“Burnout is a cunning thief. It feeds on your passion, your energy, and your enthusiasm, taking these positive qualities and turning them into exhaustion, frustration, and self-doubt. It’s way more than just having a bad day, or being tired and worn out.”
Kieran Tie
First time I heard about anyone having a burnout, I remember thinking that person must be really weak, too sensitive, and someone who gives up too easily. That was sadly a thought that I carried with me for many years. Until it happened to me.
In Swedish, having a burnout is often called “going into the wall”. And for some it is like that, they run so fast that they do not really notice the wall approaching, and they smack right into it. But for most, it’s not. In nine cases out of ten, burnout is not something you do not see coming. Before you reach rock bottom, you get several clues of your direction. Your body starts showing signs, but you keep ignoring them, and most especially, you keep finding really odd excuses for them.
Ignoring the Signs Is a Good Way of Ending up at the Wrong Destination
About four months before I called in sick, I had a cold. I had a sore throat, I was coughing, and I was throwing up. I was at home, but I was working from bed. I had a deadline, and even if my manager had told me I need to rest, I didn’t listen. I believed I was the only one who could do this particular part of the job. I remember literally crawling back to bed from the bathroom, after being sick, and wondering what it feels like to have a burnout. On the way, I dug out my thermometer, and took my temp once back in bed. It showed 38.something. I was relieved. It was just a flu. If I have a fever, I cannot be having a burnout, right?
A month before I called in sick, I was sitting on my bedroom floor, talking to my mother on the phone. I was crying, and saying I’m not sure I want to come to Finland for holiday, because what if I do not want to leave once I’m there. What if I don’t want to come back?
I had just signed for a new apartment, where I was supposed to move right after my upcoming summer vacation, and I knew that I should have been thrilled. I cried some more, wondering why I couldn’t feel happy about it, it was just what I had been hoping for.
Somewhere in the middle of my third week of holiday, I was wondering why the date on my phone said it was already end of July. I was apparently supposed to fly back to Amsterdam in just a few days’ time. I looked at my agenda again, and felt a slight panic coming over me when I realised I could not remember my first week of holiday. I could not remember a single thing. I ran to the study where I keep a daily journal, and I read through what I had been doing, who I had been meeting with two weeks earlier. My heart was beating fast, and tears were rolling down when I stated the fact: I. Still. Could. Not. Remember.
Dragging myself to a doctor in Finland, I felt like an imposter. He asked me some questions, and I kept waiting for him to call me out. Instead, he said it’s a clear case of burnout, and told me to spend the next few weeks in nature, only doing things that I feel like doing.
Two weeks later, I was back in Amsterdam. After a sleepless night, I biked to the company doctor. I felt like an imposter again, pretty sure he will tell me to stop being a loser and go back to work. Instead, he told me that I have been strong too long, and this is what happens to strong people when they are under pressure for too long time; they break. It’s the high achievers, the people pleasers, the multitaskers, and the ones with the highest stress thresholds that one day reach their limit. If you keep a rubber band stretched out long enough, it will no longer spring back to it’s original form. It. Will. Break.
Research show that burnout causes changes in the frontal lobe of your brain. The amygdala grows, and the hippocampus is having a hard time handling serotonin, the happy hormones. Your emotions run havoc with you as a result. You worry about the smallest of things, you cry, and you get angry. You can also feel very bitter towards others as you start feeling they do not understand [insert random “fact” you believe is true about yourself]. People in your surroundings don’t know how to handle you because anything and everything can set you off. Your short term memory is utterly unreliable, and you cannot make decisions because you cannot understand the consequences of your choices. That summer when shit hit the fan for me, a simple question like do you want fish or meat for dinner got me in a frenzy, because I thought that my mother would be disappointed in me if I chose the wrong answer…
Rock Bottom Is a Beautiful New Start
You don’t get sick over night, so you cannot expect getting well over night either, and just as you wouldn’t go running a marathon two months after breaking your leg, you shouldn’t expect your brain to be back to normal only a few months after a burnout diagnosis.
I would like to think that most burnout patients get well in the end, but I also know it’s much like what everyone has been facing after the pandemic: a new normal. You will have to readjust your stress tolerance to match the one of “normal” people. You will have to learn to say no, and not always be the first to help everyone else. You will have to realise that multitasking is not really a strength, it’s just a way of doing several things half-heartedly. But most of all, you will have a lower tolerance for bullshit, you will learn to live in the moment better, and you will hopefully learn to listen better to your body and actually get some rest before you feel like you are running on fumes.
A burnout does have a silver lining, if you are open for it. It can give you the push you need to reassess your life, and simply rediscover what matters to you, and what you have been doing just because you thought it was what you were supposed to do. Be prepared to end up in a completely different place to where you were when it begun, but rest assured, it will be a place that fits you better.
#healthfirst
Mental health is just as important as physical health, and it is important 365 days a year, not only on World Mental Health Day (October 10). There is no weakness in looking after your mental health, in any shape or form. If you recognise any of the symptoms above, either in yourself or in a friend, family member or colleague, do not hesitate to contact your GP or company doctor. This goes especially if you feel triggered by anything I wrote. There is no shame in acknowledging you need help.
NB! My story above is from several years ago, so there is no need to worry about me 🙂 I am at a happy place in life now. I have since also done a diploma in wellness coaching and studied the effects of stress on your body, so don’t hesitate to reach out if you want to share your own story, or have any questions.
this very descriptive image is borrowed from iulianolariu.com.
management by chia 