“What is wrong with me?” I ask myself as I stare in the mirror. I’m in the toilets at work, holding onto the sink for support, my face all red and blotchy from crying. “This isn’t me” I tell myself. And yet the reality of my red, swollen eyes spoke of a different reality.
This was me. This was me in burnout. How did I get here?
I’d been working as an accountant in a large city firm for many years. I’d been promoted quickly and was flagged for future partnership (an emerging leader is what they called it). I was reliable and hard-working. “A safe pair of hands” kind of person. This ticks off the first of the twelve stages which lead to burnout as devised by Psychologists Herbert Freudenberger and Gail North. This early stage is when an individual (me) has excessive drive and ambition (ding ding ding)!
The start of my slow demise to burnout was a perfect storm. I had begun working on a project for a boss who I’d never worked with before and who was quite open about the fact that he didn’t rate my work (lovely hey). This was like a red rag to my inner bull. “I’ll show him” I thought. “I’ll work doubly hard to prove him wrong.” I did achieve my goal, but at a great personal cost. This brings us to stage two of Freudenberger and North’s list, a state of pushing yourself to work harder.
Just to add to my stress, a close family member was seriously ill in hospital over this time also. Cue long weekends working in the office, and then making hospital visits on a Sunday evening. With this project at work underway and my personal life on shaky ground the stage was set for an almighty burnout.
Stage three of the burnout was an easy one for me to achieve. This being a neglect of your own needs. I was already pretty skilled at this, but at this time I became an expert of sorts. I skipped meals (lost a lot of weight), cut back on my sleep and my only exercise was walking to the office each day (including weekends).
As my work started to ramp up, I was ever so slightly aware (you know that little voice that we can hear sometimes) that this could lead to difficulties for me but another louder part of me was quick to dismiss any such concerns. I had an array of excuses already to go, my boss was a tyrant, the deadlines were impossible, my team were too junior. Accepting my role in all of this was too difficult. I displaced the responsibility (stage four) and went into denial around how I was causing this potentially harmful situation (stage six).
My intense focus on work meant that I was quickly losing sight of any other aspect of my life. Yoga classes were cancelled, family members began calls with apologies for calling as they knew how busy I was, and my social or dating activities were non-existent. Work and only work took centre stage. It was the leading star in the show of my life. Nothing outside of work seemed very important to me. There was no “work-life” balance, it was all work and no life! And with this I passed stage five of the burnout journey (no time for nonwork-related needs).
One example which really sticks in my mind is my 30th birthday. I remember having to be cajoled to celebrate. I organised an evening meal in one my favourite restaurants with friends (all work colleagues interestingly enough). I remember feeling physically quite unwell at the time, but not really being able to pinpoint anything specific. It was a general malaise. An ache in my stomach, a fuzzy head, a sense of something not feeling right. I also recall feeling incredibly distracted throughout the evening. I was not present at the table to enjoy the meal with my friends and celebrate my birthday. My mind was elsewhere. I was withdrawing from life (stage 7). My mind wasn’t really on work anymore it just wasn’t present. I was losing touch with myself (a process called depersonalisation; stage 9) and my body was trying to get my attention. But alas I wasn’t listening.
As time went on, and I remained in denial (stage 6 again), my “window of tolerance” as we therapists call it got smaller and smaller. My fuse was short. Things which would not normally cause me distress, were now causing eruptions of frustration and anger. I recall crying most evenings. I was clearly deeply unhappy, (stage 8, changes in behaviour).
Now we come to the final few miles of the burnout marathon. I was so out of touch with myself that I reckon there was no going back. I was determined to get to the finish line to collect my burnout medal. This time of my life feels quite hazy now, which I feel speaks to how disconnected I felt from everything. I lived my life on autopilot, completely unaware of the inner emptiness within (stage 10) and the slow dark cloud of depressive symptoms looming over my horizon (stage 11). I describe this time of my life as “sleepwalking”. I really was a bit of a work zombie. The same routine day in day out.
And so, we return full circle to our beginning. The last and final stage (stage 12), this being a mental and/or physical collapse. With me staring at myself in the bathroom mirror at work, after having bursting into tears in a perfectly ordinary meeting. Seeing my red blotchy face in the mirror was the wakeup call I so desperately needed. Burnout had arrived.
I’d love to say the rest was easy, but it wasn’t. There was immediate time off work, then a return and a promotion and then another dip (more of a warning than a burnout) which finally confirmed to me that I had to make changes in my life. I left my job with no clue as to what I wanted but knew that the current situation wasn’t good for me. This was the start of my personal journey to find myself.
Photo by Oscar Dario on Unsplash
Suzie Chick 
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