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> Burnout is just the moment whe you stop fruitlessly caring. To me it was the moment I started breaking down in tears when getting to the subway station down

by ElFitz 4y ago

> Burnout is just the moment whe you stop fruitlessly caring. To me it was the moment I started breaking down in tears when getting to the subway station down my street, on my way to work. Every day. The next time was when I could not speak about my job and the project I was working on without stammering and my mind going blank (and still couldn’t for months after quitting). “Frustrated" and "stop to fruitlessly care" don’t feel like they even begin to describe that. > But you -want- to care (about something) so not-caring leads to depression. Having also gone through a decade-long depression before that, I’d personally say these two are very different beasts. Both are quite unpleasant, and neither is viable, but each in it’s own way.

delusional 4y ago
This might be asking too much on a public forum, but would you be able to describe what differentiates these two for you? Feel free to decline if it's too personal or you just don't feel like it.
- bheadmaster 4y ago
  Not the person you asked, but I have had experience with both depression and burnout. Depression, in my case, makes things meaningless in a "calmer" way - I can think about any activity, but it just feels meaningless, as if somebody was asking me to dig a hole then bury it back up. Like, why? What is the point? Burnout, on the other hand, had an avoidant element to it - when thinking about work, I start feeling helpless and frustrated, which makes my mind go into some primordial "fear" state, rendering me unable to think clearly at all. If I were working while burned out, my "mental context" would be extremely limited - I'd read the words, but couldn't comprehend anything beyond basic instructions (e.g. change config from "foo" to "bar"). The mind is just avoiding making any connections relevant to the work. This is just my experience. Others' milage may vary.
  - Aeolun 4y ago
    > The mind is just avoiding making any connections relevant to the work. This part is insane. But it doesn’t only happen when burned out. It happens to me when I get asked to do something that I do not believe in. I say yes, because you know, my boss is asking me to do it. But when I actually start on it my brain just completely shuts down. Like, is it trying to prevent me from seeming efficient at things I absolutely hate?
    - bheadmaster 4y ago
      I assume yes. I've had similar problems, but over time I've learned not to separate solutions into "good" and "bad", but place them on a spectrum of "goodness" from my perspective. That way, it's easier to accept that somebody just wants a not-so-good solution and do it.
      - Aeolun 4y ago
        This is generally administrative tasks that nobody will ever look at again in the future.
- ElFitz 4y ago
  In short, depression, to me, was total and absolute hopelessness. Burn out, on the other hand, brought me dread, anxiety, exhaustion, and the feeling of being trapped in a pointless but never-ending cycle. If I were to dive into more details, depression gave me a rock-solid certainty that I could never be happy, or meaningfully enjoy life in any meaningful way. There might have been some joyous and light-hearted moments in the past, and perhaps the future held some in store for me. I could smile if prompted or expected to. But these moments always were and always would be the accidents. And so was any past or present progress. Insignificant. I knew that no matter what I would always revert to my norm: apathy and a deep-seated, always present, lingering painful despair. All while somehow remaining alive, without understanding why or how. Going to bed each day, half hoping that this time there will not be a tomorrow. It also totally crushed any sense of self-worth I had until then. The kicker being that this certainty and the blindness to anything positive that comes with it enabled a wonderful feedback loop. Burning out mostly involved permanent and crippling stress and anxiety, accompanied by a permanent doubt on the usefulness of anything I did. Anything merely evoking work, such as catching a glimpse of my IDE’s icon, evoked fear. Nothing felt straightforward anymore. Everything required focus and attention, all the while stressed and anxious. Every task felt like it would be complex and difficult. Before I even started. Simple things became difficult. Average things became exhausting. Difficult things? Insurmountable. Anything less than absolutely straightforward made me feel as lost as a junior on his first day, unable to even figure out where to start. Except I knew had done these things before, harder ones even, and this had been my codebase for nearly a year. Each day felt like pointlessly climbing a mountain, for no reason, good or otherwise. Each day was too short for me to get everything done. And yet too long. All while knowing that the next day would only be worse. With no end in sight. No break ever was long enough. And each break’s end came with the slowly intensifying dread that came from knowing I was going back to that. And yet each break was always too long. There just was too much to do. All of it urgent, important, critical. Most of it pointless because, although finished, ultimately never released. Needless to say my sense of professional worth was in shambles, and I often joked about changing careers and moving to the countryside to grow dandelions. > Feel free to decline if it's too personal or you just don't feel like it. I have to admit I hesitated. So thank you for your thoughtfulness.
  - 4y ago
- steveBK123 4y ago
  For me I think depression & burnout have opposite impacts on sleep, not sure what others have experienced. Depression, in the literature, in my experience, and what I've seen in my spouse leads to just wanting to sleep and not get out of bed. Burnout, however, lead me to be completely incapable of sleep. I couldn't fall asleep for hours. I'd wake up 10x/night in some anxiety sweat thinking about some way I could make the abomination of a project 1% less horrible. I'd wake up 2 hours before my alarm, in pitch black pre-dawn light in dread and just feel like I needed to get the day started.. so much to do, and it was all going to fail, but I had to be seen to be trying.
  - ornornor 4y ago
    Same here, burnout definitely results in waking up multiple times a night and the first thought going through my head was about some work related BS. Idem waking up anxious before the alarm, cluttered with work BS thoughts. It always did boil down to having no agency over the outcomes but being made responsible for them, and my warning of the idiocy/likely failure mode of the plan being ignored.
    - steveBK123 4y ago
      Yes - "no agency over outcomes & being responsible for them" is quick recipe for burnout
      - ornornor 4y ago
        It’s SOP in many companies in my experience :(
rhizome31 4y ago
> To me it was the moment I started breaking down in tears when getting to the subway station down my street, on my way to work. Every day. > The next time was when I could not speak about my job and the project I was working on without stammering and my mind going blank (and still couldn’t for months after quitting). Thank you for writing this. I've been through these states recently and it helps to know other people had similar symptoms.
Aeolun 4y ago
I think by the time you burst out in tears when traveling to work you’ve probably passed the point of burnout. Not sure what else to call it, but the stage described above probably comes first.
- marcosdumay 4y ago
  Things can unroll very quickly. People don't necessarily go through stages when getting worse.

by ElFitz 4y ago

delusional 4y ago

This might be asking too much on a public forum, but would you be able to describe what differentiates these two for you? Feel free to decline if it's too personal or you just don't feel like it.

bheadmaster 4y ago
Not the person you asked, but I have had experience with both depression and burnout. Depression, in my case, makes things meaningless in a "calmer" way - I can think about any activity, but it just feels meaningless, as if somebody was asking me to dig a hole then bury it back up. Like, why? What is the point? Burnout, on the other hand, had an avoidant element to it - when thinking about work, I start feeling helpless and frustrated, which makes my mind go into some primordial "fear" state, rendering me unable to think clearly at all. If I were working while burned out, my "mental context" would be extremely limited - I'd read the words, but couldn't comprehend anything beyond basic instructions (e.g. change config from "foo" to "bar"). The mind is just avoiding making any connections relevant to the work. This is just my experience. Others' milage may vary.
- Aeolun 4y ago
  > The mind is just avoiding making any connections relevant to the work. This part is insane. But it doesn’t only happen when burned out. It happens to me when I get asked to do something that I do not believe in. I say yes, because you know, my boss is asking me to do it. But when I actually start on it my brain just completely shuts down. Like, is it trying to prevent me from seeming efficient at things I absolutely hate?
  - bheadmaster 4y ago
    I assume yes. I've had similar problems, but over time I've learned not to separate solutions into "good" and "bad", but place them on a spectrum of "goodness" from my perspective. That way, it's easier to accept that somebody just wants a not-so-good solution and do it.
    - Aeolun 4y ago
      This is generally administrative tasks that nobody will ever look at again in the future.
ElFitz 4y ago
In short, depression, to me, was total and absolute hopelessness. Burn out, on the other hand, brought me dread, anxiety, exhaustion, and the feeling of being trapped in a pointless but never-ending cycle. If I were to dive into more details, depression gave me a rock-solid certainty that I could never be happy, or meaningfully enjoy life in any meaningful way. There might have been some joyous and light-hearted moments in the past, and perhaps the future held some in store for me. I could smile if prompted or expected to. But these moments always were and always would be the accidents. And so was any past or present progress. Insignificant. I knew that no matter what I would always revert to my norm: apathy and a deep-seated, always present, lingering painful despair. All while somehow remaining alive, without understanding why or how. Going to bed each day, half hoping that this time there will not be a tomorrow. It also totally crushed any sense of self-worth I had until then. The kicker being that this certainty and the blindness to anything positive that comes with it enabled a wonderful feedback loop. Burning out mostly involved permanent and crippling stress and anxiety, accompanied by a permanent doubt on the usefulness of anything I did. Anything merely evoking work, such as catching a glimpse of my IDE’s icon, evoked fear. Nothing felt straightforward anymore. Everything required focus and attention, all the while stressed and anxious. Every task felt like it would be complex and difficult. Before I even started. Simple things became difficult. Average things became exhausting. Difficult things? Insurmountable. Anything less than absolutely straightforward made me feel as lost as a junior on his first day, unable to even figure out where to start. Except I knew had done these things before, harder ones even, and this had been my codebase for nearly a year. Each day felt like pointlessly climbing a mountain, for no reason, good or otherwise. Each day was too short for me to get everything done. And yet too long. All while knowing that the next day would only be worse. With no end in sight. No break ever was long enough. And each break’s end came with the slowly intensifying dread that came from knowing I was going back to that. And yet each break was always too long. There just was too much to do. All of it urgent, important, critical. Most of it pointless because, although finished, ultimately never released. Needless to say my sense of professional worth was in shambles, and I often joked about changing careers and moving to the countryside to grow dandelions. > Feel free to decline if it's too personal or you just don't feel like it. I have to admit I hesitated. So thank you for your thoughtfulness.
- 4y ago
steveBK123 4y ago
For me I think depression & burnout have opposite impacts on sleep, not sure what others have experienced. Depression, in the literature, in my experience, and what I've seen in my spouse leads to just wanting to sleep and not get out of bed. Burnout, however, lead me to be completely incapable of sleep. I couldn't fall asleep for hours. I'd wake up 10x/night in some anxiety sweat thinking about some way I could make the abomination of a project 1% less horrible. I'd wake up 2 hours before my alarm, in pitch black pre-dawn light in dread and just feel like I needed to get the day started.. so much to do, and it was all going to fail, but I had to be seen to be trying.
- ornornor 4y ago
  Same here, burnout definitely results in waking up multiple times a night and the first thought going through my head was about some work related BS. Idem waking up anxious before the alarm, cluttered with work BS thoughts. It always did boil down to having no agency over the outcomes but being made responsible for them, and my warning of the idiocy/likely failure mode of the plan being ignored.
  - steveBK123 4y ago
    Yes - "no agency over outcomes & being responsible for them" is quick recipe for burnout
    - ornornor 4y ago
      It’s SOP in many companies in my experience :(

rhizome31 4y ago

> To me it was the moment I started breaking down in tears when getting to the subway station down my street, on my way to work. Every day. > The next time was when I could not speak about my job and the project I was working on without stammering and my mind going blank (and still couldn’t for months after quitting). Thank you for writing this. I've been through these states recently and it helps to know other people had similar symptoms.

Aeolun 4y ago

I think by the time you burst out in tears when traveling to work you’ve probably passed the point of burnout. Not sure what else to call it, but the stage described above probably comes first.

marcosdumay 4y ago
Things can unroll very quickly. People don't necessarily go through stages when getting worse.