” ... jag känner att jag ger, jag ger verkligen mitt allt, men det känns ibland att det inte är, det räcker inte”

Sammanfattning: In Sweden, thousands of people work as high school teachers and of these, 7% left the profession in 2019. One reason is stress. Previous research shows that teachers are 50% more likely to suffer from stress-related fatigue compared to other occupational groups and one reason for this is a lack of balance between work and private life. The purpose of this study is to investigate how high school teachers themselves experience their work and how it affects their private and emotional lives. This was investigated through semi-structured interviews with life story features. The study's conclusions are that the teachers in the study carry their work with them almost all of the time, even when they try to disconnect from it or slow down. They like their work, sometimes a little too much, because it often drains them of energy, which means that they have less time and energy for family, friends and themselves. The profession involves a lot of emotional work, which is one reason why it affects them so much. The work also affects their emotional life and they often come home stressed, frustrated or with a feeling that they are not enough. At work, it is often difficult to distinguish the back stage from the front stage, which means that they are given few opportunities for recovery.