’t matter” anymore. Having to go to a place where I don’t feel comfortable is a very strange situation to be in.

I expected resigning to make me feel better straight away. It didn’t, and it turns out there’s a good reason for that.

The organisational psychologist Sabine Sonnentag has spent years studying how people recover from work stress. One of her central findings is that stopping work and recovering from it are two different things. What matters is psychological detachment: actually switching off mentally, not just physically leaving the building.

That’s harder than it sounds. You can close the laptop and still replay the annoying comment from your boss, draft replies in your head at 2 in the morning or flinch when your phone buzzes. Now imagine trying to detach from a place you still have to perform for every day. That’s a notice period.

With her colleague Charlotte Fritz, Sonnentag identified four experiences that actually drive recovery:

• Detachment: not thinking about work when you’re not working

• Relaxation: low effort, low demand, letting the body settle

• Mastery: learning something new or doing something challenging that has nothing to do with work

• Control: deciding for yourself how you spend your time

That last one stopped me. For me, the first step to taking back control was making the decision to quit instead of waiting until I was let go. The rest I’m taking back where I can, in the hours that are mine.

My conscious break looks like listening to what my body needs, and then following through. One afternoon I spontaneously went to the movies. I’m reading more. I’ve had a massage and will be going to the spa, I’m spending time with the people I love, and I’m focusing on my studies. Looking at Sonnentag’s list, I realised I’ve been covering all four without planning it.

Recovery isn’t passive, and it doesn’t have to wait for an official end date. It’s something you build, one detached evening and one self-chosen afternoon at a time, even while you’re still in it.

Recovery isn’t passive, and it doesn’t have to wait for an official end date.

I’m somewhere in the middle. My energy and motivation are slowly coming back, but I’m still quite drained. Not out, not in, figuring it out. But as I always tell myself; everything is figureoutable!

Not out, not in, figuring it out.

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Tuesday Brain Snack 🧠

In 2006, the psychologists Jos Brosschot, William Gerin and Julian Thayer proposed what they called the perseverative cognition hypothesis. Worry and rumination keep the body’s stress response running long after the stressful event is over. Your heart rate and stress physiology can react to a replayed conversation almost as if it were happening again.

In other words, the stressor doesn’t have to be in the room to keep affecting you. Your mind can bring it along.

What’s the thing your mind keeps bringing along, even when you’ve left it behind?

Mucho love, Claudia ✨

If you’re struggling right now, you don’t have to carry it alone. You can find free, confidential support in your country at findahelpline.com.