My burnout journey and what I wish I'd known

Last week I was asked to share more of my burnout story (thank you, David DiLullo !). So, in the hope that it might benefit others, here goes.

I've always had a type-A+ personality. Part built-in conscientiousness, part sheer determination. Freshman year in college, when my Russian professor suggested I start in first-year language classes and take it easy (despite two years of high school Russian), I took it as a dare. And became one of the top students in his second-year class.

After realizing that it would be hard to be "successful" in my original chosen field (literary translation), I approached my career, early on, a little like an obstacle course. The goal was to make it to the end, and grit would get me through.

(I put "successful" in quotation marks because... how many people do you know who thoughtfully reflected in their 20s on what success meant to them? Or even in their 30s? How many of us simply did what we thought we were supposed to do, and kept climbing the ladder for a "better" title and a higher salary?)

Falling into tech

I sort of fell into writing and editorial work, and into tech. It was exciting at first. Then I experienced my first RIF in 1996 when the startup I was working for was acquired and the entire team laid off. That happened many more times.

Mass layoffs, major changes in leadership and strategic direction, and a fair number of toxic environments fairly quickly led to disenchantment. But I was on a path, and rarely stopped to think about what else I might do.

So I worked my butt off in job after job. I got promoted, I hired and managed employees and then teams, I built new functions, and then there was another RIF or change in strategic direction and it was time to find a new role.

When the cycle repeated in 2011, I was laid off minutes — literally — before I went to sign my mortgage documents for a condo. It was too late to back out, so I figured I'd just squat for a while if it came to it. (In 2001, I was laid off right after I bought my first new car. It had enough room to sleep in, if necessary.)

It was a stressful time. The economy was recovering after the 2007–08 financial crisis, but many companies were still cautious about hiring. It took longer than I expected to get a new job. And when that offer came, I needed the paycheck so I didn't take any time off before starting. (And if you're thinking that I had had all that time off to relax, I forgive you. Clearly, you've missed out on the experience of being an unemployed single homeowner in the San Francisco Bay Area ;-)

In the new role, I did what I was used to doing. I worked my butt off. I remember many evenings when my boss, head of marketing and chief revenue officer, and I were the only ones left working in the office. I also remember getting many emails he sent at crazy times of night/early morning. There was work to be done. So I stayed to do it.

I hired a global team with members in time zones that didn't peacefully coexist. (My team members were great sports; there was always someone on the team call at a time when they should've been sleeping.) My team and I were responsible for most of the content on 200+ websites in 20+ languages. I modernized the 150-year-old company's voice and overhauled the localization process. We were working with the design, engineering and product teams to bring archaic systems into the digital age. There was always work to be done.

And there was the pressure I put on myself. I'd been a director before, at three previous companies, but not at a multinational Fortune 500. I was one of very few women in the organization at director level or above. I felt like I needed to prove myself over and over again.

After 2 1/2 years, I didn't recognize myself anymore. The stress, some self-imposed and some stemming from the often toxic environment, had taken its toll on both my physical and mental health. I wasn't sleeping well, had chronic pain issues, and personality-wise, had become someone I didn't like very much.

I thought about changing jobs, again. Even the thought was exhausting. I didn't have the energy, physically or emotionally, to pretend to a recruiter or a hiring manager that I was excited about a new role.

I had no plan

I hadn't planned to leave. I had no plan. I just finally reached a point where I realized I couldn't keep on going the way I had been. It felt like I had no choice but to resign.

Which brings us back briefly to the whole unemployed-single-homeowner-in-California theme. That wasn't really an option either. So, I moved to Peru.

There was some reasoning and planning that went into the move, but I won't go into those details here. Suffice it to say that I put my home on the market, sold/donated/stored everything I owned, and flew with four suitcases to a town in the Sacred Valley, about an hour's drive from Cuzco.

I spent four months in Peru, studying Spanish, doing a little volunteer work, exploring and traveling, and just being. The ease with which I took everything in stride hints at just how burned out I was; sort of numb.

For a variety of reasons, I moved at that point to a village of 5,000 in the Ecuadorean Andes, where I ended up buying a little adobe house with terraced organic gardens and banana trees (among other things). I spent a little over a year there, still mostly just healing. I learned later that I had severe adrenal fatigue/dysfunction, which some consider the physical counterpart to the psychological experience of burnout. However you categorize the symptoms, I dealt with them for years.

Probably more years than necessary, given that I never settled down for long. When things got violent in the village (several friends and acquaintances were attacked and one was killed), I sold the little house and moved to northern Portugal, where I bought and renovated a tiny apartment — all in Portuguese. I didn't exactly make things easy for myself.

(Want to hear more of the story? Happy to share over a virtual coffee or real drink if you're in my neck of the woods.)

What is the stress costing you?

In hindsight, my burnout was probably inevitable then. I don't think I'd heard the term at the time. I didn't have any role models in the tech world of healthy work/life alignment, no less balance. And I'm wired to take responsibility for everything and everyone. Self-care could wait (I naively thought. Wait for what, exactly? is the question I should've asked myself).

None of these things is true now, in 2024. I'm currently reading Gabor Mate's When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress, published in 2011 (I wish I'd known of him then — thanks, Tetyana Colosivschi, MA, CPC !). If anything above resonates with you at all or sounds like someone you know, please give them (or yourself) this book.

If you're managing your work and life the way I (mis)managed mine, I urge you to ask you yourself some questions, and be honest.

• What's it costing you?
• Is it worth it?
• What's the price your partner and/or family is paying?
• How much fun are you having?
• How much joy is there in your life?

If you don't like the answers — or are even on the fence — what changes are you willing to make, and when?

Burnout doesn't have to be inevitable now. Everyone's heard of it and it's likely that if not you yourself, someone you know has been through it. But you have to actively decide to stop the cycle.

If you're at or near that point and ready to make some changes, reach out. Get support. You don't have to deal with it alone.

Comments? Questions? I'd love your thoughts.

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