Throughout my career I've constantly felt like I've failed upwards. I'm now 1 rung down from CTO and frankly if it wasn't for my anxiety I could probably fill that role, but lately i've found myself saying repeatedly to my wife "I just want to be a small cog again".
I left enterprise IT 5 years ago for reasons I can no longer quite remember - I think most of it was because I felt like I had nowhere to go and I couldn't engage with the work I was doing. In retrospect, maybe I didn't try hard enough to find fulfilling work within that company? I loved my colleagues and it turns out the corporate structure actually worked for me - I like the relative safety of 25 levels of beaurocracy and middle management as long as I get left to do some problem-solving.
Now I work in startups, It feels like I'm constantly about to collapse from the anxiety of the unknown. As a grown-ass adult, I've had awful experiences of people shouting in my face because some unimportant task has not been completed, which is not something I should have to tolerate.
I keep telling myself that "they need you, you don't need them" and looking for ways out, but my anxiety around stability for my family means I can't just bin it off and go for something else in this current job market.
I've done CBT but it doesn't really work for me. I need to engage direct therapy at this point I think. I also try to find hobbies that are completely detached from what I do for a day job.