I’ve not talked about my burnout in this newsletter yet, but I have talked about it a lot online and still regularly get asked about it at events. I’ve also written about it in the national press, such as this piece in the Sunday Times. It talks about how I got my burnout and how I recovered. Only the thing is, I’m starting to wonder if it’s that simple, or if – like most bad habits in life – I’m going to be circling the exhaustion drain throughout the course of my life.
Aug 29, 2022·edited Aug 29, 2022Liked by Abigail Bergstrom
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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