[jacknews]

Is this really burnout, or just overheating?

To me burnout is more the psychological state of "why am I even doing this anymore?", loss of enthusiasm, perhaps even some degree of despondency and hopelessness about the future, etc.

This seems more like just temporary over-exertion, under-nutrition/exercise/etc, which can be fixed with a lazy holiday, safe in the knowledge that all those Slack shares are vesting.

[Wilduck]

I downvoted you and wanted to tell you why.

In this story someone just shared an experience of being in deep pain, psychologically and physically. While you may not intend to be mean, your response boils down to "you didn't feel enough pain to qualify for burnout." Even if you didn't intend it, this response has an aspect of shaming the author.

I think that it's really important for people to be able to talk about mental health constructively. Specifically, it's important to de-stigmatize the fact that people are susceptible to burnout / anxiety / depression / etc. These aren't necessarily conditions that "can be fixed with a lazy holiday, safe in the knowledge that all those Slack shares are vesting." Instead, they're often conditions that require tailored effort and outside help.

For someone who's going through a mental health issue, it's often really hard to go through the steps needed to improve the situation for themselves. Having others around them understand that it's a struggle, and not something they can "snap out of" is really important.

Again, I doubt you were intending to be belittling here, but I want to point out how important empathy is in this situation.

[forgottenpass]

>it's often really hard to go through the steps needed to improve the situation for themselves. Having others around them understand that it's a struggle, and not something they can "snap out of" is really important.

Having gone through some dark periods of my life, I'd much rather take "snap out of it" advice over the unintentionally patronizing "support". Both are the words of well-intentioned people unable to relate, but one of them mistakenly believes they've overcoming their inability to relate.

[yters]

I suffered from depression a lot while a teenager and early twenties, and I think lack of empathy from others has helped me snap out of it. Depression, at least for me, can be a form of feeling sorry for myself, and when others feel sorry for me that compounds the problem.

[coffeefirst]

Two things surprised me about burnout:

1. It has physical symptoms.

2. It doesn't go away when you stop.

Vacation is good. But two weeks after my vacation I had a rough couple of days, nothing that I couldn't handle before, and I was right back where I started.

I've come to think of it like a mental equivalent of a torn muscle. Recovery takes time—probably far more time than I expect, and if you overexert it, even a little, you'll do a lot more damage a lot faster than you did the first time around.

[singron]

Sometimes vacation makes it worse because it makes you realize just how much your job makes you unhappy.

[rzzzt]

I'd like to try and take GP's analogy a bit further:

- thermal paste dries out and becomes brittle due to sustained overheat

- resulting in bad contact between heatsink and CPU

- CPU (returns from vacation and) finds that even small efforts makes core temperature rise quickly, thermal throttles constantly

[rewgs]

That analogy is spot on. Absolutely the perfect way to look at burnout in my experience.

[fhy45678]

I guess the source of the burnout is that we are not allowed t o switch careers even for a while. e.g. you are a rockstar developer, say you take a switch to a marine archaeologist or a wildlife photographer for two years and then come back to s/w development? Oh boy you are so screwed

[almost_usual]

>safe in the knowledge that all those Slack shares are vesting.

You can burnout and be wealthy or ‘rich’. Having money isn’t going to cure psychological issues that aren’t addressed. People set goals and need to accomplish goals to feel worth. If you’re burning yourself out purely to get ‘rich’ you should probably invest in lotto tickets instead.