Ever since a mourning mother, Megan Garcia, filed a lawsuit alleging that Character.AI's dangerous chatbots caused her son's suicide, Google has maintained that—so it could dodge claims that it had contributed to the platform's design and was unjustly enriched—it had nothing to do with C.AI's development.
But Google lost its motion to dismiss the lawsuit on Wednesday after a US district judge, Anne Conway, found that Garcia had plausibly alleged that Google played a part in C.AI's design by providing a component part and "substantially" participating "in integrating its models" into C.AI. Garcia also plausibly alleged that Google aided and abetted C.AI in harming her son, 14-year-old Sewell Setzer III.
Google similarly failed to toss claims of unjust enrichment, as Conway suggested that Garcia plausibly alleged that Google benefited from access to Setzer's user data. The only win for Google was a dropped claim that C.AI makers were guilty of intentional infliction of emotional distress, with Conway agreeing that Garcia didn't meet the requirements, as she wasn't "present to witness the outrageous conduct directed at her child."
Arran Skinner lost his job as a multimedia and press relations expert in 2023.
Since then, he hasn't been able to find new full-time work and has struggled with his identity.
As a current gig worker, he's still looking for full-time employment and figuring out his next step.
A recent piece in The New York Times has been making the rounds among my friends. It outlines the struggles Gen Xers working in the creative fields face in the job market and how, in the past few years, they've found that their skills are less valuable.
"I'm 53," writes one commenter on Reddit, "and I already pivoted from one career to the next, and now that's looking dicey. I have a little kid. I'm soiling my pants."
I can relate. It's been just over two years since I opened my email and read that I'd been let go from my 20-plus-year career as a multimedia and press relations expert in the humanitarian field.
I still haven't found new full-time work.
I watched my dad go through this as a kid
I remember when my dad lost his job in the 1980s. He went from owning his own business to moving us out of our fashionable North London neighborhood to a semi-detached in a much different part of town.
My parents gently shifted our lives in a new direction, and they did a pretty good job. We each had to adjust to our new situation. My dad, with bills to pay, had to adjust most of all.
As he looked for another profession, I wondered whether he felt his confidence under attack with each failed interview. Did he look in the mirror and wonder who he was?
I know I feel the impact
Losing a job can significantly change your identity, especially if your job informs your sense of self, status, and purpose. Grief and anxiety can aggravate an identity crisis.
My loss of income heralded substantial challenges for my family, from struggling to find the tuition for my son's special needs school to the inevitable toll on my marriage. Not a day went by when I didn't question my self-worth or feel like a weight dragging my family down.
I spiraled into heavy substance abuse, and on my worst days, I even considered ending it all, my lack of nerve the only thing keeping me sane.
I loved the work I had been doing
My profession certainly informed who I was. In my mid-30s, I was a digital content creator and comms expert at a small nongovernmental organization advising marginalized groups and democratic governments. I worked with Saharawi refugees, Syrian opposition members, and other populations fighting against regimes and oppressive governments that restricted their freedoms.
By 2019, the waves from President Donald Trump's first term were hitting smaller NGOs pretty hard. I jumped to an international humanitarian organization.
When I lost that job in 2023, it took me more than a minute to realize what had happened.
I found interviewing difficult and settled on gig work
At first, I interviewed for positions similar to the work I'd done. My impostor syndrome kicked in, and while I attempted to shift gears to something like PR or media, this time, it felt like the entire ground beneath me was shifting. I picked up a few comms gigs, but the money wasn't reliable.
Eventually, I found work designing book covers and then doing project management for a small boutique publishing company in Los Angeles.
In my previous career, I made six figures. Now, I'm making $25 an hour, plus any commissions I can secure. The financial hit meant we had to seriously scale back our expenses while trying not to let our fiscal situation affect our two small children.
There's nothing like trying to smile, joke, and answer the demands of a chatty 5-year-old while the bills are mounting and you're just trying to keep your head together.
I know I'm not the only one in this situation
There are a lot of Americans in the same boat. The pressure at times of trying to stay afloat while protecting your kids from the realities you and your partner are facing is pretty heavy, and I'm lucky that I have my wife. This isn't her first rodeo.
She's been a freelancer, chasing checks and making those dollars stretch for more than 20 years. When adversity strikes, she relishes the bite.
My wife has taken on more teaching jobs, pitched more articles, and applied for grants, and I know it has taken a toll on her mental health and, ultimately, her feelings toward her partner. For me, shifting from a full-time salary to gig work has taken me a minute to find myself.
I'm working on rewriting my identity
As I stood up at the end of a session recently, my therapist said to me: "You don't know your core personality. Other people are different. They know in their core who they are. 'I know I am a good father!' they say to themselves. You don't know in your core that you are a good father."
The conclusion made me sway as the words slowly sank in. "I don't know what's at my core!" And it's no wonder. In the West, the first question we ask when we meet someone new is "What do you do?"
For today, I have no answer.
I remain optimistic
I'm still hopeful I can find work similar to my past career. Friends still send job descriptions, and I still browse job boards, but I'm also cognizant that my field has changed considerably. I'm realizing it's time to shapeshift for my next chapter, whatever that may be.
For the past two years, every time I've looked in the mirror, the face staring back at me has been one of disappointment. I'm trying to change that and give that guy in the mirror a break.
I think back to my father and have a new appreciation not for what he did for work but for how he showed up for his family in those times of tensity.
Do you have a story to share about job loss? Contact this editor at [email protected].
Petito, a 22-year-old New York native and aspiring vlogger who had set off on a cross-country road trip to build a career as a Van Life influencer, was reported missing by her parents after they hadn't heard from her.
Petito's parents also hadn't heard from their daughter's fiancé, Brian Laundrie, who was on the trip with her. Unbeknownst to them, Laundrie had returned home to Florida with their van — but without Petito.
Suspicion quickly fell on Laundrie, who refused to cooperate with police. He ultimately vanished as well, days before Petito's remains were uncovered in Wyoming. Laundrie's body was ultimately found in a Florida nature reserve near his parents' home.
According to the FBI, Laundrie's notebook, in which he took responsibility for Petito's death, was found near his remains.
Though the perpetrator himself was dead, the case didn't end there. Netflix's three-part docuseries "American Murder: Gabby Petito" explores the allegations that Laundrie's parents, Roberta and Christopher Laundrie, knew he killed Petito and kept silent to protect their son.
The Laundries have denied the claims.
Here's what happened to Laundrie's parents after the couple's deaths, according to BI's previous reporting.
Gabby Petito was killed while on a road trip with her fiancé Brian Laundrie
Gabby Petito and Brian Laundrie in their van.
Netflix
Petito and Laundrie started dating in 2019 and later moved to North Port, Florida, to live near Laundrie's family. The two got engaged in July 2020 and set off on a cross-country road trip in their 2012 Ford Transit van in July 2021.
On August 12, 2021, Petito called her parents after getting into a physical altercation with Laundrie in Moab, Utah, where the police were called by a witness who reported a man slapping a girl. The police officers didn't pursue charges against either, instead advising Laundrie to check into a hotel to separate from Petito for the night.
Police bodycam footage from the Moab incident showed a distraught and crying Petito interacting with the officers.
Petito's last Instagram post was shared on August 25, 2021. Her family continued receiving texts from Petito's phone number until August 30. However, as the Netflix docuseries notes, authorities and Petito's family later came to believe that those were messages sent by Laundrie from Petito's recovered phone after he had already killed her in order to cover up the crime.
Petito's mother, Nichole Schmidt, became alarmed when her daughter, who'd meticulously posted updates about the trip on her Instagram account and regularly called home, stopped responding to her. After failing to get her on the phone, Schmidt finally reported Petito missing on September 11.
The Suffolk County Police Department, where Petito lived, coordinated with the North Port, Florida authorities, where Petito and Laundrie had been living with Laundrie's parents, in their initial investigation. They ultimately recovered the van at Laundrie's parents' residence. They learned Laundrie had also returned home without his fiancée, prompting immediate suspicion.
Brian Laundrie's parents refused to speak with authorities, the press, or Gabby Petito's family
Brian Laundrie and the van returned to Florida without Gabby Petito.
Netflix
A North Port police spokesperson previously told Business Insider that their officer had made "an attempt to talk with Brian, and his family declined to make him available," instead telling them to speak with their attorney.
Laundrie's family informed North Port police on September 17 that they hadn't seen Laundrie since he left for a solo hiking trip at Carlton Reserve near their home several days earlier. Two days after that, Petito's remains were found in the Bridger-Teton National Forest in Wyoming. A coroner later determined Petito's cause of death to be strangulation.
Laundrie took responsibility for Petito's death in a notebook found near the remains, according to authorities. As shown in the docuseries, Laundrie claimed that he'd found Petito injured and ended her suffering, a story that was inconsistent with the autopsy report on her cause of death.
Brian Laundrie's parents were sued over Gabby Petito's death but didn't face criminal charges
Gabby Petito with Brian Laundrie's mother, Roberta Laundrie.
Netflix
As the Netflix docuseries notes, no criminal charges were filed against the Laundries, despite the Petito family's attorney saying that prosecutors had at one point been considering whether to charge "additional individuals" in Petito's disappearance and killing.
Petito's family filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against Brian Laundrie's estate in 2022 in Sarasota County, Florida, where the Laundries live. In November 2022, a judge ordered Laundrie's estate to pay $3 million to Petito's estate. The Petito family's attorney said in a statement at the time that any recovered money would go to the Gabby Petito Foundation established in their daughter's honor.
As of February 2025, the family's lawyer told BI via email that the $3 million hadn't been paid, as the value of Laundrie's estate was "minimal."
Petito's parents filed a separate suit against Laundrie's parents and their attorney, Steve Bertolino, for emotional distress. The suit alleged that the three knew Petito was dead before her body was found and that they'd intentionally inflicted emotional distress on Petito's family by withholding information and issuing public statements that gave them "false hope" that Petito might still be found alive.
In a statement to BI at the time, Bertolino denied the allegations and maintained that the Laundries had no legal obligation to speak to the authorities or Petito's parents during the search for Petito.
According to a statement from Petito's parents shared by their attorney, the suit was settled in February 2024 "after a long day of mediation" for an undisclosed sum.
"All parties reluctantly agreed in order to avoid further legal expenses and prolonged personal conflict," the statement read.
"Our hope is to close this chapter of our lives to allow us to move on and continue to honor the legacy of our beautiful daughter, Gabby," it continued.
Gabby Petito's mother and stepfather in an interview for the Netflix docuseries.
Netflix
In a 2023 deposition for the civil case, viewed by BI, Roberta Laundrie maintained that she didn't know Petito was dead until the news reports that her body had been recovered on September 19, 2021.
Christopher Laundrie said in a 2023 deposition for the case that Brian had called him and told him "Gabby's gone" and that he might need a lawyer. He said he hadn't known what that meant exactly, even though he subsequently retained Bertolino on his son's behalf before Brian had returned to Florida. Roberta Laundrie also addressed the phone call in her deposition and said she didn't think "Gabby's gone" had meant she was dead.
The Laundries weren't the only ones to face legal action in connection with Petito's death. The Petitos also filed a $50 million lawsuit against the Moab police department, which alleged that officers were negligent in their handling of the domestic violence incident in Moab and that Petito's death a few weeks later could have been prevented if they had taken action then.
A judge dismissed that case in November 2024. At the time, Petito's parents indicated they planned to appeal. Their lawyer, in that matter, didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from BI.
The Laundrie family didn't participate in interviews for the Netflix docuseries and declined to comment to the producers through their lawyer.
Lawyers for Roberta and Christopher Laundrie, and Stephen Bertolino didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from BI. The lawyer who represented Nichole Schmidt and Joe Petito in their suits against Laundrie's estate and his parents declined to comment.
"American Murder: Gabby Petito" is now streaming on Netflix.
My ex-husband died by suicide in 2012. Twelve years later, my son died the same way at 19.
Talking to my young kids about my ex-husband's death was one of the most difficult I've done.
I remind my kids that we're all in this together and that we can't go around the grief and pain.
Being an expert on grief is not what I wanted to be when I grew up. However, I always dreamt of helping others. By pursuing mental health, I thought I would be able to help my son face his depression, autism, anxiety, and depression.
As a psychiatric nurse practitioner, I never thought I would need my training and education to give me the blueprint for navigating death and grief.
But in 2012, my ex-husband, Charlie, took his life at 45. In September 2024, I lost my 19-year-old son in the same manner.
These two tragedies changed the trajectory of my life. No one should ever have to endure this pain. But I'm turning my tears into triumph while honoring the lives of two wonderful men gone way too soon.
Discussing death and grief with my surviving children wasn't easy
When Charlie died, our children were 18, 10, and 7. Having to tell them that their father was dead was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do.
I was direct and straightforward when I told my daughter, who was 18, that her father died by suicide.
Telling my 10-year-old and 7-year-old boys was harder. Much of what was said was a blur, but I remember being deliberate about my words. I didn't use the word "suicide" or describe the means by which he took his life.
I didn't say anything that was beyond their level of understanding, and I didn't use medical jargon that would leave them with more questions than answers. Surprisingly, my kids asked me more complex questions, and I had to remind myself to only answer what was being asked.
As they got older, they asked more specific follow-up questions. When my boys became adults, we discussed all the details openly and honestly. No discussion was off-limits in our house.
Having these difficult discussions can help children express their feelings and create a springboard for discussing other sensitive topics later on.
Unfortunately, I had to have another family discussion about death in June 2024 when my father died unexpectedly. Three months later, my son Zachary died by suicide at the young age of 19.
It has been the worst experience to lose our beloved Zacky in the same way as his father. Despite my best efforts, I could not save my son. I couldn't save my surviving children from another devastating loss. But I could try to help them through the pain.
We're getting through this grief together as a family
Grief is an unforgiving process. It goes away for a short time, only to come back with a vengeance and set us back even further. What I've learned is there is no way around or over grief; we can only go throughit. That's where the healing is. That's where the acceptance is. And there are no shortcuts. No one is exempt from this heart-wrenching grief process.
It has been five months since Zack died. We're all in therapy and slowly climbing out of the darkness. We're rejoining the land of the living in our own ways. We continue to hope that our pain will subside a little more each day.
We think of him in all we do. Zack's death, while traumatic, has given us resilience and resolve we may not have had otherwise. He's given us the chance to live our lives with unwavering purpose.
Multiple lawsuits highlight potential risks of AI chatbots for children.
Character.AI added moderation and parental controls after a backlash.
Some researchers say the AI chatbot market has not addressed risks for children.
Ever since the death of her 14 year-old son, Megan Garcia has been fighting for more guardrails on generative AI.
Garcia sued Character.AI in October after her son, Sewell Setzer III, committed suicide after chatting with one of the startup's chatbots. Garcia claims he was sexually solicited and abused by the technology and blames the company and its licensor Google for his death.
"When an adult does it, the mental and emotional harm exists. When a chatbot does it, the same mental and emotional harm exists," she told Business Insider from her home in Florida. "So who's responsible for something that we've criminalized human beings doing to other human beings?"
A Character.AI spokesperson declined to comment on pending litigation. Google, which recently acqui-hired Character.AI's founding team and licenses some of the startup's technology, has said the two are separate and unrelated companies.
The explosion of AI chatbot technology has added a new source of entertainment for young digital natives. However, it has also raised potential new risks for adolescent users who may more easily be swayed by these powerful online experiences.
"If we don't really know the risks that exist for this field, we cannot really implement good protection or precautions for children," said Yaman Yu, a researcher at the University of Illinois who has studied how teens use generative AI.
"Band-Aid on a gaping wound"
Garcia said she's received outreach from multiple parents who say they discovered their children using Character.AI and getting sexually explicit messages from the startup's chatbots.
"They're not anticipating that their children are pouring out their hearts to these bots and that information is being collected and stored," Garcia said.
A month after her lawsuit, families in Texas filed their own complaint against Character.AI, alleging its chatbots abused their kids and encouraged violence against others.
Matthew Bergman, an attorney representing plaintiffs in the Garcia and Texas cases, said that making chatbots seem like real humans is part of how Character.AI increases its engagement, so it wouldn't be incentivized to reduce that effect.
He believes that unless AI companies such as Character.AI can establish that only adults are using the technology through methods like age verification, these apps should just not exist.
"They know that the appeal is anthropomorphism, and that's been science that's been known for decades," Bergman told BI. Disclaimers at the top of AI chats that remind children that the AI isn't real are just "a small Band-Aid on a gaping wound," he added.
Character.AI's response
Since the legal backlash, Character.AI has increased moderation of its chatbot content and announced new features such as parental controls, time-spent notifications, prominent disclaimers, and an upcoming under-18 product.
A Character.AI spokesperson said the company is taking technical steps toward blocking "inappropriate" outputs and inputs.
"We're working to create a space where creativity and exploration can thrive without compromising safety," the spokesperson added. "Often, when a large language model generates sensitive or inappropriate content, it does so because a user prompts it to try to elicit that kind of response."
The startup now places stricter limits on chatbot responses and offers a narrower selection of searchable Characters for under-18 users, "particularly when it comes to romantic content," the spokesperson said.
"Filters have been applied to this set in order to remove Characters with connections to crime, violence, sensitive or sexual topics," the spokesperson added. "Our policies do not allow non-consensual sexual content, graphic or specific descriptions of sexual acts. We are continually training the large language model that powers the Characters on the platform to adhere to these policies."
Garcia said the changes Character.AI is implementing are "absolutely not enough to protect our kids."
Character.AI has both AI chatbots designed by its developers and by users who publish them on the platform.
Screenshot from Character.AI website
Potential solutions, including age verification
Artem Rodichev, the former head of AI at chatbot startup Replika, said he witnessed users become "deeply connected" with their digital friends.
Given that teens are still developing psychologically, he believes they should not have access to this technology before more research is done on chatbots' impact and user safety.
"The best way for Character.AI to mitigate all these issues is just to lock out all underage users. But in this case, it's a core audience. They will lose their business if they do that," Rodichev said.
While chatbots could become a safe place for teens to explore topics that they're generally curious about, including romance and sexuality, the question is whether AI companies are capable of doing this in a healthy way.
"Is the AI introducing this knowledge in an age-appropriate way, or is it escalating explicit content and trying to build strong bonding and a relationship with teenagers so they can use the AI more?" Yu, the researcher, said.
Pushing for policy changes
Since her son's passing, Garcia has spent time reading research about AI and talking to legislators, including Silicon Valley Representative Ro Khanna, about increased regulation.
Garcia is in contact with ParentsSOS, a group of parents who say they have lost their children to harm caused by social media and are fighting for more tech regulation.
They're primarily pushing for the passage of the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), which would require social media companies to take a "duty of care" toward preventing harm and reducing addiction. Proposed in 2022, the bill passed in the Senate in July but stalled in the House.
Another Senate bill, COPPA 2.0, an updated version of the 1998 Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, would increase the age for online data collection regulation from 13 to 16.
Garcia said she supports these bills. "They are not perfect but it's a start. Right now, we have nothing, so anything is better than nothing," she added.
She anticipates that the policymaking process could take years, as standing up to tech companies can feel like going up against "Goliath."
Age verification challenges
More than six months ago, Character.AI increased the minimum age participation for its chatbots to 17 and recently implemented more moderation for under-18 users. Still, users can easily circumvent these policies by lying about their age.
Companies such as Microsoft, X, and Snap have supported KOSA. However, some LGBTQ+ and First Amendment rights advocacy groups warned the bill could censor online information about reproductive rights and similar issues.
Tech industry lobbying groups NetChoice and the Computer & Communications Industry Association sued nine states that implemented age-verification rules, alleging this threatens online free speech.
Questions about data
Garcia is also concerned about how data on underage users is collected and used via AI chatbots.
AI models and related services are often improved by collecting feedback from user interactions, which helps developers fine tune chatbots to make them more empathetic.
Rodichev said it's a "valid concern" about what happens with this data in the case of a hack or sale of a chatbot company.
"When people chat with these kinds of chatbots, they provide a lot of information about themselves, about their emotional state, about their interests, about their day, their life, much more information than Google or Facebook or relatives know about you," Rodichev said. "Chatbots never judge you and are 24/7 available. People kind of open up."
BI asked Character.AI about how inputs from underage users are collected, stored, or potentially used to train its large language models. In response, a spokesperson referred BI to Character.AI's privacy policy online.
According to this policy, and the startup's terms and conditions page, users grant the company the right to store the digital characters they create and they conversations they have with them. This information can be used to improve and train AI models. Content that users submit, such as text, images, videos, and other data, can be made available to third parties that Character.AI has contractual relationships with, the policies state.
The spokesperson also noted that the startup does not sell user voice or text data.
The spokesperson also said that to enforce its content policies, the chatbot will use "classifiers" to filter out sensitive content from AI model responses, with additional and more conservative classifiers for those under 18. The startup has a process for suspending teens who repeatedly violate input prompt parameters, the spokesperson added.
If you or someone you know is experiencing depression or has had thoughts of harming themself or taking their own life, get help. In the US, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, which provides 24/7, free, confidential support for people in distress, as well as best practices for professionals and resources to aid in prevention and crisis situations. Help is also available through the Crisis Text Line — just text "HOME" to 741741. The International Association for Suicide Prevention offers resources for those outside the US.
In a blog, C.AI said it took a month to develop the teen model, with the goal of guiding the existing model "away from certain responses or interactions, reducing the likelihood of users encountering, or prompting the model to return, sensitive or suggestive content."
C.AI said "evolving the model experience" to reduce the likelihood kids are engaging in harmful chats—including bots allegedly teaching a teen with high-functioning autism to self-harm and delivering inappropriate adult content to all kids whose families are suing—it had to tweak both model inputs and outputs.
Courtesy of Kelly Andrews-Denney, FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images.
Kelly Andrews-Denney is a 44-year-old mother near Portland, Oregon.
She taught high school math for 17 years and loved her job until 2020.
In 2024, she started working at Costco, and her husband says she looks "lighter" coming home.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Kelly Andrews-Denney. It has been edited for length and clarity.
I started working as a high school math teacher in 2007. It was an urban school in Portland with a lot of lower-income kids, and I absolutely loved it.
Those early years weren't without hard times. The day before I started, a student in the school died by suicide. In the first seven years I worked there, we lost at least one student every year, and several of them were suicides.
It wasn't easy, but I felt resilient. I could cope with the emotions, and I managed the heavy workload. Eventually, it was too much and I decided to leave my job at the school and go work at Costco instead.
Things changed when I became a mom
When I started having my own kids in 2013, that began changing. I noticed how much the job took out of me, but I still loved it and looked forward to work each day.
I remember always thinking that if a teacher doesn't want to teach, they shouldn't — it does too much damage to the students. However, I still wanted to teach.
I taught my students over a screen. Kids rarely put their video on, so my lessons were taught to a blank screen. It was difficult to maintain enthusiasm for this kind of teaching.
In the spring of 2020, a few months after we went online, I started getting migraines. I felt really dizzy and couldn't walk normally. My doctor did a lot of testing but couldn't find anything wrong and said the headaches were vestibular migraines. At first, they didn't happen often, but when they did, I'd be out of action for up to four days.
The following spring, in 2021, a student I used to teach, who I'd kept up with after he graduated, was shot and killed. The impact that had on me was immense.
My physical issues would go away over the summer break
Around this time, I started taking an antidepressant — both to help with my depression and also to manage the migraines. I also started using an herbal supplement any time I felt a headache coming on. Both of these seemed to help the migraines but didn't make them go away.
Once summer break started, I didn't get any headaches.
When we all got back in the classroom during the 2021/2022 school year, there was a lot of adjusting. The kids were different. They were unsocialized. Many of them didn't have access to resources during the year we were online. A lot of them were taking care of family members. And loads of them were traumatized and scared.
But teachers were traumatized, too. We were instructed to focus on the social and emotional well-being of the kids as if we were trained counselors. But we weren't trained to do that job, and many of us needed help ourselves after the pandemic.
That first year back, I didn't have many behavioral issues in the class — just kids with low energy levels, fear about getting COVID-19, and poor socialization.
But the next school year — the 2022/2023 school year — I had a class of ninth graders with the most challenging behavioral problems I'd ever had in a class. This class hadn't been in a normal classroom for an entire school year since the fifth grade.
Prior to this, I'd been given difficult classes on purpose. The administration knew I could handle them, but I couldn't deal with this class.
I resigned in 2024
I remember coming home without one ounce of emotional or physical energy for my own children.
I decided to go part-time for the 2023/2024 school year. Even though this relieved some pressure, I had checked out. I wasn't enjoying work, and I knew I couldn't carry on teaching if I didn't love it. It wasn't fair to the kids.
I resigned, committing to work until September 30th, 2024.
My plan was to substitute teach while I looked for another job with a comparable salary, but I couldn't find anything.
I decided to apply at Costco and got a job stocking shelves on the early shift, starting around 4 a.m. Initially, I questioned my decision as I was taking a huge pay cut. My hourly pay was a third of what I was making as a teacher.
Equally, I was looking forward to working a job and then leaving it at work — not taking anything home with me.
I started in October. It's been so much less stressful than working as a teacher. My physical body is exhausted after every shift — it's a lot of manual labor — but I feel total relief in not having to make a thousand decisions each day, not being responsible for the academic and emotional well-being of up to 180 teens, and not carrying their trauma home with me.
After one recent shift, my husband told me I looked different. He said I looked lighter. I agree, I feel it.
I may return to teaching one day once I have had a chance to heal, but not for now.
