It All Starts to Fall Apart
I had always experienced extreme fatigue and exhaustion due to lifelong sleep issues, (which later resulted in me developing chronic fatigue syndrome), and as burnout isn’t something that happens suddenly, I can’t say for certain when I reached the tipping point so to speak; but I remember the sort of time when I could feel that I was truly losing a grip on my ability to cope with things.
I had returned from a failed attempt to start a new career in the United States when the job offer I had gone there for had fallen through. I felt bewildered, and utterly defeated. The trip had taken a lot out of me both physically and emotionally. My health issues had badly affected my career as a teacher here in England, and I had really hoped things would work out for me with this new opportunity that I had been offered in America. In retrospect it affected me more deeply than I imagined at the time.
Life Keeps Gets Harder
Life seemed to get tougher and tougher with constant money problems. My sleep issues became about as bad as ever, and along with the chronic fatigue, when I did fall asleep I couldn’t get up again. No matter how long I slept I still felt totally exhausted. I was wrecked when I dragged myself out of bed, and past collapse when I went to bed. I was too exhausted to do anything at all. I felt brain-dead from exhaustion, and unable to cope with daily life. I was miserable and full of self-loathing.
I still kept trying to find work though and after a while, I managed to secure a part-time position at a doctor’s surgery. The doctor had been our family GP for a while. I could work flexi-hours if I needed, and the day was split into two discrete sessions, with several hours in between, since there were two surgery sessions, morning and evening. Plus two days in the week were half-days. Furthermore, it was also something I felt wistfully contented doing. Our Dad had been a GP, and my sister and I had grown up in a surgery environment; working there reminded me of our Dad who had died a few years earlier and I missed him sorely.
Something Changed
It was a job, but it paid very little, still it covered the weekly household grocery bill. But it wasn’t a career job, and I felt very down. I had never really felt like that up to now – despondency I think would be an appropriate expression for the way I felt. Having always been very ambitious, driven and determined to have a good career, I was found myself doing a clerical job, that comprised reception work, filing and collating medical reports and a data entry.
Each morning it took me all my guts and will-power to drag myself out of bed. In itself, that was nothing new – my sleep problems had made that a way of life for me – but now I found myself resenting it. Whereas before it didn’t matter how exhausted I was – I was driven and I believed things would work out for me. I could force myself day in and day out. Now something had changed in me. And I just couldn’t muster up that drive that I’d once had – I just couldn’t seem to push myself hard enough anymore.
It went on like this. I changed my hours, and instead of having to return in the evenings I started working longer days and taking a three day weekend to try and recover. It helped a little, or perhaps that was just my imagination out of desperation. The days that I did work, there were times when I would sit in front of the computer pretending to be reading something on the monitor screen, with nothing but black in front of my eyes, my ears buzzing and feeling nauseas from it. I’d have to use every grain of strength I had in me, not to keel over.
Failing Again
Soon after that, I started fainting, though thankfully it never happened at work. It was usually late in the evenings, and as I got up to go to bed, I’d suddenly find myself lying in a heap on the floor. Or it happened first thing in the mornings soon after getting out of bed. These episodes were different in the way that there wasn’t any prior buzzing in my ears, or light-headedness, suddenly, it would start very quickly and suddenly I’d collapse and wake up on the floor.
I started missing days at work, being late, asking for more time off – the doctor I worked for was very kind, she’d realised something was up with me. She’d known our Dad and having been my doctor too for some time previously, she perhaps felt sorry for me. Nevertheless, despite that, eventually, very sympathetically, she told me it wasn’t working out. She actually tried to help me by referring me to hospital for tests. But by that time I was so run-down that I couldn’t get up, and when my appointment came I simply didn’t have the strength to attend it.
A Sad Realisation
Moreover, due to a badly damaged gut lining, (as a result of anorexia that I had developed a few years after my Mother’s death when I was a child), I was pretty much starving to death. One summer day when I got myself a glass or water, which came straight back out I knew that I was dying – if I couldn’t even hold down water, I certainly wasn’t going to live very long.
I didn’t feel bad about it, just a little wistful. I felt sad for my sister though – I knew she would be devastated as she loved me very much. I was younger than her and she had always been very protective towards me. Especially after our Mother died, she sort of took over the ‘mothering’ role. I hoped that she’d be okay. Still, I resigned to the idea and a sense of peace came over me – I didn’t have to ‘kill myself’ over trying to get a job and earn a living – it didn’t matter anymore.
It was during this time that a friend of ours came to see me; she was married to one of our cousins who happens to be a gastroenterologist. She dragged me off to see him, Frankly I didn’t see the point, I’d come to terms with everything. But she insisted so I went with her. He was horrified when he heard about my situation, and after reeling off the basic requirements for life, he stated he didn’t know why I was still alive! He also recommended some nutritional supplements that I should start taking immediately in order to get some urgent nourishment into my body.
Feeling Hapless and Disillusioned
My sister bought them for me straight away. And to cut the story short – I lived on these supplements for two years. My friends and family gave them to me as presents – for birthdays for Christmas, for all occasions. The GP prescribed me a box or two as a token, but told me as I had not been formally referred to my cousin’s gastroenterological clinic as a patient, she couldn’t implement his recommendations officially. But they worked, and slowly I started to recover my health…
Two years went by and I had not been able to work. For the first time in my life, I had no direction, and it affected me very badly. I became irritable and frustrated at little things. I would get angry and snap at my sister. I felt utterly useless. My ambitions had been the end-all-be-all for me. I had always yearned to travel and experience adventures, to go hiking, sailing, hang gliding, and so many other things. As a child because our Dad worked all the time, we didn’t even go on holidays because of his work. Then as a student, though I joined the student clubs and societies, I was too exhausted to engage in the activities.
A career had always been the ‘green grass on the other side’ for me. Now I found myself with no career, and no prospects. I felt lost, and so completely hopeless. I had no direction and no capacity to find one. I couldn’t think or concentrate on anything, sometimes I couldn’t even hold a coherent thought in my head. I became confused, everything confused me to the point of panic. Severe anxiety and constant unease became my permanent state of being.
Personality Changes
I had given everything I had into my work in one way or another. At college I had continued despite ever failing health. All my tutors had advised me to leave, my Dad had warned me that my health was becoming dangerously poor, I had got to point where I could barely walk, but I had carried on because I believed that things would work out. I believed in a future, a career, a fulfilling life.
One afternoon, as I lay on the couch in my sister’s drawing room, wondering what I was going to do, the sun was pouring in through the dining room window. I craned my neck to catch the beautiful, golden light. Suddenly something changed in me. I felt as if I had sacrificed my health for a world of employers, none of whom cared about me, and now my sister was left trying to pick up the pieced. I knew nothing would ever be the same again for me. That afternoon, my perspective had shifted… I knew I’d never be able to drive myself again. I was burned out, and I knew it.
What’s Left After All Seems Lost?
I became more and more depressed, it made me extremely irritable and short tempered. I’d lose my patience with people and blurt out things that I’d regret later. My severe fatigue made it difficult for me even to talk at times, and it forced me practically to cough up my words from my chest rather than in a normal voice. It sounded abrupt like a low pitched monotone; people found it offensive and insisted that I was being rude. That made me feel very sad and isolated. As time went on, my temperament became worse and worse and I became inwardly focused.
I started having more and more misunderstandings with my sister. My personality had changed, I felt hopeless and trapped. I couldn’t cope with simple every day things anymore,. I had to apply for government help and every fortnight would have to go to the local jobcentre to sign a piece of paper outlining what steps I had taken to find work, and verify that I was actively looking for work so I could continue receiving the help. I tried my best to find some sort of job that I could do, but the fact was – I was too rundown, braindead and exhausted to think, let alone work.
The Lowest Point
I sank into a terrible depression – almost as bad as I had experienced following my breakdown. Everyone around me had jobs. My college peers were settled in their careers, going from strength to strength and I was nowhere – having to live on government handouts. I felt totally worthless, and ashamed, I desperately wished I could get help, but from where and what I didn’t know. I had so little money the household bills had started bouncing and there seemed no way out of the situation I was in.
Eventually, I stopped thinking about it and just struggled on, constantly hoping I’d be able to find some work somewhere that would allow me to retrieve self-respect. Years went by like this. And one day when I went to visit the doctor’s surgery, the doctor told me I was the most depressed person she’d ever seen in her entire life as a GP and told me I needed to be hospitalised immediately. She told me to go home and that she’d get an ambulance sent out for me.
I think that was my lowest point. I had pretty much developed all the symptoms of burnout, including wishing I could die. This is where all my hard work and effort had got me – on the door of a psychiatric hospital. I cried all the way there in the ambulance. It was a surreal sort of day. I couldn’t quite get my head round what was happening to me. I felt numb, and I couldn’t think of anything other than that was not the way I ever thought it would be. The only emotion that I remember feeling at that time was shame. Utter, total shame at being so completely useless.
Thankfully for me, I wasn’t admitted, the doctor’s surgery had forgotten to phone the hospital, and the registrar sent me home in a taxi later that evening. That day was the beginning of a new way of life for me…
A New Chapter Begins
I was put onto strong antidepressants, and sent for therapy. Social workers were appointed to me, and I was officially classed as ‘disabled’ due to the state of my mental health. They helped me get the appropriate financial help I needed. I was given the opportunity to pay my bills in small manageable amounts. I was getting the help that I had needed for so long. Sadly my life had reached the pits and I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to crawl out from there.
The long, slow road to recovery had begun for me. Now my life wasn’t about driving myself beyond my limits, it was about resting and healing. I felt bewildered to be honest, and didn’t really know what to do with myself. I didn’t have to wrack my brains anymore trying to find a job I could do, and all day filling application forms and writing covering letters.
Little by little I started to relax a little, I still had chronic fatigue and sleep issues to deal with, but at least my mental state was better. I wasn’t such a pain to live with, my mood improved and I stopped being unbearably irritable and short tempered with my poor long-suffering older sister. What’s more, I didn’t feel totally hopeless anymore.
Here and Now
That was about 10 years ago now. It took me ten years with medication and off and on therapy to recover from the burnout to the point that I’m finally trying to put the pieces of my life together again. I am still on antidepressants, and I still have chronic fatigue, but I have done a huge amount of research on how to manage and live with it, and I have learned how to manage it with diet, supplements and moderate exercise.
I realised I was no longer able to have a traditional career and there was no point in me agonising over it, or trying to push myself to look for normal jobs, even part-time ones. I started thinking about what options were available to me as someone with a disability rather than feeling ashamed of being the way I am. I started looking for work that I could do from home, and remain focused on healing.
A lot happened since that day. Finally two years ago I decided to start my own business. I joined a company that teaches people how to set up online businesses, the fees were affordable for me and there were several business models that I could choose from. So, now after all those years and all that pain and disappointment, I feel I’m finally back on track. And the best part of it is that I can now look forward again to having a fulfilling career.
So, to end this post, I would just like to say, if you feel you are suffering from burnout, or any of the commonly associated symptoms of burnout, please don’t try and ignore it. Avoiding getting help or support can really cause long-term harm, in worse ways than we may imagine. There is absolutely nothing wrong with getting help. No one is invincible and we all have physical, emotional and mental needs that our helter-skelter modern way of life often forces us to overlook. Sometimes we can all falter under its constant onslaughts and need a little help.
Some Useful Links
https://mentalhealth-uk.org/burnout/
https://www.healthline.com/health/tips-for-identifying-and-preventing-burnout#who-gets-it
https://www.helpguide.org/articles/stress/burnout-prevention-and-recovery.htm