How to deal with burnout and its consequences?

> I'm not well off like most people on here, I can survive 4-6 months with no salary

Be careful of comparing yourself to what people post online. It's easy to read social media and think everyone else is waking up at 5am, drinking their keto coffee, and making millions with their startup while working as a digital nomad.

Even on a tech heavy site like HN I would classify someone with 6 months of savings as very well off.

>During my time off I've been poked and prodded by psychologists and they seem to think I have ADHD and that it was a large contributing factor to this, though I'm not completely sure I buy this explanation.

I think you should give this idea more thought. The situation you find yourself in is not uncommon among high-functioning ADHD persons, and your life can truly get a whole lot better with a bit of therapy and medication.

While you're at it, you can use the therapy as an opportunity to probe why your job was such a bad fit, why you ended up in it, and how you can recognize and avoid such work environments in the future.

It may be a good idea to leave your current job, as others have suggested, but I think it would be quite dangerous for you to do this without also exploring the above more forthrightly. My advice, as someone who has dealt with a similar burden: don't overthink this. Just go to your GP, tell them you are suffering, and tell them you would like to investigate ADHD therapy. Approach this with a calm curiosity. You are in control.

Sounds like you're going through a hard time — but know that many here have been there. Burnout can be hard to spot in time, but once you step over the event horizon, it gets a lot harder to pull yourself out.

My non-medical-professional advice would first be to check out the book Feeling Good, by Dr Burns. It sort of kicked off the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy model of dealing w/ depression, anxiety, and adjacent issues like procrastination.

Second, I can say that what's always saved me in the dark times was some personal project adjacent to the work I do professionally. There were times where I couldn't even stand to look at code, but then the excitement of building something purely for fun got me back into it — and I found, "hey, I can work again too!" Just be careful to take it easy, and not let the personal project turn into a job — at least not before you're confident your burnout is truly behind you. And that's something you don't want to rush.

Third: sleep, walks, good food & water, and meditation have all consistently made a positive impact in my life. You don't need a goal for meditating other than to start even with just a minute a day — but allowing yourself to empty your mind can be really beneficial.

It's also possible your brain and body are telling you it's not the right path. You don't have to suppress that feeling — but I've also found that I'm able to change how I interact with the situations I'm given. It's good to have long term goals, but we're not always able to teleport to our "passion" immediately. We can, however, find small ways of moving the needle every day towards the type of work we really want to be doing, and it can be surprising how fast the changes ultimately come.

Good luck, take it slow — and again know that you're not alone. It can be a scary feeling, but many have been there. Every day is an adventure.

A lot of people say they left a job too late. Not many say they left one too early.

I think you know that you are still in the midst of burnout. If you can go a few months without a job and be okay, my suggestion would be to quit immediately and start looking for a new job in your own time. You need time to decompress followed by a complete change of environment. Recovery is not going to happen in this environment.

Feel free to contact me if you want to chat about your experiences. I went through something similar last year.

It's okay that your body is telling you some things that your brain won't hear. This is a survival mechanism and hopefully will spur you into a better place.

But you have to be willing to change. YMMV, but the first thing I would do is stop doing things that don't work. Change your environment and change the people you see.

Office life not your thing? Try construction or landscaping. Determined to stick it out? Make selfless service and love you primary values. Seek to hear and serve.

Psychologists can't help? Try talking to an older relative, religious leader, or try an altogether different kind of therapy.

Get involved in a group doing something. Anything. Play or coach a sport. Volunteer at your local homeless shelter. Get involved at a local church and help with parking, food pantries. Bake cookies for your neighbors and just show up and say hi. Don't escape with drugs, sex, video games, etc... and don't kill yourself with self-judgment with the plethora of readily available self-help productivity porn on YouTube either.

Lastly, you aren't alone, many people suffer this way, myself included.

There are a lot of different groups online dealing with this problem. Personally I've found a lot of help from the likes of John Verveake's Meaning Crisis and Johnathan Pageau's Symbolic World. It has helped me greatly to be able to see things that are bigger than you and be involved in them. It helps a lot.

Burnout checklist: Confirm you have/don't have ADHD. Confirm you have/don't really have a major depressive episode.

Somehow "burnout" is a more acceptable label than major depression. Because it's supposed to come from having worked too much. But as far as I can see burnout and major depressive episodes are hard to distinguish just from the symptoms. Prognosis and treatment are different. You may not need multiple months off for a depressive episode with proper treatment (or you might, but treatment usually reduces the time).

ADHD is a big factor in this. Especially not realizing or adapting to that condition.

No medical advise, ask multiple doctors.

I have been there too! I was also incapable of working afterwards. All the code was alien to me. Being in the office was a nightmare. I wanted shout and jump through the window! And seeing all the people whose mismanagement let me into this bad post burnout situation was even worse. Corona, my savior, came to me and office was closed. In hid at home and forced myself to do 6 daily pomodoros. That was enough to keep my job and think about other aspects of life. Now I have small consultancy, run my own product development and do my 4-6 daily pomodoros to keep that nice big corp salary. Management has changed, so I am coming for couple days to the office to chat and visit my own clients in the same city afterwards.

At the end I see burnout as very positive thing what happened to me. I am much better professional and better person. It brought me the understanding that I am not more than excel row for big corp and I must take care of myself by myself. Loyalty does not pay off.

Take your time, try keeping a job somehow. Looking for a new job while being mentally off track is very very hard.

The reality is that deep down in your soul, this is not something that you really want to be doing with your life. Unfortunately in modern society, we have to trade our time and focus, staring at a piece of glass all day, just so we can survive. It’s absolutely insane if you think about it. I’d bet that most ADHD, depression, anxiety is caused because we see no end in sight working on these meaningless tasks. My advice is to find something you love and also adds value to society. Start very small and watch it grow…

>I'm not well off like most people on here, I can survive 4-6 months with no salary, which I'm likely going to have to consider given my firing seems imminent at this point.

>My mind knows what needs to be done, but my body says no and I am overwhelmed by apathy.

I've been there before. I was completely burned out but had to keep working. You need to find a job where the expectations are sensible.

It took me more than 1 year find the energy to change jobs after I burned out and in hindsight I waited way to long.

Find a new job and make sure you ask questions like 1)What's the work culture. When do people usually start working and when does it end? 2)How often is there a fire that needs to be put out? 3)If I need to take a 2-3 week vacation, would that be considered normal? 4)Are deadlines set in stone or frequently accelerated?

A healthy job environment will help reignite the part of you that has gone dead. It might take years, but you'll get back some of the faith and motivation you once had.

It took me 3 job changes to find a job with a good working environment because I simply didn't have the guts to ask employers the tough questions about the working conditions. With my current job I was very direct in asking questions about work/life balance and the manager and good managers/employees were equally direct in giving me answers. Being in a healthier work environment has done more for my mental health and personal life than anything else did.

If you're seeking care, this can also keep you from being fired (at least in the US/some countries). Most corporations have an employee counseling hotline that you can engage with that can help with this. Not that you want/plan to stay there. But that corp helped contribute to your condition-- they can help foot the bill. Don't put this all on yourself (but also don't put it all on others).

I was diagnosed at 32. Extremely high functioning but prone to burnout. I was hesitant as well, but embracing my diagnosis was life changing. You don't have to make ADHD your SINGLE core attribute like some people do. But ignoring what might be a core part of yourself isn't beneficial. Remember that it's just information-- what you do with the data is what's important. Meds can help but learning how to have healthy interactions with work and in my personal life was key.

You're not alone in this. I've found that there seems to be a higher concentration of ADHD in Dev/Security work. The constant newness of things keeps us interested-- but can also be dangerous.

Also, consider therapy. Even if you think you don't need it. Not a psychologist. But an actual factual therapist. I would prioritize this over medication, but honestly pursue them both. Therapy isn't what you think it is. It's a great way to have a sounding board.

I think the problem is your job. Some corporate situations are toxic, others are just poor matches. Some jobs are really about feeding your boss's ego; and once you recognize this, the job will forever feel soul-crushing.

IMO:

1: It's time to head over to the "Who's hiring" thread and respond to 5-10. See where they go, and next month do the same thing. That's how I found my current job.

2: If your employer is large enough, see if you can do an internal transfer or get a new assignment.

There was this discussion about recovering from burnout a while back. Perhaps it can help: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33260525

But I can fully understand you, I don't think I completely burned out, but I was somewhere along the spectrum. I was, and am, in a priviledged situation where I can afford to take some months of work. Initially it did not feel like it helped all that much, but on later reflection it at least "stopped the bleeding".

I am in a better place now a year or two later, but my perspective on work has probably changed forever.

Plenty of good suggestions here, I don't have another one to add, let alone a better one. But I'll tell you this: you are not alone, this happens (a lot) and odds are it is not your fault. You asked how to deal with it, a lot of the stuff other comments said boils down to realising your professional universe is not so $negative_characterization_here like the place you are currently living in, it just seems that way probably because like a boiling frog you tried to adapt without seeing the hit coming, and came to think that's "normal" and you can't take "it" anymore. Time for a change, you'll do great in your next corner of the universe, and even if you find yourself into another bad one you'll recognise it soon enough and either fix it or leave it.

I had a similar situation. I didn't get to a breaking point like you did - I quit my job as I was approaching it. I took 6 months off, focused on myself and therapy. I went down the ADHD route because I had the symptoms and tried medication but it didn't help much on a day to day basis (I still have some leftover and I take it maybe once every other month when I really don't feel like working to kind of reset me - they are stimulants after all). I'm still not really sold that ADHD is a real disease as much as a conglomeration of various deficiencies that people have that we try to group together in order to provide treatment, but I encourage you to try treating it anyway as much as you can because there's no cure, everyone is different, and many people have positive outcomes. Either way, the medicine needs to be combined with therapy for it to be effective and from my experience, the psychiatrists who I've talked to that prescribe medicine have not been good therapists

What really got me out of the funk was a routine and a good therapist (I think he was a social worker) that didn't try to diagnose me but instead worked with me on tangible things like my mindset and my outlook on life and challenges I face. A morning routine gave me some much needed mental stability (highly recommend the book Atomic Habits), and working on breaking some habitual negative thought patterns got me away from procastinating / task avoidance (to some degree). I was also lucky to have a supporting wife

I've seen similar situations before (with some co-workers) and I was in the same path some time ago. For my friends the only thing that helped was to change careers, they started non-related business (one became a carpenter and the other one started a grocery store); having a non-mentally demanding job allowed them to heal. In my case, I changed jobs to avoid being so much stressed. It was complicated to start being productive again and every day I struggle but I is becoming better and better.

Rather than ADHD, have you considered severe anxiety? I had a serious problem of not being able to start and complete basic tasks because I was so filled with anxiety about, well everything, that I was self-defeating.

What so you do instead of completing tasks? Is it just a wall preventing you from completing tasks, or do you get distracted by other things?

I have ADHD and it’s been a lifelong struggle, however, as I’ve gotten older I found that it had a lot more to do with anxiety than the inability to focus. I was so wrapped up in failure, impostor syndrome, worried I wouldn’t be able to do some thing, worried that if I did a good job people expect more of me, etc. etc.

It doesn’t sound like burn out, it sounds like anxiety

Hello! I've recently discovered about this guy named Dr. Andrew Huberman. He is "a neuroscientist and tenured professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine". I've found that his videos super helped me with my lack of motivation issues. He has videos about every possible topic which I believe should help anyone trying to get better.

His youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/AndrewHubermanLab His website: https://hubermanlab.com/

I feel you. As many here I failed to recognize burnout early enough to prevent total exhaustion. My experience (not a doc) is medication won’t help and ADHD seems to be a stereotypical American fixation almost like tomato sauce for us Italians. Call it for what it is and don’t blame yourself. The cure for burnout is change. Distance yourself from the source of discomfort, lay bricks or bag groceries for at least three months and it will go away. I am saying this because you said you cannot afford a vacation (not slouching on the couch, rather travel). Not sure my experience will help, but that’s my 2 cents.

I'm going through this right now. I agree with others in that you should look more into ADHD, but it likely won't solve this burnout specifically (but it may help you avoid it in the future). I gave this a listen yesterday:

https://youtu.be/gRPBkCW0R5E

Burnout is usually a result of the workplace environment, but it can cause you to experience effects that last even when the job is gone, namely depression.

I submitted my 2 weeks notice and am taking 6 weeks off, then spending the Spring semester focusing on graduate classes before I re-enter the workforce.

I think the time off itself will do wonders, but the key is to uncover how you burned out in the first place. The work environment can be a major factor, but your relationship, attitude, and habits surrounding work can all contribute as well. For me, I should have learned to say no and pushback on expectations much earlier on in my career.

Quit.

Anything else is ignoring the root cause. Which is not the Engineer thing to do. Your job sucks and you deep down know it.

Your reaction sounds reasonable to the BS corporate world. It's the agile coaches out there planning more meetings that need a psychologist.

Changing job may have a temporary positive effect, it lasts roughly 6 months for me.

Do the absolute minimum at any job you need to so you don't starve. Don't try to makes sense of it. It is indeed BS and you shouldn't care. Don't care.

Meanwhile, try to figure out an exit strategy. Build something you enjoy doing, start building passive revenue streams which may support you and replace your daily job. Hope you can escape the BS soon, we're all in this together.

Good luck

Not sure if someone in the comments already recommended this. But I found that simply doing less work for a period of time while I got myself back on track was an important aspect of curing my burnout.

Not caring is actually a healthy step. Care less, do less work, and if they fire you tell them exactly what happened, and go find yourself a different job. When you get this different job, set better boundaries. Eventually you will find your output increasing.

Going from burnout to no work back to full work also did nothing for me.

The advice around therapy and medication for potential ADHD is important as well.

I've been in basically the same mental state a couple times. What helped for me (unordered):

1. Different employer - over half the places I've worked have been toxic... and even some of the not toxic ones ended up inducing burnout due to corporate issues

2. Adderall - not a wonder drug... but helps postpone burnout

3. Getting a dog - wonderful for my mental health in general

For me at least, burnout was mostly a reaction to being in toxic environments. I think I could have gone straight from one of my terrible jobs, unproductive jobs to one of my good ones and been productive right off the bat.

You mentioned GP, which implies you're in UK or Australia etc. There are likely lots of protections for employees, you can ask for stress leave - talk to the doctor about it. My friend was 6 months off full pay.

The other advice is make sure its not just you putting yourself under pressure. I think many of us were at school/uni always expected to dedicate your life to your education. When working its difficult to stop and try to get some balance, you have to learn this. Your boss likely doesn't expect you to do as much as you think.

This question, posed by someone new, makes it to the front pages of this site pretty much every week nowadays. I’ve been visiting this site for years and it used to crop up once every few months or so but nothing near the frequency it does now. There is something seriously wrong with the state of the world right now.

It is of no help to OP by unfortunately I think it’s going to get worse before it gets better. I was reading Ray Dalio’s latest blog post on LinkedIn last night and he thinks we’re heading for civil and possibly global war in 2025. I find it hard to disagree with him.

In a way, our entire system is just abstracted violence. People used to kill each over resources so we created this abstract system of companies, money, laws, social norms and dating rules so people could still fight each other but without any direct death. But the deaths are still happening, they’re just drawn out and slow. Various people bleeding your bank accounts dry, forcing you to work to the bone until you either keel over and die, kill yourself through drugs, or accumulate enough resources to retire from the game or become one of the exploiters yourself.

Eventually we reach the point we’re at now where the abstractions can’t hold back the grim reality. Too much power and greed accumulated at the top of the pyramid means the game starts to become physically unplayable for too many people. What happens when the abstractions collapse? Back to Hobbesian savagery.

This would be bad enough if it was just internal strife but throw in conflicting super powers and climate change on top and we’re looking at WW3. Things have gotten so bad I don’t see a world in which it doesn’t happen now other than if we get some serious reform across politics, media and enterprise.

To OP, I would say take some time to rest, revisit things you used to enjoy, then find a job you can tolerate doing in a town you can afford to live. It may mean doing something you never thought of doing and moving somewhere you never saw yourself moving a few years ago. I am planning on doing the latter next year.

Ray Dalio article for anyone interested: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/changing-world-order-approach...

It might sound cliche and not based on a professional psychological, but the advice I'm about to give is working at the least. I had been at your position too and it helps.

You are losing and with that state of mind you might be attempted to keep losing, but I don't think you want this to continue, do you?

The first thing is to start winning. Realize that winners keep winning and you are going to be one. Create small goals! Inside and outside work. Move! Do 5 push ups, 10, 15! Doodle simple toons, sing some music! Write a simple game on a simple framework! Sleep on time! Wake up early!

Focus on things you can control. The corporate environment, you cannot control, at least for now. Treat them like a child demanding things to their skewed worldview.

On your firing, you're looking at the worst case. There's a chance to improve, there's also a chance to explore new fields.

If you intend to keep the job, tell to your manager that you are dealing with your problems and your're getting more and more succesful. Fake it till you make it, but stay on the course so you can make good with the job.

You have to quit or be fired. Right now.

I was in your situation year ago, three years of agony at a mediocre toxic corporate company where our team was responsible for all the problems but were given no time or resources at all to actually fix the root cause. Only firefighting was allowed.

I was on medical leave, went back, and eventually was offered to quit without serving my notice period (so 4 months paid without working).

It’s been a year since and I didn’t touch a computer for 10 months. I was feeling like shit and really needed the time to recover. I’m still not recovered but much better. I’ve been seeing a therapist to deal with the aftermath for 18 months. It helped. Magic mushrooms and weed also help me putting things in perspective and understanding that it was a failure of that company, not of me.

Burn-out especially when ignored for so long is no joke. I know it feels silly/cowardly/scary to be unemployed, but you really have to get out. Sick leave while still employed at the company doesn’t let you free yourself from all the pain because you’ll have to go back eventually.

I’m lucky that where I live you get employment insurance even if you quit. But if that’s not an option in your country then let them fire you. They created the problem so fuck them. It’s not like you were going to get a good reference from that place anyway.

I would also recommend reading the post on common cog about burnout. It’s well written and instructive.

Bottom line is the longer you stay the worst it’ll get. Only time can heal you (several months, like 12–24) but you’ll get better. It’s just a matter of leaving that toxic place and waiting.

Good luck. It should be criminal to put people in these situations rather than just “cost of doing business” for employers.

Medical leave for burnout sounds great, until they throw you right back in the same environment that caused the burnout. It's not surprising you don't care anymore.

It may be useful to do some budgeting to see if you can juice your savings in the short term and reduce your recurring expenses to give yourself a longer sabbatical timeline. This can be challenging to do if you're already emotionally numb, but I found planning an escape from work to be an exciting escape in and of itself.

If you end up taking a break, you'll have time to reflect on other things you'd like to do that don't elicit the same numbness you're experiencing right now. There are plenty of ways to build identity and confidence that aren't full-time tech employment.

Find some hobbies, do sports when you can, visit interesting/intriguing places, do activities you never had a chance to do before. Find a way to relax, e.g. sauna, deep sleep chambers etc. It's also possible you have some long-term nutritional deficiency leading to your brain literally shutting down some circuits making you apathetic. Try to take a NAD+ booster like Niagen (300mg/day) which is required for energy production and you might want to try 2000mg B1 Hcl and 1000mg B2/day, the first one required for each energetic reaction but depleted by long-term stress and the second one for producing FAD+ (energy production in the brain, similar to NAD+; don't expose yourself to strong sunlight though). You can also try to do some mechanical job requiring little to no thinking like resupplying stock at a supermarket or building homes etc.

A lot of burnout is actually ME/CFS and now possibly Long Covid. ADHD people are more likely to burn out due to shared genetic causes like hypermobile Ehlers Danlos Syndrome (hEDS). hEDS is vastly more common than doctors think it is by 100x - so it’s very difficult to get diagnosed. The more common subvariants of hEDS are not even all that hypermobile. This isn’t to say you have hEDS just given ADHS+burnout+reading HN you’re in a riskier category. As for treatments patient forums are far better than doctors with this.

It’s important to find the root cause because most people assume they can return to homeostasis simply by doing things to make them healthier, rest, exercise, diet etc. When there is a genetic cause that isn’t an option and more extreme pharmacological interventions are needed.

2 things that have worked for me:

- Psychedelics

- Building for the public domain https://github.com/breck7/pldb/issues

Also, in general when life hands you lemons put some tea on, read, listen to music, and watch films.

Holy shit doesn't this sound like me. I've quit my job this August because I couldn't work at all, too. Extremely sorry for the following not-really-related rant/oversharing you're about to read.

I think I have ADHD too although I haven't been properly diagnosed. I've been taking Strattera (at some point I've switched to generic atomoxetine) which is the only approved ADHD drug in Russia/CIS, but it only helps sometimes and the side effects are really rough.

When I was living in Tallinn, I've tried to get proper diagnosis, but there weren't any appointments in every clinic I called. Later on my residence permit was revoked, so I'm still suffering on atomo for now I guess.

Usually, at the point of real "burnout" there is no fix except leaving for a different setting for awhile. While I often infer Plumbing is a cleaner trade than the tech sector, there are real consequences associated with some toxic corporate cultures. ;) I usually recommend self-evaluation though Ikigai as part of long-term career planning.

'Ikigai starts with the awareness of four key pillars:

Business Values

Core Competencies

Income Generation

What the World Needs' ( https://singularityhub.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/ikigai... )

There are two ways to look at this. The first one is that your burnout is a problem that needs to be fixed. The other one is that your symptoms are entirely appropriate. An appropriate mind experiment would be "what would you rather be doing?"

Questions for self-reflection:

Are you generally seeing your brain as a performance tool needing regular and daily maintenance?

In the time since, what have you changed about yourself in how you live, work, and play to be at your best?

Do you prioritize good sleep, eat well, exercise daily, and manage stress as the continuous physiology?

How are your social relationships? Do you use or abuse any drugs including nicotine and caffeine?

Consider that focus, attention, memory, and decisions are core brain functions. How do you optimize your best capabilities?

You are a professional athlete. Do you train and recover like one?

If you’re considering medication for (mental) health, has your doctor tested your sleep and vitamin D?

I can't tell you it's all gonna be okay because I don't know that it will, but I do know that you should go fishing, because for that moment of clarity and relaxation, what does matter to you will become clear.

Been through burnout myself (still recovering, takes a long time).

Look for things that bring you joy (and don’t get carried away). If your body says no, it’s probably not a good fit for you right now.

Being in tech likely means you have skills that are valuable in a lot of jobs that can make you a (possibly smaller) salary. Now is a good time to try out something different. I recommend the book Designing Your Work Life with Bill Burnett.

You can also check out my book with advice based on how I moved on: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BDM4JXNR

Sorry for what happened to you. My anecdote was that years ago, I was stressed out from a high pressure project where I was literally vomiting in the office parking lot, immediately cleaned myself up, and went inside to repeat the grind. I took over a project/contract that was more than a year behind schedule. When I got the ship upright and actually completed the project, the thanks I got was nil. That's corporate life. I learned my lesson and left as soon as I could. No job is worth your health.

Many of us have been here.

You accelerated your life in a few ways - financially and career experience - compared to most people. There's a tax to pay. Some are good at paying it inline with work by having healthy workout routines, loving relationships, a higher purpose to suffer for. But a lot of us "burn out" and pay that tax afterwards. It sucks, I'm sorry. I took 6 months off, and wasn't ready to come back but just forced myself anyway.

Therapists and psychologists are interesting to dabble with, and some people's lives are changed for the better. But they failed to help me at all, some were even bad for my mental health. Some blamed it on me for not being open to their theories (I consider attending every week for a few years, paying out of pocket, and actively engaging with their ideas in my everyday life as being quite open - they just couldn't handle critical thinking IMO).

You have a lot to unpack - What's going on with my body? What is the source of my confidence if not in work? Should I become a PM/bartender/artist? I'd say don't rush an answer. This is the journey you're on. Start where you are, even if it's not where you want to be.

Now that you're back at work, what's stopping you from doing the absolute minimum? I'm talking.. 4h days, boss unhappy with your performance, but not being fired. You don't care, right? Then focus on methodically answering the big questions, and having the experiences that shed the needed light for you.

> I'm not well off like most people on here, I can survive 4-6 months with no salary

For a more extended break, you can stretch that out by going somewhere much cheaper and living like a digital nomad. Consider places like Kuala Lumpur, Manila and Taipei since you can live there for a few years on your current savings. If those places aren't your cup of tea, then check out https://nomadlist.com/

So much good advice here. Just want to say as someone who has gone through this, burnout takes so much longer to recover from than you think. The sooner you make changes to start to address it, the sooner you'll get through to the other side. Don't waste any time waiting to take action, your wellbeing is the most important thing. And be patient and kind with yourself, it can be a long journey with ups and downs, but you can get through it.

I had written my own advice bullet list in 2020, which is still useful: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25509941

If I were you, I'd also read up about neuroinflammation and tried some available interventions to lower it (or going to a doctor, not sure if you have money for it).

Burnout is also a low-level physical problem, it's not just psychosomatic.

Hey man, sounds like you are depressed. But you can get through this, you're gonna have to break things down into very small steps and take breaks in between what you do. First, make sure you eat well, take some B vitamins and fish oil. Also stop drinking if you drink. If you can get out for a nice walk in the fresh air do that too.

After that, find a cognitive behavioral therapy service. Get a referral from your GP. If you are interested in self-help there's the Let's Talk about CBT by the British CBT association: www.babcp.com . That gives you a good overview of what to expect.

Try this episode: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/cbt-for-depression/id1...

You're going to have to go deep and explain the working experience and why it was bad. Think about it in the 3rd person. Write a journal about the experience etc... Putting things in writing helps us make sense of things.

It could be the job is shit and the corporate environment is shit. You could be surrounded by assholes. There are other jobs out there.

I went through something pretty similar about four years ago. It was incredibly tough, but I was able to pull out of it and am more resilient now. It took me a few months to sort it all out, which I did mostly by writing. In the short term though, I relied heavily on my dad and my wife to help talk things through. If you have anyone close you can talk with, that's the best thing to do. I also got a prescription for Xanax, which I took every couple of days when I was feeling rough. After a few weeks of that I stopped taking them, but felt comforted knowing they were there in my drawer if I started spiraling down again. I did end up publishing the stuff I wrote during that time, and am happy to send you a copy if you're interested at all. I'm at quirk@cardinalspirits.com and the book is here. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B092WWNYQC/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_2P...

There's alot to untangle here. But a few notes for op:

1. Being burned out happens, as does being in a bad situation. Rarely does it get as bad as you say without there being other factors that make it bad. (Misfit, bad management, boredom, etc...)

2. If you are fresh out of college, yes, working is a very different thing than college. College is a sprint. Working is a marathon. You can't approach the two the same. There's a reason why people work only 40hrs a week or so... Doing more can be actively counterproductive.

3. If you did what you said on your break... you didn't take a break. And simply knowing you have to return to a work environment you don't like can ruin any vacation.

4. In the end, burnout is hard. The key is to forgive yourself, and the people around you... rest, and be ready to go again, wiser this time.

5. Your future is up to you. But, if you want to be in tech, realize as you go on in tech, as in all industries... it isn't about tech, it is about people.

If I can be of assistance to you. Ping me. I've been through where you are... and recovered.

I've had severe depression twice and I made it through it but man was it tough. Defecating over 10 times a day. Total body sweat, shivering in bed wishing I would die. Praying all night for relief.

My first win was baking a potato more than a month into it. Under normal circumstances I'm a good cook.

You sound depressed. Do the right thing with the employer and quit. Say you thought you could push through it, but you can't with the depression. It's not fair to make them fire you, even if you don't like it there. If you need financial support file for disability.

As soon as you possibly can, start working on something you 100% agree with. If you've always wanted to serve coffee at a cute cafe, do that. It doesn't matter how much it pays you can figure the money stuff out later. You are in full blown avoid-this-getting-any-worse mode right now.

I truly wish you the best and hope you make it through this. The day can be better again. I know how hard it is to believe this when it happens, but it is true. Do not give up.

I'm sorry you are going through this.

You have probably been told this by the psychologists, but just in case: start with the basics: Food, Sleep, Sport, Family, Friends. Once you have those covered these the others won't be fixed, but the mountain will be a little smaller.

If you are sure you are going to get fired, use your time left to update your LinkedIn and apply to other companies.

I ran into this earlier this year too. I quit and took the 3-4 months off from work that I could afford. I gained a new perspective on work and realized it was a smaller part of my self worth/life than I thought. I got a new job that reflected perhaps the only/most enjoyable part of tech I enjoyed: straight application development. I immersed myself in it with old associates I worked with before from my favorite job. I kept a daily list of tasks meticulously watching over my attention and how I worked and would resequence the list at any point in the day I would start to feel blocked/like I didn't care/lost, so I would stay on task and remain immersed. After following this pattern and working the full 8 hours everyday and not working from home as much as possible. My mind again felt healthy and focused again, now I find it effortless and even happy at work again. Even as pressures mounted with higher work load I realized staying busy doing actual work was the answer I sought and then stopping right at 5 and not thinking about work at all after that. I hope my comments are helpful. It's what I tried and it seemed to work for me. I called my task list in TextEdit my dopamine hitlist. I know it sounds overly simplistic but it helped me solve the core of my problem:burnout, by staying focused at a new job with a fresh start with people I could trust/or try to trust. And sticking to a rigid morning routine, exercise each morning, that didn't allow for distraction and then sitting down and starting my list no matter what till it felt natural again and I felt like my burnout was gone. But honestly I had to change EVERYTHING, so it in no way resembled my old job. I also ate right, took different vitamins I thought would help: D3, Multivitamin, HTP-5, etc. I don't know how much those helped, but even as a placebo, I knew it was the intent to focus on simple tasks and small wins that carried me through my transition back to caring about work.

Someone here on HN shared this link with me, maybe it will help you as well:

https://commoncog.com/g/burnout/#the-ultimate-burnout-guide-...

It doesn't sound like burnout as much as a bad fit.

Go work for a good manager.

I have ADHD-I and I'm feeling almost exactly the same way, right up to a falling out with a company I had significant ownership in/was part of the founding team.

How are your daily routines? Are you taking breaks and pursuing the things you actually enjoy doing? Have you thought much about the kind of experiences that have brought you the most joy/satisfaction in life (both at work and outside of work)?

Maybe watch this video and see if it resonates with you. It's a talk by Dr. Russell Barkley on ADHD and it's what made me finally schedule a full analysis (after literally decades of putting it off).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tpB-B8BXk0

If you'd like to talk I'm here to listen.

Times are very hard right now for a lot of people I’ve spoken with. Not to dismiss you particularly but more to say I don’t think you’re alone in this. The psychological burden they carry feels massive. I don’t know if this is due to remote work, hard to say. If you are single or not the only provider, what helped me get through was to make drastic lifestyle changes. I did cold showers, some wim hof breathing session, some yoga, running, lifting weights - I had to shock my biology out of the rut I was in. And even still I go through shitty days, but I can tolerate a bit more. I don’t have the luxury of not working, especially in this economy and I have family to support and provide for (and also role model for..) But for someone with no way out, the above really helped me.

I would consider a career change to something you're more suitable for... hopefully something less stressful too.

But don't wait too long. Being out of work for an extended period of time makes it psychologically difficult to find work again, and extended periods of not working makes most employers wary of hiring you. So the longer you're out of work, the harder it'll be for you to find work.

Even if your next job is not perfect, at least it'll put food on the table while you're there, and finding another job won't be as hard as it would be after a long period of not working.

Also, consider psychedelic therapy. It can give you a new perspective on your own life and the world, and there's a lot of research showing it can be very effective at treating major depression.

If the same if for other activities, not just work, you might want to be checked for chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS, similar to long covid). It can be like having a permanent flu in some ways (exhaustion, brain fog, non-restorative sleep, sensitivity to stimuli). Many doctors may have been influenced by a now-debunked study that claimed that gradually increasing exercise or getting CBT was the fix, but now the CDC, Mayo, UpToDate, and others seem to have better information. One source is batemanhornecenter.org . Diagnosis (at least in the past) involved eliminating other diseases and depression.

Also just an idea: finding what you can do might help understand the situation.

This may be helpful in understanding more about your burnout. It was for me, particularly the COR model.

https://commoncog.com/g/burnout/#what-is-burnout

I am currently recovering from extreme work-related burnout. Also got diagnosed with ADHD while taking time off.

What helped was having enough money for a therapist, enough freedom to reduce my life to the bare minimum, and enough money to take a year long sabbatical away from work. I'm 13 months in and there starts to be some light at the end of the tunnel.

I don't want to think what would have been of me if I hadn't had that money saved.

Burnout is hell, we do not take it seriously enough, and it destroys people. It takes years to recover from, and that is not hyperbole.

Hit me up if you wanna chat about it, email in my profile. I've had excellent chats with people about ADHD, I am starting to really enjoy connecting with other humans about mental health.

> I can survive 4-6 months with no salary

In my experience, how long runway is is not the point. Or, it's not "runway of money", it's a "runway of your soul". Your soul will be eaten alive before running out of money. I hope you will be fine soon.

this happened to me 10 years ago and there is basically no way back

Not to say that chasing paper is bad, but doing what you enjoy makes sayings like "I don't feel like I've worked a day in my life" a cool foundation for wellbeing.

The culture in your country doesn't sound like "job jumping" is the norm (saving the expense of training/onboarding), but fresh air is always obvious in a work environment.

Work/life balance is also more than a buzzword. If both are unwell..... I'm sure its complicated.

I always get 8 hours of quality sleep and would recommend that. Sometimes its from a good days work... Other times, it provides the energy for an amazing day.

There was a time I was working in very toxic environment. Imagine situations like seeing manager shouting angrily at your coworker and you being unable to do anything about it. Or manager being passively aggressive towards you, making personal comments or treating you as his menial (bring-me-some-tea kind) without reason. And I was in worse situation than you as I could not leave at the time, had to line something up first. But once I left I literally felt the burden sliding off my back, best feeling ever.

Psychologists who say you have ADHD and should take amphetamines to treat it are unlikely to recommend something like psilocybin instead. For an alternate approach to burnout and depression:

https://ava.substack.com/p/psychedelics-a-personal-take

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33435140

> I find that I simply don't care anymore.

Root cause established.

Do something you care about. Find that thing.

I know it sounds trite, but when you care, you will find the energy. Don’t be afraid to be selfish at this point.

The trap to avoid is falling into media & entertainment consumption to the exclusion of creative activities. Consume in the service of your goal. Spend as much time painting as watching Bob Ross — substitute “painting” and “Bob Ross” with something your care about, of course.

> I'm honestly not sure if I'm capable of working in tech anymore at this point and that's doing quite a number of any selfesteem I had.

You know, as Mr. Rogers said, "Not your toys, they're just beside you, but it's you I like" Your value isn't dependent on being able to work in tech or what you have. Go out, grab a coffee, wonder at the autumn leaves, do something nice for someone, see where that leads.

Hello! I hope you feel better soon! Burnout is hard to recover from - still trying to fully recover myself too.

I made a post and asked the community a similar question a little while ago, if you'd like to take a look at more tips and tricks people shared then too.

Link: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29754211

I took a 3 month sabbatical this summer after burning out really hard. Now I am with a new company and don't feel 100% recovered (and probably never will be) but at least I am taking steps to prevent getting burned out again, not working more than 10 hours per day, only working weekends during crunch, and I uninstall outlook/teams from my phone when I take a vacation.

Like with most things we want to change this is a math problem. There are things you need to subtract from your life to give you more time or clarity of mind. Once your mind is clear you can then slowly start to add things that you find interesting or enjoy working on. If you find yourself still burned out, repeat the above process until you've found a balance.

> given my firing seems imminent at this point

I don't have the exact answer but to me this needs to be focused on.

Psychological safety is paramount. Workers need to know that they won't be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes. Not having that safety for a health issue shows there's something severely wrong with your place of employment.

A different job? Go travelling for a while? Travelling is a lot of fun and makes you realize that life is short and that you should make the most of it.

I changed careers and found the change fun. I may go back to coding at some point, I kinda miss the that deep thinking it requires .... but I can do that in my spare time if I really need to.

Or, if you need the money, just phone it in for a while.

Sorry to hear you're struggling. To share my experience, I burned out and it was a good opportunity to reconsider my career and start a spiritual practice: http://glench.com/WhyIQuitTechAndBecameATherapist/

> My job wasn't overly difficult, but the corporate environment I found myself in was something I'd never done before and it was completely unsuited to me as an individual

Is the heart of your problem your career or this specific job / company? A change of scenery can do wonders to re-motivate and reinvigorate.

Ten years ago I had all of the following, undiagnosed: - Severe obstructive sleep apnea - Low thyroid - Low testosterone - Insulin resistance

I was turning into a ghost

The first three got eventually diagnosed and fixed. For the fourth, I moved in a place where I can do long mountain hikes during the week-end, and it helped enormously.

It sounds like the job is the problem. If you feel like you are going to be fired anyways it's probably best to start applying for other positions now. A change of culture and environment will probably help a lot. Try doing something different that allows you to learn new things.

There might be value in prior discussions (or not, but):

https://www.google.com/search?q=burnout+%2Bsite:news.ycombin...

man up, life is depressing and we are not entitled to anything and nobody owes us anything. A Job is something we have to get paid to do, otherwise would not be a job. Is not a place to be happy, make friends and be fulfilled.

hmmm, yknow maybe it's time to really take some time off (2 to 3 months) since you can afford it anyways.

i wont force you to do any shit you dont want to do right now, just chill out for a bit, relax, unwind, unplug.

then come back stronger and better after a couple of months. maybe with mental clarity on where you want to be headed in your career or business, if youd want to eat healthy or exercise some more, if youd want to date better quality of women, if youd want a higher paying job or additional streams of income.

the world is your oyster man, go chill the fuck out when you can afford it. most cant, you can, so make it count.

Sorry you're experiencing this. My advice would be:

1. Don't assume this will last forever. 2. Don't assume things are the same everywhere.

Hang in there. Try a new job, maybe a different field, maybe just a different company?

Living with someone who went undiagnosed for their entire life until their 40s and then started Ritalin and Cognitive behavioral therapy it made a huge difference.

Is there any job you can think of, tech or not, even if it's a fantasy you aren't sure exists, that you imagine yourself being comfortable in or liking?

Therapy. Time off (months). Training new skills and hobbies. A couple joints. A couple crazy nights. No screens in sight, even phone only for loved ones.

Did you get COVID? I'm having similar issues with both work and hobbies and I believe mine stem from the long-term side effects from COVID.

Sleep 10+ hours per day for a while.

I stopped working for other people

Just milk the job while looking for something new that does sound interesting.

I hear you.

I have been able to skirt the burnout line and still remain _somewhat_ effective. Given that I'm still(for the time being at least) far more productive than my peers it doesn't show. However, I know what I'm actually capable off and I can tell I'm in a "degraded" state. So, I can relate.

Burnout, as I understand it, is a mismatch between your environment and yourself. Like you said, the work is completely unsuited to you. Your brain knows this and is throwing a fit so you will listen.

The way I've been able to skirt the line is this. I know that my problem is that at my job we are chock full of execs that are just trying to justify their own existence and love their voice and very little gets done anymore without a whole lot of pointless meetings. So, given that I can't really _do_ something meaningful anymore(at least not in a reasonable amount of time), I focus outside of work on things that I can actually do. I have a very long list of personal projects and I've been knocking them off my list with unprecedented speed. This has helped me feel _some_ sense of accomplishment, and has staved off the worst effects. For now.

So, if you want a short-term "fix" that may help you get some energy back, figure out what it is that you hate about your environment and see if you can refocus that elsewhere. Easier said than done, it took me some time to figure out that I missed just being able to do things.

That will not help you long term. If what you have truly is burnout, it will not change until your environment changes. In this case, your job. And I'm not necessarily talking about the company either. If you don't like what you do, doing the same thing in another environment will not help.

Now, all of the above assumes you really have burnout. If you do not, what you need will be completely different.

ADHD is not often diagnosed in adults. It doesn't mean it cannot be diagnosed, just that most diagnoses happen in children/teens. Adults that are high functioning will have coping mechanisms for untreated ADHD, some of these may be really unhealthy. One of the hallmarks of ADHD is executive function issues. Can you start tasks fine? Because if the problem that keeps you from finishing tasks at work is that you can't even bring yourself to begin working on them, that could be ADHD. And you can have burnout simultaneously. ADHD + burnout is an explosive combination. One already has issues starting tasks even during "normal" times, now they are burned out, which even for a neurotypical brain makes them unable to start any tasks.

Since you said "psychologists", plural, I'm thinking you got multiple ADHD diagnosis from more than one doctor. So I would start listening to that if I were you :) You can ask for differential diagnosis, as there are some issues that look like ADHD but are different. It could be "just" burnout, but you won't really know unless you change your working environment. If it is ADHD, you get medicated, and now things improve, it's a pretty good indication that you didn't have a neurotypical brain your entire life. You can still be burned out, in which case it means the coping mechanisms you developed for ADHD got overwhelmed.

Also, do not forget the basics. Your body must be healthy - do a checkup if you haven't done one in a while(that includes dental and vision). Get some exercise, don't have to be strenuous, just keep your body working. Get plenty of sunlight. Make sure you are sleeping well. And eat healthy. Lose weight if you are overweight (that's actually important for mental health, related to hormones and inflammation). None of that will fix your issues, but if you don't even have that covered, you will have a much harder time making any progress.

... I apologize for typing too much. I'm currently struggling myself and I have had plenty of time to think and research it. I know what I must do (get a new job). Having the energy to do some leetcode after work is a different matter.

I've been there. After almost three years of very intense work. I was the technical leader in a team with, at that time, not very experienced people. We had to do a huge migration of one of the most important projects of the company. I had to work very hard: 9:00 to 21:00, weekends, crazy on-calls, refactoring tons of crap by myself, fighting with the management which, at the beginning, had a very authoritative attitude towards anything that wasn't strictly lift and shift the pile of utter garbage we had in the first place as they were not the ones suffering it, arguments and what not. I had success, got promoted, got the respect from everyone, salary raise etc you name it. Covid hit and the state of the world + working from home (which I personally dislike)...I suddenly started to feel like my brain wasn't working. Got stressed and mentally blocked by literally any slight sign of effort. What is happening? I asked myself. Am I getting old? Perhaps I hit many times my head when doing impact sports when I was younger (real thoughts I had BTW). I wrongly assumed it was just due to boredom. I requested a change to a different team that worked in an area I was more interested. Same crap, tons of garbage, even more crazy on calls, some people expecting me to pull the rabbit from my hat again...no freaking way. Then I quit the company and moved to a new one. In the new place, despite I was earning a huge amount of money in comparison, suffered from the same. Apart from that new place being an absolute sad joke, brain blocked, which triggered insecurities, which triggered a feeling of impostor syndrome etc. I left that company, took a month off and started into a different company, this time in an architect role (no on calls, design and planning focussed etc). Still feeling the burn out reminiscences but slightly better.

I am still on my way to be fully recovered (assuming one day it will eventually happen). Things I recommend:

1. Find another thing other than work and, I insistently suggest, other than even CS, that you might enjoy. In my case, climbing. It keeps me healthy, focussed and relaxed. It gives me self confidence as I see I accomplish new challenges and I progress. Also, it has helped me to improve my social skills and to appreciate and enjoy interaction with people with different interests other than computers. Computer Science is not everything.

2. Change your area. Nowadays, I simply refuse to fall back again into that "reactive-devops-trenches-wake-up-at-4:00am-and-follow-this-runbook" or "refactor-this-crap-and-fight-the-folklore". Life is short and health goes first.

3. Assume work does not define you. Do your job the best you can but remember, you are not gonna inherit the company. Become cynical but not toxic.

4. Have compassion for yourself. What you feel is completely normal. You are not weak. You simply got wasted by an industry that is mainly, IMHO a utter shitshow in 99% of the cases. Allow yourself to suffer.

Anyways, I wish you the best and really hope you recover.

Go back to the shrink and get the diagnosis and the meds. You have ADHD.

Time and therapy. Usually it’s not just the job as the sole root cause.

Find a new job, sounds like you will not recover where you are now.

>Earlier this year I burned out hard and spectacularly, having nothing short of a total breakdown and being forced to take many, many months of medical leave by my GP.

I went from 1 bad job to a worse job. Burn out happens. Dont blame yourself, your job pushed too far. You'll find the next job and it will be awesome and you'll cling to this job. I know, I'm clinging to an awesome boss.

>I returned to my job late last month and I find that I simply don't care anymore. My burnout was never really fixed despite the time off. I'm unable to accomplish even basic tasks at work now and truthfully I'm at a point where I don't even care if I get fired. In the time I've been back I think I've been able to close one of two tiny tickets, the rest of the time I've literally done nothing.

It's hard to be sure. It sounds like you're bad off and this will take a long time to properly recover. It won't be months unfortunately.

>During my time off I've been poked and prodded by psychologists and they seem to think I have ADHD and that it was a large contributing factor to this, though I'm not completely sure I buy this explanation.

Certainly possible, yes there is a factor of oversubscribing drugs, but those psychologists are there to help you. No one here can diagnose a throwaway account.

>which I'm likely going to have to consider given my firing seems imminent at this point. I simply don't think I'm capable of maintaining this job anymore.

The thing about burnout is you become extremely defensive and see "im about to be fired any moment" which often isnt true. This actually is what gets you burnt out. You feel like, if only I worked a little harder then i wont get fired. Shitty managers who dont care about turnover use this trick to get maximum productivity.

https://www.sunstar.com.ph/article/1889985/cebu/feature/four...

>I really don't know how to get over this and how to move past it. I feel quite literally incapable of working. My mind knows what needs to be done, but my body says no and I am overwhelmed by apathy. I'm honestly not sure if I'm capable of working in tech anymore at this point and that's doing quite a number of any selfesteem I had.

Dont worry about your job. Hopefully you have 'unemployment' benefits where you live. If not, hopefully you have welfare. You shouldn't care about this job. Instead work on solving your mental health.

Here's what you need to do.

You no longer care about the past, yesterday doesn't matter anymore. cant change it, dont worry about it.

Tomorrow doesn't exist, don't even attempt to think about tomorrow. You're not nostradamus and have no chance of predicting the future. If you could predict the future... might I recommend day trading lol. None of us can predict the future.

When you wake up in the morning, you are only allowed to think about NOW.

Multi-tasking is a myth. Human brains literally cant multitask. You now work on only 1 thing at a time IN THE NOW.

>Truthfully I didn't know things could get this bad. I'm trying to figure out what my future even looks like and how to move past this and any advice would be really appreciated.

Take a baseball bat to that crystal ball. The future is not something you can predict. Tomorrow doesnt matter; it's a trap to try to imagine the future.

hey there, sorry to hear you are not feeling all right. I know the feeling.

If you got to a point where it's "that bad", then the first thing I would do is lower that level of emotional and physical stress as much as possible. Since this is being caused by thinking, you can't solve it by thinking. You must realize this to get out of there. You can't get out of your situation by thinking.

Step 1: Relax and rest your mind in nature.

I would take a 3-5 days trip ( 7 ideal ) camping/hiking trip *alone*, don't take your phone or laptop. Pick a trail that you can follow on a map, or just go camping. Keep it within your means. Don't prove yourself, and don't pick a challenge. Keep it simple, easy, and attainable. You should leave in the next week. Don't delay this.

Focus your mind on the problem at hand, and notice when irrational worries come in while planning your trip. Don't argue with them, just focus on finding the practical solution to it.

This is medicine for your brain. This will help you in several ways. First, it will help you focus on a task, it will show you the negative patterns in your mind and teach you how to overcome them with things within your reach right now. It will show you, you can get things done and learn when not to listen to the narration of your mind.

Just being in nature there will help you relax and recharge your body keeping you focused on all the work that camping involves. But you can turbo-charge it, and it sounds like you need to.

While you are there, find places where you can sit alone and feel the forest, the moment. Not by thinking about it, not in the interface of the mind, on the narration of thought ( label, judging, etc ).

But by experiencing it directly. You'll know you go it when you start to feel the beauty, listen to the wind, and notice small insects and slow things. This is not a goal, not a step to reach. It's the other way around, focus on resting your mind and the feeling of peace and healing shows up. And when it does, stay still, stay the same, in equanimity.

Don't force it, don't over-concentrate, don't "heat-up" your brain as a car going at max revs. If you get frustrated, remember is not about not being frustrated, but about taking energy ( power, attention, battery life ) away from the thought process that is frustrated. Ignore it and focus on something outside, on the feeling in you hands, on sound, sight, smell. Get out of your head.

Lowering "your thinking revs" takes time, you can't accelerate that. It takes 2-3 days in nauture, so take it easy. Things might and will feel strange, bad. Lot's of thoughts to leave got back home, compulsion about using phone and laptop, lot's of what-if's. Lot's of ideas that will solve all your problems if you go back. STAY until you can sit down on the ground and watch the leaves fly of trees. Until you can listen to the wind, look at a fire burn - all without thinking, without trying not to think. Just be still, do nothing, eyes open. Be. This is the medicine.

We don't get burnout by working too much, lots of people work 2 and 3 shifts and they are all right. We get burnout by a condition we did not know we had that makes us think and worry too much. Compulsively, until our brains get really tired.

We must learn how to manage this condition and our brains ( minds ). But we can't do this while in "burnout", crisis and certainly not by thinking and worrying non stop about the future.

Step 2:

Be prepared before you live for when you get back home. You will be successful, and when you get back you'll feel better. Try to have things organized, to take advantage of this breakthrough and apply all you learned in this "retreat" in your daily life.

You must be really focused on healing and recovering. The thought process will come back, it's a habit and a pattern. You must be patient and persistent.

Find people like this around you, try meditation, yoga centers, and qi gong centers near you until you find one that clicks.

Doing this ( not thinking, not worrying, not creating this context, this reality you are in right now ) must be your priority in life.

If you focus on yourself now, you will be ok in the future. Promise.

Remember it's not about getting rid of the feelings. Discover that your emotions, thoughts, and even the burnout it's not happening to you, they are just signals being emitted very strongly. Like error logs overflowing the system, you can't get rid of them or continue ignoring them anymore. Debug, observe, line by line, and you'll get it.

Happy to help more if this resonates with you: roberto@paz.co.cr

hey there, sorry to hear you are not feeling all right. I know the feeling.

If you got to a point where it's "that bad", then the first thing I would do is lower that level of emotional and physical stress as much as possible. Since this is being caused by thinking, you can't solve it by thinking. You must realize this to get out of there. You can't get out of your situation by thinking.

Step 1: Relax and rest your mind in nature.

I would take a 3-5 days trip ( 7 ideal ) camping/hiking trip alone, don't take your phone or laptop. Pick a trail that you can follow on a map, or just go camping. Keep it within your means. Don't prove yourself, and don't pick a challenge. Keep it simple, easy, and attainable. You should live in the next week. Don't delay this.

Focus your mind on the problem at hand, and notice when irrational worries come in while planning your trip. Don't argue with them, just focus on finding the practical solution quickly.

This is medicine for your brain. This will help you in several ways. First, it will help you focus on a task, it will show you the negative patterns in your mind and teach you how to overcome them. It will show you, you can get things done and not always listen to the narration of your mind.

Just being there will help you relax and recharge your body keeping you focused on all the work that camping involves.

While you are there, find places where you can sit alone and feel the forest, the moment. Not by thinking about it, not in the interface of the mind, on the narration of thought ( label, judging, etc ). But by experiencing it directly. You'll know you go it when you start to feel the beauty, listen to the wind, and notice small insects and slow things. This is your only goal, this will help you rest you mind.

Don't force it, don't over-concentrate, don't "heat-up" your brain as a car going at max revs. If you get frustrated, remember is not about not being frustrated, but about taking energy ( power, attention, battery life ) to the thought process that is frustrated.

Lowering "your thinking revs" takes time, you can't accelerate that. It takes 2-3 days in nauture, so take it easy. Things might and will feel strange, bad. Lot's of thoughts to leave got back home, compulsion about using phone and laptop, lot's of what-if's. Lot's of ideas that will solve all your problems if you go back. STAY until you can sit down on the ground and watch the leaves fly of trees. Until you can listen to the wind, look at a fire burn - all without thinking, without trying not to think. Just be still, do nothing, eyes open. Be. This is the medicine.

We don't get burnout by working too much, lots of people work 2 and 3 shifts and they are all right. We get burnout by a condition we did not know we had that makes us think and worry too much. Compulsively, until our brains get really tired.

We must learn how to manage this condition and our brains ( minds ). But we can't do this while in "burnout", crisis and certainly not by thinking and worrying non stop about the future.

Step 2:

Be prepared before you live for when you get back home. You will be successful, and when you get back you'll feel better. Try to have things organized, to take advantage of this breakthrough and apply all you learned in this "retreat" in your daily life.

You must be really focused on healing and recovering. The thought process will come back, it's a habit and a pattern. You must be patient and persistent.

Find people like this around you, try meditation, yoga centers, and qi gong centers near you until you find one that clicks.

Doing this ( not thinking about it ) must be your priority in life.

If you focus on yourself now, you will be ok in the future. Promise.

Happy to help more if this resonates with you: roberto@paz.co.cr

> the corporate environment I found myself in was something I'd never done before and it was completely unsuited to me as an individual

There are two things here. There is your (correct!) realization and recognition of your alienating corporate environment, then that acts as a catalyst to your reaction - your resulting behavior.

My grandfather used to meet people who were in the original class divide in the United States - the masters and slaves from the cotton fields in the south. You are a wage slave, and the corporation controlled by the capitalist bourgeoisie exists to exploit you, and doesn't ultimately care if it burns you out as there's another young guy coming down the road.

Other than your exploitation ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploitation_of_labour ), the unpaid expropriation of your surplus labor time ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surplus_value ) by your corporate employer, there is also the feeling of alienation ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx%27s_theory_of_alienation ) you are describing, which flows from a number of things I won't go into here, but that others have described in literature over the past two centuries.

Making this even more unpleasant is the idea pushed that the problem is you. That is due to the hegemony ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_hegemony ) of the superstructure ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_and_superstructure ) by the current ruling class. This is ever-present - one example, you post this message on this board, but the Verizon/AT&T corporations mediate your access to this board, which itself is run by another corporation. While this is an example, the cultural hegemony of the rentier ruling class's superstructure us ever-present.

So you have come to the correct realization. You work for your enemy. Your boss is your enemy. They have worked to turn not just your workplace against you but the entire society.

The comfort, fellow worker, is that your fellow workers are not your enemy. Some of them vye to be managers themselves, and will side with the bosses against you, but many will act in solidarity with you, their fellow worker. And you will act in solidarity with them. Learning about all of this, and organizing with others to push back where one can at this point of history can be comforting as well.

Your feelings are natural and will not change, but your reaction can change. I work for an alienating corporation as well, but I can cope with it. I'd prefer to work for myself or a coop, but can not afford to currently, and even that is not an ultimate solution within the existing relations of production - the entire system has to be overthrown, just like it was in France and England and Russia when their kings and czars were eliminated (well I guess in England the kings came back).

I still feel unpleasantness at work, much of it things my fellow workers complain about. I probably react to micro-management more strongly than some, or worse workers trying to become managers who think they're my boss.

In addition to this, why should I do a good job and create a good product for my exploited? This is real cognitive dissonance because the exploiters don't care if you churn out crap if it's profitable. But we have a need to put out a good product for those who consume the fruit of our labor. My uneasy compromise is I spend my 40 hours a week making a good product, but I will not work over that to do a better job if I am rushed (unless not working unpaid overtime threatens my job). That is some cognitive dissonance - I do a good job for myself, my fellow workers and the consumers - not for my company.