[emeraldunicorn9]

I agree that this is a problem that prevents people at all income levels from pursuing other options. Partly there is the real issue that you present, which is that you can't afford to take 6+ months off between jobs. But you clearly did a tremendous amount of work to find your next opportunity and that might have been virtually impossible to accomplish if you still had to perform your previous job.

But then there is the issue with taking a break. Maybe this is more a problem that women experience, but I'd be interested if men feel like they experience it, too. However, when you have gaps in your employment, I have felt that people didn't respond very positively to that and wanted to know why you had a break and what you were doing it. Because god forbid you weren't doing something "productive" during that time.

The way our work style is makes it feel like burnout begets more burnout because the options to escape burnout might not actually be feasible for every individual.