My Year On The Road To Burnout Recovery
To be honest, If someone had told me a year ago that I would stop paid work because my physical and mental ill-health would not only keep me from my everyday life but would force me to get off a ridiculous rollercoaster ride called burnout... well, I’d have thought they were having a laugh. And, If you’ve listened to me share my story at the beginning of this blog then you’d know that I truly did not see burnout on my horizon.
I mean, who the fuck would want to sit on a rollercoaster ride called burnout?
No one.
But out of the blue, as I paid no attention to my health and life, I found myself sat on that damn ride and it came to a screeching, practically, dangerous halt. My bag of badgers were going nuts, they’d thrown up everywhere and were now running as the escaped down the tracks.
So what did the aftermath of this crash look like?
Well, there was no more working two or three jobs at a time. No more giving my heart and soul to everything that crossed my path. No more side hustling my arse off in my spare time to raise extra cash for one thing or another. No more running around organising my household, sorting out and constantly attending to my family. No more drowning in and trying to outrun my thoughts - the ones that said I was useless, that I wasn’t a good enough mum, wife, friend, daughter, employee as I continued to ignore my own needs.
No more.
My body, mind and spirit said no more.
It was the psychologist Herbert Freudenberger who coined the term “burnout” in the 70s, from his attempt to describe what he was feeling in his own line of work. In a voice recording describing his symptoms. He said: “I don’t know how to have fun,” and “I don’t know how to be readily joyful.”
Does that resonate?
You may have also noticed that burnout is a topic of conversation that is being touched on increasingly more now. And there’s much debate circling burnout in our society as we explore … Is it a medical condition? Is it a trait of being human and just living? Is it transitioning from the industrial revolutionary way of working to the modern day - particularly since the World Health Organisation declared it was an occupational phenomenon?
For some, burnout is another way to say they’re depleted. There's no more petrol in the tank. Their stamina for working has changed. Some see it as needing to take regular breaks from their ambitious albeit punishing schedule - particularly when we consider those who talk of burning out doing something they loved with great passion.
I think (and quite frankly, I hope) our relationship with work is changing. Imagine if the conversation starter of “what do you do?” to learn more of and assess someone - can be replaced with ‘what lights you up?
What would happen to us if we had a completely transactional relationship to work? If we didn't seek all our passion and fulfillment from work?
Quite frankly, that’s an alien concept to me. But now, I’m starting to look at things differently.
You see, here I am. Unrecognisable to my former self. Some days it feels like only a cracked open, hollowed-out shell remains of that person I once was.
And honestly, I’d be lying if I didn't admit to sometimes trying to revert back to those old days of robotic machine-like-productivity and achievements because it was what I’d done for years, it got results and well, I can only describe it as perhaps a case of better the devil you know.
But here I am a year on. And wiser.
I can now fully appreciate that it took something so big to take me down, forcing me to stop. I, in all my daily back-breaking soul-destroying habits and patterns, was indeed a force to be reckoned with.
Change was called for. Change had arrived in the room. It wasn’t going anywhere.
Because when you cruise into burnout it echoes your absolute despair. Your soul is desperate for you to get off the merry-go-round, stop, take a breath, think about what you truly want, to look after yourself. But instead of listening to your inner wisdom and body, instead of putting yourself first and taking care of yourself … perhaps like me, you conjure up the last remaining ounces of strength to do just a little bit more, to clear your plate and feel better.
Either that or perhaps you fantasise about getting sick, crashing your car into a wall, anything that can wipe you out, relieve you, remove you, to have the reins taken off you … forcing you to stop, breathe, rest, change. Forcing you to embrace the greatest act of self-love. An act that for whatever reason you don’t think is yours to take.
Just typing those words seems bonkers. But if you know, then you know.
Did I think it would take a year to recover? No
Did I think I was that bad to start off with? Hell, fuck no
It’s been quite a journey. With a bucketful of definitive pivotal life-changing moments stuffed into my pockets too!
So if you’re curious.. here’s what 12 months of burnout recovery looked like for me:
First, I rested for a few months. I read, watched, and ate whatever I wanted. On the days that I could manage it, I walked. I walked for miles basking in the glory that the heavy deafening noise might finally have left my mind. I loved listening to birds, an autumn breeze, and on good days...kinder thoughts.
It took me three months to finally get to a point of spying a glimmer of improved physical health. Gradually over time, the acid reflux started to settle, heart attack symptoms were a fading memory, the heavy tight anxiety chest lifted on the days that I walked, stomach pains began to dissipate and my sleep patterns started to settle.
Next came improved emotional health. It took six months for my sadness, anger, resentment, guilt, shame, and hurt to surface. Emotions would bubble up and sit in the corner of the room until I’d not only noticed them but I’d acknowledged their presence and promise to process them.
Daily, I would journal my thoughts. I’d dump my fears and hopes onto a page. When I flick through those journals now, I find pages upon pages crinkled up as they hold past tears. I can thumb that bounded paper carrying heavily indented script that bears the weight and tension of released messages. Countless question marks litter the margins as they tried to make sense of my confusing and conflicted thoughts and experiences.
Six months of accepting and giving eye contact to my emotions helped not only ease the pain in my heart but aired out my mind like a breeze on the first spring day.
Hope. Hope was in the air.
So with this newfound hope that I’d scooped up and proudly and put it in my pocket, I began my mission to get back to myself. By the ninth month, I’d worked with a coach who’d helped me regain some desperate and much-needed confidence in my passion and vocation of writing. So I wrote honestly about my burnout and started to blog to help others, who, as I had, felt so lost and alone in their burnout.
I then recorded audio versions of blogs because I remember the little concentration I’d had to read in some of those early recovery days.
Besides, sometimes isn’t it lovely to listen to a person tell their story?
The feedback and reaction to this led me to create and start the everyday burnout conversations podcast. I worked from a little sound-absorbing corner of my house. It became a safe little nook that embraced, held and cherished the stories of others’ experiences. I interviewed incredible women who so kindly shared not only their stories but their coping strategies, their journeys, the self-care lessons that they’d learned along the way. Week after week, I’d connect with an awe-inspiring woman and share a fascinating conversation about burnout that left both myself and my listeners with some thought-provoking ideas on how we should all be looking after ourselves a helluva lot better.
Are any of us surprised to hear that we don’t look after ourselves enough?
It was exhilarating to produce a podcast season that would help others either prevent or identify and manage their burnout. It felt like rays of light were finally peeking through the post-storm clouds. They felt cathartic, healing, beautiful even.
People were messaging me and sharing how much the podcast or my words had helped them. I’d been able to articulate and mirror their own experiences. It felt like I’d tread the path of my own yellow brick road adventure. I’d taken it step by step. I’d built myself up to a good pace and made great distance. I was on a destined adventure, and I’d met some bloody fabulous people along the way.
So, are you wondering what happened in that last mile of my burnout recovery yellow brick road adventure?
Well, Fuck it. I tripped, fell over an obstacle, a block that life had delivered, and suddenly the finish line had disappeared, it blurred out of sight.
At that time the school summer holidays were fast approaching. My kids were about to finish a year and a half of pandemic virtual learning from home. No easy feat for them or my husband and I as parents. My house was in utter chaos due to a frustratingly delayed insurance repair to my bathroom and living room. It started to feel like I was living in some warped sitcom.
Every corner I turned, there seemed to be another problem, a battle to fight, an argument to be had for my voice and needs to be heard and met.
My kids were understandably fed up with being home and disheartened that it was no longer somewhere they could relax either. Amongst the relief of having a double vaccinated family, emerged a juxtaposition fear of if my house was safe enough to live in.
The summer break was turning into a summer struggle. Cortisol naturally began to surge through my body once again and immediately it reacted to the stress. My body has zero-tolerance for that shit these days.
My mind and heart were over-revving. A tight anxiety chest and breathing difficulties laced with panic walked through my door. Acid reflux and stomach pains came to sit at my kitchen table. Headaches and overthinking worries lay down next to me on the pillow.
And to be frank, if I want anything to walk through my door, sit at my kitchen table or lie on a pillow next to me I’m going to lean towards Daniel Craig. I mean who wouldn’t want a bit of Bond over burnout.
But that’s not happening and I’ve learnt that you can’t outthink anxiety or mute over-revving with a box of cream cakes or a glass of wine either - and lord knows I’ve bloody tried!
I felt discombobulated and tired trying to accept and manage these physical symptoms, once again.
Every day I’d ask...is this for real? Had I still not fully recovered yet? What happened to me? I used to be able to handle so much more.
I’d replay moments in time through my mind where I’d handled challenging situations in the past. I recalled the days when my boys were young and my schedule was that treadmill of taking them to nursery, working full-time, coming home to cook dinner, bathing them, putting them to bed, cleaning up the kitchen, then trying to write or watching a show while doing my elliptical trainer so I felt that at least I’d try to squeeze a small part of the day in, for me.
I began to ask, if I’d done all that back then, then why the hell am I so lifeless now? Why the fuck can’t I manage stressful situations anymore? Why is my body and mind letting me down now?
I realised that it was all those years of neglecting myself, neglecting my needs, neglecting every inch of me that has led me to subconsciously no longer put up with shit.
It was a tough realisation to swallow.
I lay down and covered myself in a weighted blanket of grief. I was grieving for my old self. Honestly, I missed my old grit and determination to get through challenges as I struggled to rely on others to do things for me. Asking for help has always been so difficult for me so I grieved not being able to push through, struggle, and do things independently.
No fuss. No hassle. I grieved what could no longer be mine.
Because at the end of the day you can’t unsee what you have seen. And, sometimes it’s not the therapist or coaching session where you’ve seen these things. Sometimes, realisations hit you while watching brilliant storytelling on a screen.
Just this week, I was able to observe my terrible, mean inner narrative from a new perspective. I began to realise my inner critic was waaaaay bigger and louder than I’d ever acknowledged or admitted. It was watching Physical --that apple series with Rose Byrne-- when I saw the protaganists inner critic unfold on my tv screen. I was now able to understand and appreciate how debilitating, destructive and painful a loud inner critic can be.
Then there was the time I suddenly realised that a lot of my identity over decades has been attached to struggle, defying the odds and achieving the impossible as I watched The Sopranos and Tony Soprano’s therapist ask him “why do you take responsibility for everything? Why do you think you have to be the one to sort everything out?
Storytelling has such power to make us feel so seen. Doesn’t it?
This is why I love to see characters that shine a spotlight on being a woman. A woman who’s rejecting what she learned to absorb, live, and bow down to within the patriarchal systems. It’s inspiring to see a character resist being small, staying quiet, in a box, to win the ultimate prize and badge of honour where others remark “I don’t know how she does it all?”.
So right now it’s about moving forward. Moving forward as who I am today. Time to get up and carry on with the last leg of this burnout recovery marathon.
In what feels like might be the last chapter of my burnout recovery, at least, I hope it is. Although I’m aware we never truly stop working on ourselves.
Yes, life happens. Floods damage homes and insurance claims don’t get resolved for seven months. Abandoned wells from over a century ago can leak and show up in your driveway causing the fucker to cave in and experts panic, screaming ‘sink hole’.
Oh, and the disturbing mystery of dead cats showing up on front lawns in the neighborhood - how are coyotes living in cities now? Seriously, I couldn’t make this shit up if I tried. Wow, Summer 2021… you were somethin’ else!
But amongst all the bonkersness of life, Is that even a word? Well, I’ve just made it one!
I now see how you can’t expect to heal and blossom in the same soil that led you to depletion. It’s not possible.
True burnout recovery is about unraveling and following some of those threads. After all, burnout is a symptom of an underlying cause. It’s now about unpacking and observing with fresh eyes, new perspectives, greater distance.
I can now see how some serious shit has gone down for many years now. That’s why not a single moment in time, job, all-nighter, relationship, or self-perceived fuck up has specifically caused this damn burnout of mine.
No.
It’s only when you unpack and rifle through the box that holds your old beliefs, behaviors, reactions, that you see this has --without a doubt-- been brewing for a while. That we never truly stop working on ourselves or growing.
But on that note, I want to be clear, if you’re expereincing burnout - well, this doesn't mean it was your fault. Do ya hear me… Burnout was NOT your fault. But, you can control and lead your recovery.
If you’re not thriving or growing where you are planted, if you’ve been wilting for a while then it’s time to change the soil. Are you planted in a toxic work environment? Then get out. Asap. Plant yourself somewhere where you’ll be appreciated. Make work a transaction. Energy for income. That’s all. No giving away your heart, soul, and life.
If attending an extended family gathering feels like going 10 rounds with Mike Tyson - then reduce or drop your attendance.
If meeting up with friends or coworkers in your circle drains you or demands more energy than you have… well, don't be afraid to tell them that you need to take time to rest instead of going to an event with them - it’s not like you’re lying. You’re just putting yourself first for once.
Do you need to share some of the household tasks on the to-do list? Then do just that. Sit with a cuppa, tell your household crewmates that you need some help, that you appreciate their love and so now need some support, then draw up a list together of what they can do. You need crewmates, not magician’s assistants - I’ll take a Captain Jack Sparrow over a Debbie McGee any day of the week.
I know it’s easier said than done. Remember what Tony Soprano’s therapist asked him.
You’re now going to put boundaries in place out of respect for yourself and love. Do it.
Maybe burnout has actually led me to a better place. But wading through the muck to get here has been about as painful and as tough as it gets.
Fuckkkk.
And breathe.
But as those rays of light shine through storm clouds, I see an opportunity to embrace what I truly want?
Finally, something that feels hopeful, positive, exciting even.
I dare you. Ask yourself. What do you truly want? An honest question always demands an honest answer. Sometimes those honest answers are the ones that lie deep within us. Loosen those threads a little, follow one, see where you go.
As I internally survey where this glorious burnout breakdown bonfire of mine had roared
(and I say glorious because on reflection this year, this trip around the sun, this unexpected destructive blaze that tore through my world, set alight to what I’d lived for, and that brought me to my knees) well, it has indeed done something positive.
Because as I look at the debris around me, I now know that I’m safe, that I’ll be alright, that I am okay, that I can see my health returning. I spy some diamonds amongst the rubble - glimmers amongst the broken rocks.
Some of the glimmers has always been there and I’m only seeing this just now. Whilst some glimmers are there from the sheer heat and pressure of the past 365 days that’s turned the rock into diamonds.
They are scattered. Ready to be noticed. Waiting to be picked up.
Which begs the question … what’s next?
Despite everything I’ve had to navigate over the past year, that single hopeful, positive, exciting ‘anything is possible’ question... well, it can feel bloody terrifying.
So I’m having to put on my big girl pants to look that question in the eye. And as I do I’ll fly a flag that shares everything burnout recovery has taught me:
Rest is not a luxury, a treat, or a reward … it’s a necessity.
You can’t just self-care your way through recovery. After you’ve calmed your nervous system down, it's time to work on your mindset and approach to life too.
Decisions will now be based on if something sacrifices your health and wellbeing.
Kindness should always start with yourself.
You are not responsible for other people’s happiness.
Your career is not your identity.
You’ll never be the same again. And that’s a beautiful thing.
The words of poet Rumi sum it up perfectly: life is a balance of holding on and letting go.
My bag of badgers are now sat still, looking at one another, frozen to the spot as they quietly acknowledge that it’s time to peacefully get back in the bag.
Flic x
