Finding Yourself Again on the Road to Burnout
By: Siana Macdad
Tags: Mental Health, Work Life Balance, Burnout, Engineering Mangement, Programming

The 5 Stages

Stage 1: The honeymoon

This stage is defined by high job satisfaction, energy, and creativity.

A few months ago, I took a new job in project management that I was extremely excited about. Everything was great — I was working on many different IT projects and learning a lot. I was also working with many different personalities, and I was excited about it.

Then, Stage 2 happened.

Stage 2: The balancing act

Stage 2 is about being aware that some days are more stressful than others. In this stage, you start to feel job dissatisfaction and inefficiency, fatigue, sleep disturbances, etc.

My optimism began to slowly disappear.

With time, I started to understand I wasn’t going to do what I want and my role on this job wasn’t as clear as I expected it. Every day, I’d have new projects appearing from nowhere I had to work on and others I had to stop without knowing why.

People started to solicit me regularly and I wasn’t even sure if I was the person in charge.

At this point, I was feeling :

Work inefficiency: I needed more time to achieve the same tasks

I needed more time to achieve the same tasks Moral fatigue: I was putting too much energy focusing on unessential tasks

I was putting too much energy focusing on unessential tasks Avoidance: I was avoiding some work by focusing on something else. For this reason, I had to regularly work extra hours to finish my work.

Stage 3: Chronic symptoms

This stage is an intensification of Stage 2.

No matter how much I tried to escape this new situation of extreme stress, I was struggling even more. At this point, I felt I lost a sense of purpose at work, and I had to admit I was stuck on a pattern of deception.

I was regularly exhausted after a workday — at the point of chronic exhaustion. But I also noticed I was feeling some anger. I started to become disagreeable to every suggestion or behavior I didn’t like.

Stage 4: Crisis

Now, it’s the time where the symptoms become critical …

At this stage, I remember noticing the following.

Every little thing could change my emotions radically . I started feeling overwhelmed just by hearing email notifications. It was enough for me to feel angry, talk in a different way, and become kind of disagreeable.

. I started feeling overwhelmed just by hearing email notifications. It was enough for me to feel angry, talk in a different way, and become kind of disagreeable. I became more and more pessimistic. No matter the situation, I was thinking about the worst-case scenario, and I often thought about being fired.

No matter the situation, I was thinking about the worst-case scenario, and I often thought about being fired. Obsessing about work frustration . I started talking a lot to myself about my frustrations without even noticing how long I could talk about the same issue.

. I started talking a lot to myself about my frustrations without even noticing how long I could talk about the same issue. I started to say “no” to almost everything. I’m usually the one who accepts to help everyone, but at this point, I was unable to deal with everything.

At this stage, I learned:

How hard it can be to admit you reached your limits

How important it is to share your emotions with others and put into words what you feel about the situation

It can be helpful to talk about what you’re feeling with people that’ll support you during this difficult time. I started to share my difficulties with my colleagues and my family. The more you open up, the more you’ll be able to put into words the emotions you’re dealing with.

Stage 5: Enmeshment

At this point, the symptoms are embedded in your life, and you’re likely to develop a significant physical or emotional disease.

I don’t think I’ve ever reached the stage of enmeshment. But I feel like I’m close to it at the time of writing this article, and I’m doing everything I can to avoid getting there.

This journey to burnout is like a road — you can always choose your final destination.

As experience can be a hard teacher, it taught me how to deal with some uncomfortable truths, especially the following:

I’m not a superhero; I should accept and recognize my breaking point

Perfectionism can become my worst enemy

can become my worst enemy Saying “yes” to everyone and everything in the workplace isn’t possible

Looking back, I also realize I was caring a lot about my responsibilities in this new job and about pleasing others.

It makes sense to me now that the very fact that you care about your job and other people puts you at greater risk of burning out than not caring. Christina Maslach, an American psychologist, explained this in her book “Burnout: The Cost of Caring.”

As wisdom comes from experience, we should always learn from those difficult experiences.

No matter how hard it can be to recognize you’re on the road, you’re not alone — and you can use this situation to learn more about yourself.