Does a bad job leave lasting effects on you?

Hello everyone! I’m a 24m that’s very fresh to my career. I get that this is one of those questions, “depends on if you let it!” But I’m just curious to see how people have handled leaving a job that has broken them down as a person and employee.

I started with this company fresh out of college as my first job ever. I have had little stuff like reffing summer leagues but this was my first stab at a career. Right off the bat, it seemed like a great company. I was in an entry level position that was basically retail but focused heavily on development towards a promotion. I eventually did get promoted to a finance position for a branch and things were amazing!

I loved my work, coworkers and basically everything. There were two of us with the same position at this location that split the work, with her getting the more difficult tasks because I was starting out. After about 5 months, she promoted and I moved into her tasks while someone backfilled my position. This is where I started to feel some stress with the workload and over all responsibilities. Instead of focusing on processes and reports, I am now in a position of dealing with customer disputes even more than before among other things that somewhat exhaust me mentally and socially.

About a year ago now the trucking industry hit a big snag and we started to lose a lot of our customers. Things started to fall apart and a lot of firings happened. I basically rode out this wave trying to stay afloat with my current tasks.

Since then, they have gotten rid of the second position and I now handle all of those tasks for our branch. I’ve watched as they slowly cut different positions out whether naturally or by firing someone that has underperformed.

Overall, I feel like management is very sneaky and incapable of actually managing a team of people. They avoid accountability and shift tasks around when someone isn’t doing their part. I now handle both positions while handling a new task that is basically HRs responsibility. And when I challenged this over the simple fact that I have too much on my plate, they basically said they want to make sure I’m not overworked but I’m the odd man out on having to take on this work.

I’m tired, exhausted and etc. It truly has taken such a toll on me and my personal life. I think I’m also bitter at the fact that it started off so great and then the bottom fell out.

I just worry about the long term effects of this. I’d say everyone complains about the current state of our company yet I ask myself, “is it really that bad?” “Am I just overreacting?” “Would it be any different somewhere else?” And this is pushed further with my parents asking the same questions which leaves me to feel very all over the place with my opinion on all this.

I want to start looking elsewhere but I’m simply scared. The interview process takes so much energy from me. I was sick for at least 3 weeks when I was initially going through the hiring process for thus current company. And like I said, is the grass really greener on the other side?

I have zero motivation to work and I wake up in the morning trying to think of reasons to want to go to work. Hell, sometimes I imagine leaving and it feels like a 50 lb weight off my shoulders for a split second.

Anyways, I’m just rambling now. It does feel good to get that off my chest. Please disregard all of this and let me know if you have anything for the question in the title!