tired of buyside exp - need lateral advice for ib

hey everyone, graduating senior here. My current options include a long only shop in chicago and 2 distressed/special sits credit shops in nyc.

I enjoy the work I do on the buyside. All of my internships so far have been on the buyside - from event driven equities, long only equities, distressed credit. I'm considering networking for lateral ib roles to jump to a role if possible. The reason why is that at all of these internships, I've been just thrown on tasks/deals to work on and expected to learn everything on the go.

As amazing as my experiences have been, they have also made me very anxious at times and very stressful as I'm constantly worrying about being on the axe even though my reviews so far have been good. Recently ended up staying awake until 5am and then getting back to work at 9am until 2am the next day - I have been putting in 80+ hours a week and sometimes I get completely new stuff that I have to quickly read on and then get to work - whether it's building models, covering something completely new, analyzing different stuff, etc. There is a very low chance of me affording to make mistakes as there isn't any associate/senior analyst covering me up or available to teach me something new here. One potential mistake and I'm under fire from the principals/pm.

I've mainly been looking at ib roles as a way to just start as everyone intending to go to the buyside does. Don't get me wrong, but I'm willing to spend 2 years working the same hours if I have at least a structured program that leads into these buyside roles while I learn everything I need in between.

That said, I'm not sure how networking/recruiting for ib lateral roles work from the buyside. I feel like people would think something is wrong if I'm approaching them from the situation I'm in. My story for transitioning is usually that I want to gain more transaction experience/be on the advisory side, etc. but that doesn't seem to cut it.

With the pandemic I'm not even sure when it would be appropriate to start networking as well. Any advice would be helpful. Thanks