Might not be helpful but you're not the only one. I'm in a very similar position; there are some details that are different but otherwise I could have written exactly what you wrote, and the gist is the same.
Over time I do think I've gained some perspective on how I started feeling this way and what led me to make some decisions. Basically I just felt like my career was taking a lot, and I wasn't really getting what I wanted, even though it was successful in important ways. Critically, I felt like the choices I was making to maintain it started affecting my spouse and child in important ways, and whoever I went to -- family, friends, colleagues, they didn't really help, just told me to basically sit tight and not fret, which wasn't helpful. I think that was the final straw really; if it hadn't been affecting them as well I would have just kept with things the way they were.
What I didn't realize at the time that's taken me a few years to recognize is that my local environment was really the problem. The place I was at really changed, and became really dysfunctional in important ways. In hindsight, there are things I would have done differently, but at the time I couldn't see how to do them, no one was suggesting them, when I tried to do them, it didn't work, and people I know who had tried to do them also weren't successful. I think I attributed to my field of work problems that were especially bad where I was at, and not as bad in other places.
To be honest, as I've recognized what was happening I've only grown more hopeless, and also angry because I feel like there are really simple things that would have made a world of difference, and I find myself wondering why no one around was doing any of them. At the time I beat myself up about them, or found myself "done" with it, but in retrospect I realize how easily so much of it could have gone differently. It was the perfect storm in important ways.
Friends, colleagues, and family tend to either criticize me for not just "sticking" with it, and/or express admiration for not putting up with it, but then implore me to "move forward" but the avenues I've explored haven't worked, and no one has any idea what "moving forward" actually means in a practical sense. Others basically tell me to just change my goals or priorities, or just appreciate what I have (which is a lot in important ways) but to me it comes across as minimizing things -- which was 75% of what I was upset with in others before -- or as telling me to lie to myself, which I can't do.
I tried professional help. The therapist that I got along with was one of the only people to tell me to just try something different at the time this all started, which I did, and at this point, like you, something like ketamine or psychedelics has crossed my mind (probably the latter because if nothing else it's an experience that I've always been curious about). But to me this all seems to miss the point at some level, which is feeling boxed in or typecast by my past or something.
Anyway, I'm not sure if anything I've said is helpful. But you're not alone. I think the best advice I've gotten is to think about what it is you really want at this point, and to keep swinging at opportunities in that direction as best you can, and to keep in mind that hope sometimes means believing there's a solution when you don't know what it is. Sometimes I have to remind myself that I have the benefit of trying things out.
Over time I do think I've gained some perspective on how I started feeling this way and what led me to make some decisions. Basically I just felt like my career was taking a lot, and I wasn't really getting what I wanted, even though it was successful in important ways. Critically, I felt like the choices I was making to maintain it started affecting my spouse and child in important ways, and whoever I went to -- family, friends, colleagues, they didn't really help, just told me to basically sit tight and not fret, which wasn't helpful. I think that was the final straw really; if it hadn't been affecting them as well I would have just kept with things the way they were.
What I didn't realize at the time that's taken me a few years to recognize is that my local environment was really the problem. The place I was at really changed, and became really dysfunctional in important ways. In hindsight, there are things I would have done differently, but at the time I couldn't see how to do them, no one was suggesting them, when I tried to do them, it didn't work, and people I know who had tried to do them also weren't successful. I think I attributed to my field of work problems that were especially bad where I was at, and not as bad in other places.
To be honest, as I've recognized what was happening I've only grown more hopeless, and also angry because I feel like there are really simple things that would have made a world of difference, and I find myself wondering why no one around was doing any of them. At the time I beat myself up about them, or found myself "done" with it, but in retrospect I realize how easily so much of it could have gone differently. It was the perfect storm in important ways.
Friends, colleagues, and family tend to either criticize me for not just "sticking" with it, and/or express admiration for not putting up with it, but then implore me to "move forward" but the avenues I've explored haven't worked, and no one has any idea what "moving forward" actually means in a practical sense. Others basically tell me to just change my goals or priorities, or just appreciate what I have (which is a lot in important ways) but to me it comes across as minimizing things -- which was 75% of what I was upset with in others before -- or as telling me to lie to myself, which I can't do.
I tried professional help. The therapist that I got along with was one of the only people to tell me to just try something different at the time this all started, which I did, and at this point, like you, something like ketamine or psychedelics has crossed my mind (probably the latter because if nothing else it's an experience that I've always been curious about). But to me this all seems to miss the point at some level, which is feeling boxed in or typecast by my past or something.
Anyway, I'm not sure if anything I've said is helpful. But you're not alone. I think the best advice I've gotten is to think about what it is you really want at this point, and to keep swinging at opportunities in that direction as best you can, and to keep in mind that hope sometimes means believing there's a solution when you don't know what it is. Sometimes I have to remind myself that I have the benefit of trying things out.