For whatever it's worth, as a med school dropout, leaving my degree was a call I'm glad I made. But it's also a source of a *kind* of regret?
There's always going to be a part of me that loved the teaching and research I was able to do, and wishes I could be making a difference in the field now... but I also think walking away from academia gave me the time and space to get my life in order, in a way I simply wouldn't have had the spoons and time for otherwise. Assess what was really important to me, and how I could be doing that with my life and time. I'm glad for the skills and understanding I came away from it with, and they haven't *gone* anywhere, or been a waste of my youth. I just use them differently now.
I won't air out my grief about the academic system as a whole; different situation, and probably not the place. I chafed at the for-profit aspects of my institution, and the flaws that seemed baked-in and impossible to meaningfully change from within. But I also valued the cultivation being done by people there; people who cared about the future, and the continuity of human art and experience and knowledge and all that.
It's complicated. The institution could suck ass, but it's work felt vital and human, I guess. I don't have better words.
Anyway, my life didn't end when I left med school at near 30, but it was the end of the path I'd been on. And there's good and bad to that. But I like my life and my work now, and that's enough.
Maybe your route forward will be clearer after some rest and a good meal, and some time to cool off. Wishing you all the best there.