I too went through severe burn out, only I chose not to leave the remote working writing job, carried on despite barely being able to lift my arms to type, and ended up triggering full blow M.E./Chronic Fatigue Syndrome that left me bed bound for years. Like you, recovery was hard won. Like you, I now celebrate my achievements. Probably more so, because previously they were just another stepping stone along the road to some impossible perceived point of, as you say, 'flawlessness' that I believed was the real moment I would celebrate. You worked your damn ass off to get your own book out into the world - and the work didn't end pre-burnout I'm sure! Your recovery was part of your book's journey, the effort and sacrifices for its success will have continued since. You deserve to celebrate with abandon! It was a hard won thing. You can celebrate and share in the excitement any way you wish; you have been open about your journey with burnout, its implied that your book being published was not a shiny, smooth road.
Most patients of burnout and M.E. are high achievers who push themselves in all areas of their life, I don't think we wear our burnout as a badge of honour for this, I think we discuss the correlation openly to try to show justification for why we now have to say 'no' more and 'do less'. We feel judged for it. Perhaps because we've always felt our personal worth was wrapped up in our relentless striving and achieving? The responsibility of glamourising productivity does not fall on you, a victim of it.
Thanks for this newsletter, always nice to hear of other's continued fathoming out of living with a susceptibility to these conditions. Solidarity.
I DID opt for noodles and Netflix and i felt so god damn good about it. But also, need to start factoring in more time for play, fun and nourishment so that isn't the only option I have energy for. The not being able to lift your arms to type experience is such a common description when it comes to burnout. I remember that feeling, i remember my sister describing that feeling too. It makes me sad to think of myself and of you, with our sad, tired arms not being able to do anymore.
Thank you so much for your comment because I think you're right - systems of power and toxic productivity culture is to blame for glamourising burnout, not me. And perhaps I can hear (or am more aware!), of a slight lack of compassion for myself in this piece after reading your comment. There is a lot in there about self worth, i also think overworking can be a trauma response too, a mechanism with which to keep oneself safe.
Yesss! Trauma has a definite role in it. Have not considered it in terms of it being a trauma response before, thanks for this. I also think when you've been through significant trauma your body already has that stress-load to carry (which we are so used to living with, we take as baseline 'normal'), so it has less room to manage the other stuff effectively when we pile it on top of the underlying trauma. Thank god for therapy hey! Wishing more self-compassion and soul-filling stuff for us both and all others in this tricky b*tch of a boat. Portia x
I resonate with so much that you are speaking about here Abigail.
The trauma is definitely a thing. I thought I had post-natal depression years ago when I had my second child, but in hindsight I was reacting to the trauma of the pregnancy and birth. I know this now because three years ago I thought I was going to die in a plane crash when we couldn't land in a storm. I was ecstatic for the first few days after getting home in one piece and then my body reacted in exactly the same way as it did before. I had a meltdown which took me a year to recover from.
I also struggle to just 'be' rather than 'do'. Doing is easy, especially when you build a world around you that gives you all the things you desire. Over the years I've learnt to check in with myself a lot more so I don't get overwhelmed. I've created what I call my Life Pie - just like the corporate wheel of life but with added (FUN) bits, like Passion Project - Adventure, and Time Out. Every week I draw my Pie and rate how each piece is doing by giving it a score from 0 to 10. When I wrote my book -the Business section and the Passion Project section were scoring 9 out of 10 for two years running but Relationship was coming in at a big zero, but I was okay with that as I was aware of it, I had to let some things go to get the job done rather than try to eat the whole pie and make myself sick.
Thanks so much for sharing, Yvonne. And i really love this idea of conscious weekly check ins. That's definitely something I could apply. And congratulations on writing your book!
Though not exactly a victim of burnout from overwork, I found myself slamming the brakes after too long working the wrong career. Combined with a pretty serious health scare it was all I could do to bail on the pursuit of success, leaving myself face to face with me. That shit is a disaster the first time round!
It was a lot of very hard work with a lot of bouncing between extreme polarities as you talk about. My old habits involved getting drunk whenever possible to obscure my pain, the new polarisation was to get stoned. Different weapon, same outcome.
With that being said, I stayed the path and stuck to it. I saw that the pursuit of success, as defined by our culture (money, prestige etc) was the root problem, that these obscuring techniques were the sick coping mechanism I had developed to overwork it.
I stayed unemployed, frugal and kept my eye on the prize, being to redefine success on my own terms. The first redefinition involved becoming healthy in body and mind and that is not something one achieves overnight (not often, anyway).
It's been five years now and I'm ready to begin the reintegration process of career, financial pursuit, putting my name next to a title and so on. A writer, an accountant, a yogi, a barista, a drunk, whatever title we find ourselves holding onto tightly comes around to burn us in the long run so I've learnt to see these as things that I'm doing, rather than things that I'm being.
I also finished writing a book and am getting ready to publish it, and am trying to reconnect with the internet because I feel it's the right time to share these battles with an honest mind. Rather than share my pursuit of success in the early days I shared my destruction and in realising that I disconnected completely.
I am hoping to do just that, to share about the sacrifices that I've made in order to be what I consider to be successful. I'm happy with myself, and by myself, I'm healthy and I know what I'm doing because I'm doing it with awareness.
Thanks so much for sharing this, it was timely and insightful. For what it's worth, if we find ourselves lauding the successes of our burnout, that's our business. You might talk about it with success in focus, but I read it and think 'wow this crazy person has worked herself to death for this' and see the dangers, we never can tell :)
All the best and I look forward to your next post.
Hi Nick, thanks so much for your comment. It's really great to connect with other people who have had this experience. I must say though, I disagree that i'm not a victim of burnout because it was a result of overworking. Overworking is one thing, pushing yourself to limits where you're unable to get out of bed is another thing entirely. This is a trauma response, a coping mechanism I've developed to maintain control and keep myself safe in the world. It's an addiction of sorts, and although it can have positive outcomes i.e. keeping myself financially stable, it also has very damaging consequences like impacting negatively or even ruining relationship with loved ones and of course, making myself incredibly ill. There's a lot to be said about systems of power and toxic productivity culture too - which is where the blame sits in my opinion.
I do completely agree with you that it's about the paradigm of success and redefining what that means for you. I think your definition of success is incredibly inspiring. I think mine is similar, but somehow I struggle to hold on to it, it keeps moving or changing and i think that's part of the problem. I need to be more disciplined with that definition, even the contradictions within it. You've certainly given me something to think about.
I wish you the best of luck with your novel and the reintegration process with your career. Sounds like you got yourself to a very solid and honest place before reentering your career and that speaks volumes too!
Sorry, I didn't mean to infer that you were not a victim of burnout, but that I was not exactly a victim of burnout!
Completely agree, systems of power and toxic productivity are all the rage and if you're not busy you're wasting your time. Totally absurd.
I believe discipline is an art form and I think that if you have to capacity to overwork yourself so intensely you have incredible capacity for discipline, perhaps there's just a few tweaks in there to get it firing for you rather than against you!
Thanks for the well wishes and all the best one again
Ah I see, that makes sense! Thanks for the faith Nick, I think you're right. I need to apply that discipline both ways and set some rules... fingers crossed for me!
If you ever want some pointers, tips or a sounding board feel free to reach out. It's definitely a strength of mine, to help people get moving in the right direction and I'm happy to do it! fingers crossed for you :)
I too went through severe burn out, only I chose not to leave the remote working writing job, carried on despite barely being able to lift my arms to type, and ended up triggering full blow M.E./Chronic Fatigue Syndrome that left me bed bound for years. Like you, recovery was hard won. Like you, I now celebrate my achievements. Probably more so, because previously they were just another stepping stone along the road to some impossible perceived point of, as you say, 'flawlessness' that I believed was the real moment I would celebrate. You worked your damn ass off to get your own book out into the world - and the work didn't end pre-burnout I'm sure! Your recovery was part of your book's journey, the effort and sacrifices for its success will have continued since. You deserve to celebrate with abandon! It was a hard won thing. You can celebrate and share in the excitement any way you wish; you have been open about your journey with burnout, its implied that your book being published was not a shiny, smooth road.
Most patients of burnout and M.E. are high achievers who push themselves in all areas of their life, I don't think we wear our burnout as a badge of honour for this, I think we discuss the correlation openly to try to show justification for why we now have to say 'no' more and 'do less'. We feel judged for it. Perhaps because we've always felt our personal worth was wrapped up in our relentless striving and achieving? The responsibility of glamourising productivity does not fall on you, a victim of it.
Thanks for this newsletter, always nice to hear of other's continued fathoming out of living with a susceptibility to these conditions. Solidarity.
I hope you chose the noodles and Netflix.
Portia X
I DID opt for noodles and Netflix and i felt so god damn good about it. But also, need to start factoring in more time for play, fun and nourishment so that isn't the only option I have energy for. The not being able to lift your arms to type experience is such a common description when it comes to burnout. I remember that feeling, i remember my sister describing that feeling too. It makes me sad to think of myself and of you, with our sad, tired arms not being able to do anymore.
Thank you so much for your comment because I think you're right - systems of power and toxic productivity culture is to blame for glamourising burnout, not me. And perhaps I can hear (or am more aware!), of a slight lack of compassion for myself in this piece after reading your comment. There is a lot in there about self worth, i also think overworking can be a trauma response too, a mechanism with which to keep oneself safe.
Ax
Yesss! Trauma has a definite role in it. Have not considered it in terms of it being a trauma response before, thanks for this. I also think when you've been through significant trauma your body already has that stress-load to carry (which we are so used to living with, we take as baseline 'normal'), so it has less room to manage the other stuff effectively when we pile it on top of the underlying trauma. Thank god for therapy hey! Wishing more self-compassion and soul-filling stuff for us both and all others in this tricky b*tch of a boat. Portia x
I resonate with so much that you are speaking about here Abigail.
The trauma is definitely a thing. I thought I had post-natal depression years ago when I had my second child, but in hindsight I was reacting to the trauma of the pregnancy and birth. I know this now because three years ago I thought I was going to die in a plane crash when we couldn't land in a storm. I was ecstatic for the first few days after getting home in one piece and then my body reacted in exactly the same way as it did before. I had a meltdown which took me a year to recover from.
I also struggle to just 'be' rather than 'do'. Doing is easy, especially when you build a world around you that gives you all the things you desire. Over the years I've learnt to check in with myself a lot more so I don't get overwhelmed. I've created what I call my Life Pie - just like the corporate wheel of life but with added (FUN) bits, like Passion Project - Adventure, and Time Out. Every week I draw my Pie and rate how each piece is doing by giving it a score from 0 to 10. When I wrote my book -the Business section and the Passion Project section were scoring 9 out of 10 for two years running but Relationship was coming in at a big zero, but I was okay with that as I was aware of it, I had to let some things go to get the job done rather than try to eat the whole pie and make myself sick.
Thanks so much for sharing, Yvonne. And i really love this idea of conscious weekly check ins. That's definitely something I could apply. And congratulations on writing your book!
Very interesting read Abigail.
Though not exactly a victim of burnout from overwork, I found myself slamming the brakes after too long working the wrong career. Combined with a pretty serious health scare it was all I could do to bail on the pursuit of success, leaving myself face to face with me. That shit is a disaster the first time round!
It was a lot of very hard work with a lot of bouncing between extreme polarities as you talk about. My old habits involved getting drunk whenever possible to obscure my pain, the new polarisation was to get stoned. Different weapon, same outcome.
With that being said, I stayed the path and stuck to it. I saw that the pursuit of success, as defined by our culture (money, prestige etc) was the root problem, that these obscuring techniques were the sick coping mechanism I had developed to overwork it.
I stayed unemployed, frugal and kept my eye on the prize, being to redefine success on my own terms. The first redefinition involved becoming healthy in body and mind and that is not something one achieves overnight (not often, anyway).
It's been five years now and I'm ready to begin the reintegration process of career, financial pursuit, putting my name next to a title and so on. A writer, an accountant, a yogi, a barista, a drunk, whatever title we find ourselves holding onto tightly comes around to burn us in the long run so I've learnt to see these as things that I'm doing, rather than things that I'm being.
I also finished writing a book and am getting ready to publish it, and am trying to reconnect with the internet because I feel it's the right time to share these battles with an honest mind. Rather than share my pursuit of success in the early days I shared my destruction and in realising that I disconnected completely.
I am hoping to do just that, to share about the sacrifices that I've made in order to be what I consider to be successful. I'm happy with myself, and by myself, I'm healthy and I know what I'm doing because I'm doing it with awareness.
Thanks so much for sharing this, it was timely and insightful. For what it's worth, if we find ourselves lauding the successes of our burnout, that's our business. You might talk about it with success in focus, but I read it and think 'wow this crazy person has worked herself to death for this' and see the dangers, we never can tell :)
All the best and I look forward to your next post.
Best,
Nick
Hi Nick, thanks so much for your comment. It's really great to connect with other people who have had this experience. I must say though, I disagree that i'm not a victim of burnout because it was a result of overworking. Overworking is one thing, pushing yourself to limits where you're unable to get out of bed is another thing entirely. This is a trauma response, a coping mechanism I've developed to maintain control and keep myself safe in the world. It's an addiction of sorts, and although it can have positive outcomes i.e. keeping myself financially stable, it also has very damaging consequences like impacting negatively or even ruining relationship with loved ones and of course, making myself incredibly ill. There's a lot to be said about systems of power and toxic productivity culture too - which is where the blame sits in my opinion.
I do completely agree with you that it's about the paradigm of success and redefining what that means for you. I think your definition of success is incredibly inspiring. I think mine is similar, but somehow I struggle to hold on to it, it keeps moving or changing and i think that's part of the problem. I need to be more disciplined with that definition, even the contradictions within it. You've certainly given me something to think about.
I wish you the best of luck with your novel and the reintegration process with your career. Sounds like you got yourself to a very solid and honest place before reentering your career and that speaks volumes too!
Hi Abigail,
Sorry, I didn't mean to infer that you were not a victim of burnout, but that I was not exactly a victim of burnout!
Completely agree, systems of power and toxic productivity are all the rage and if you're not busy you're wasting your time. Totally absurd.
I believe discipline is an art form and I think that if you have to capacity to overwork yourself so intensely you have incredible capacity for discipline, perhaps there's just a few tweaks in there to get it firing for you rather than against you!
Thanks for the well wishes and all the best one again
Nick
Ah I see, that makes sense! Thanks for the faith Nick, I think you're right. I need to apply that discipline both ways and set some rules... fingers crossed for me!
If you ever want some pointers, tips or a sounding board feel free to reach out. It's definitely a strength of mine, to help people get moving in the right direction and I'm happy to do it! fingers crossed for you :)