My Burnout Experience
It’s time for another vulnerable post. Early last year, I experienced burnout from work. I know I wasn’t alone - there are studies from last year reporting that 50% of employees have experienced burnout, and that number is even higher for managers. I am finally feeling like I got my mojo back and am able to talk about that experience publicly. It’s interesting to reflect as I look back at what I went through—aided by journal entries—with the perspective of time.
I won’t go into all the details about the specific circumstances because it doesn’t really matter what caused it - it was about how I experienced things. In fact, one of my problems was not feeling like I had a good enough reason to feel burned out and throw in the towel, and that I should have been able to handle the situation better. But there is no doubt in my mind now that it was a classic case of job burnout.
How I got there
It was already a couple years into the pandemic, when mental health was already fragile due to ongoing events like Covid, a looming recession, political conflict, and California wildfires. It felt like being under constant attack. I had an impossibly long list of problems to manage, and it seemed like every day brought more bad news. I felt defeated - this was all my responsibility, and in my mind, it was my fault that I couldn’t solve all the problems before me. I felt like I had not control over my situation. The overwhelming stress had crept on me over the course of several months. From the outside, maybe none of this was obvious. What happened may have been invisible, because I acted like I was fine and got things done. I kept juggling all the balls.
Then one Monday, I got three more pieces of bad news before noon, and I hit my breaking point. I was doing everything wrong, and things were only getting worse under my watch. I was in an impossible situation and just couldn’t do it anymore. I could not attend another meeting and act like everything was fine. I could not face another person at work. I had lost my confidence and ability to focus. I had lost sleep and had panic attacks. I had lost who I was, becoming just a shell of my former self. I went into a panic spiral. I couldn’t think straight or process what people were saying to me anymore. I was desperate and at my wit’s end, and thought I would have to quit my job because I couldn’t do it anymore.
I went to my manager and shared all of this, prepared to resign from my job. Luckily, she stayed calm and was supportive, suggesting that I start by taking some time off. She reminded me that most of the problems existed before I was in charge and validated my feelings of being overwhelmed. I took my leave immediately. I declined all of my meetings, speaking only with a couple peers briefly.
Immediate actions
It helped me immensely and immediately to detach from work. I read recently that the difference between burnout and depression is that with burnout, it gets better when you step away from work, and I did find this to be true. As soon as I shut my work laptop, I felt a great sense of relief, and dove into intense self-care consisting of long walks, yoga and intense workouts, reflection, journaling, reading, massages, and some retail therapy. I even tried acupuncture for the first time.
Things that helped most:
Being productive - I spend my time making things (bread, dinners, soap, lotion), taking care of things like routine maintenance for my car, decluttering by giving things away on my local Buy Nothing Group. After feeling helpless and ineffective, being able to get things done was very satisfying and boosted my confidence.
Getting professional help - I contacted a coach and a therapist, both of whom I’d worked with in the past. Counseling gave me perspective - the problem is bigger than me - and helped me to let go of the feeling that I was letting people down.
I read several fiction and self-help books, including Why We Can’t Sleep by Ada Calhoun, which is about midlife crisis for Gen-X women. What especially helped was the idea of telling the story of our mistakes in a new way - seeing ourselves as heroines worth rooting for, and framing life as being about something unexpected. Whatever comes, we know we can handle it.
Introspection and journaling - I reminded myself of what I am good at and what I had already overcome in the past.
Coaching class - While it added homework and class time, I also found a lot of inspiration in the learning.
Preparing to go back
While it was not hard to de-stress while I was away from work, I had to prepare myself for my return. My coach suggested that I write down a list of my top 5 priorities for work that needed to be delivered, and the resources needed to make it happen. I also decided to add a “below the line” list which served as a way to communicate things that I was not working on, as well as a backlog of things I could later get to when I had more time. This required acceptance that there were a lot of things out of my control that I could not fix. The interesting thing was, over time I found that a lot of the things on both lists resolved themselves without me needing to do anything; they got done by other people, or no longer mattered.
Return and Recovery
I let myself be lazy and selfish again. I evaluated the extra work I was doing outside of my core job and dropped some things that felt like more of a burden than satisfying community contributions. That was really hard to do because I had committed to them. I forced myself to stop saying yes for a while to new requests or opportunities, even if they sounded interesting. I may have disappointed other people, but that’s what ruthless prioritization requires, and I had to put myself first at the time.
I also opened up to a few close peers and told them about my struggles. It’s hard for me to accept support from others, but I did. It took a while before I could share beyond that, and only now can I speak about it more publicly.
The problems from before did not magically disappear, and there were new ones. What changed was my mindset - one of surrender (for things beyond my control) and hope (that things would eventually change for the better). Still, I was not the same for a while after my burnout. I was guarded, wary, and scarred. I felt resentful about giving up so much of myself for work. The circumstances around me did not improve that much, and there were more trials and disappointments to come. The stress caused some weight gain, which was not great for my self-esteem.
It was a crappy year and the reason I vowed to make this year better. Not just better, but the best one yet. In order to do that, I leaned out of work. What I really wanted to do was take a long sabbatical, maybe 6 months away from work, but when I looked into the details it didn’t seem feasible. So I considered other options and ultimately switched to a part-time schedule where I had Fridays off.
With the clarity that comes from hindsight, I can see (and admit) that I did not feel whole for a long time after, and until very recently still felt broken or in a funk. I still have lingering guilt and other mixed feelings about taking care of myself and taking a step back from work. I was too insecure to admit publicly that I reached the point of breakdown because I didn’t want to appear incapable or unreliable or broken. Now I truly feel like I have rediscovered myself, a little wiser and hopefully better equipped to see the signs. I recently started a new role and am feeling motivated and confident like never before.
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