I burned out at my job (in academia) pretty spectacularly in the spring. This is the first time I've called it burnout - it was easier to say that I was ill (because I was and because that meant less immediate deep thinking about what had brought me to that place). I just couldn't anymore. I lost function. I fell apart. I physically felt like I had actually run into a wall.
I had a sabbatical scheduled for this fall - I'm on that sabbatical now. (I can't go further without plainly stating just how deeply fucked up it is that *everyone* doesn't get sabbaticals, no matter their line of work, because a period of time where you get to pause and engage in some deep thinking outside the regular schedule of your career is transformative. It's particularly fucked up in academia that so many people doing the lion's share of teaching never get a sabbatical because they haven't been given the protection of tenure. To get a sabbatical is a wholesale privilege, and it shouldn't be. It shouldn't be a prize. It should be the way we do what we do, no matter what we do.)
I did not approach this sabbatical as an opportunity to be wildly productive. I looked at it as an opportunity to rest. I deep-cleaned my house in June. A friend offered her house on the west coast for me to get away in July, and I went there and I read and I wrote but I also spent hours looking at the ocean, and knitting, and painting watercolors until I kinda sorta got the hang of it. I traveled a bunch to give workshops this fall, but I had long periods of downtime between.
And I knitted. I am not a good knitter. I've been doing it a while but still regularly manage to knit holes into whatever I'm working on, and reverse the pattern, and bork my stitches. I knit scarves, mostly - sometimes for me, but mostly to give away when it gets cold to the local domestic violence shelter, or the clothesline in the library where people can pick up warm clothes for free. I buy nice yarn for the pleasure of working with it, and if I don't knit in a given day, I know something's up. My days are punctuated by sitting and knitting between chores or errands or reading or writing, and it has become a priority to me to do it, to sit down and enter into the particular, methodical silence of knitting over and over again. And somewhere along the way I realized . . . I want to orient my life around the opportunity to knit. It sounded wild to me to say it the first time I had the thought (still does somewhat), but I want space in my life that is for me, and for others, and that's quiet and creative. It's both about the kntting and not about the knitting - it's about prioritizing rhythms to a day that are not at someone else's behest.
In January I'll go back to the classroom with a new order to my day. "Did I knit?" will be a question that's not about making progress on a project so much as holding space for breath and glee.
So many feelings about the sabbatical thing as a longtime adjunct. It feels like the actual act of teaching, which is (at least nominally!) the mission of the academy, is just continuing to be more and more siloed -- adjuncts increasingly doing the teaching, as you note here, with no offices and little visibility and zero support from most departments/university institutions. As if we don't exist at all. The actual teaching seems increasingly auxiliary to the rest of what any given university wants to accomplish, and once it's been made invisible, why would anyone need to rest from it?
I often joke that my school's (Western Michigan University) ideal situation would be if they could run a university without any teachers at all...or students.
All of this. And the fact that the people *doing the work* don't get offices, or material, administrative, financial, and health support is beyond unjust. Contingent faculty and instructional staff are holding the line against learning meaning nothing to legislatures and a lot of administrators, and get so little by way of compensation, acknowledgment, or reward.
Damn. This was happening when I was in school (class of 2011) and is clearly worse now. I was marshall for my department at a massive state school. Chose a beloved teacher who was adjunct to walk with me-- in large part to make a point that her untenured work offered the care and nurturance that resulted in being said marshall, the kind of student they liked to show off. Pissed it keeps getting more egregious.
Cate, this is great. Creating space for habits and hobbies that restore us seems sustaining. (Also an academic who’s burning pretty seriously at the moment.)
How serendipitous that when I read today’s newsletter I thought, “wow, that sounds so nice…hopefully I get approved for a sabbatical for Fall so I can experience that.” and then the top comment is from someone on their own sabbatical. I’ve honestly considered including in my sabbatical application that I’m incredibly burnt out, and likely far too burnout for someone my age/someone that’s been at my community college for only 8 years. Like, please sabbatical committee—have mercy on me because I can’t be an effective contributor to this community without a true break. How bleak.
I was mentioning to my partner the other day that I’m almost scared about going through the application process because I’m so scared I won’t be approved—and what would that mean for me in that moment. I started writing my whole life story of the past 16 years…but basically I could boil it down to between going to school for both my degrees back to back, earning tenure (and thinking I’d get to catch my breath after) but going directly into a pandemic and then thinking I might catch my breath because it seemed like the world stopped for so many other people my age but our institution didn’t stop going for 2 seconds (my marriage falling apart simultaneously) and then going into a grueling but temporary leadership position I didn’t want (dept. chair equivalent—large dept.)…I’m really freaking ready for a break but also very scared I won’t get one because every time I think I’ll get one something happens that doesn’t really allow for it. I also now know (in part through lots of therapy, but also from reading stuff like todays newsletter and realizing how far my current life is from the life I desire) how much it is necessary for me to have a meaningful pause in my life at this moment.
I have a backup plan if I’m not approved—basically to not do anything more than my exact job duties(no committees, no projects, no helping) and that’s it, but it’s not the same as knowing I’d have 7 or so months where I wouldn’t have to be professionally responsible for anything or anyone. I want to be able to fill my time with pottery classes and long walks and gardening and spending real undistracted time with my friends and family. My attitude/addiction to work early in my career combined with a series of life events that didn’t leave much of an option leaves me really yearning to be a person again.
Nothing too earth-shattering to add, only that I am also on sabbatical (my first--I had to start my sabbatical clock over when I changed institutions), and that I am also a hard-core knitter! I hope you are planning to knit during faculty meetings when you return--it's been a major resentment-management tool for me....
I strongly agree that all professions should offer sabbaticals, but also that we should be given guidance on how to spend them, that we should be told we are "allowed" to stare at the ocean and all of the other necessary things (not the message I am being given by my institution). I'm also so appreciative that you and others who responded pointed out the outrageous fact that the people who are doing most of the teaching (and a lot of the advising/letter-writing/career counseling despite not being paid for it) don't get breaks. They are researchers too (duh) and the inability to have the time to publish keeps them from being as competitive for TT jobs. Similar (if much less drastic) inequalities exist within groups of tenured faculty: those whose projects/disciplines are more fundable are able to buy out classes, publish more, continue to get more funding, and rise in the ranks, taking breaks that are also made possible by adjuncts and graduate student researchers, as well as other faculty who have not been as successful in finding ways to carve out time.
This as all been on my mind as I process 13 years of R1 teaching and advising, during which time the usual life things intervened (the onset of a chronic health condition, a parent's death, several moves, the pandemic), while the workload and expectations continued to divide in the night. I am super burned out, very resentful, and incredibly angry that my ability to get a break (or to create a more reasonable work schedule when I return) depends on extracting labor from others who are in worse situations. Reminds me of when I read (heard?) the line about academia being an MLM at some point within the AHP multiverse, I burst into tears.
Sending rest and solidarity to Cate, Luka, Nigel, Dana, and Allison and all others in our dysfunctional cult!
I really love this. One of my favourite years of adulthood was my sabbatical year: AND that was the first full pandemic year (2020-2021), which seems impossible.
I'm not a knitter, but I crochet and quilt and make little things, and I absolutely agree that in daily life, one of the key essential elements of wellbeing is having the time to (1) read fiction; (2) make something with fibre and my hands; (3) chat with people; (4) write creatively (at least here and there); (5) go for walks. These are the touchstones that I'm slowly (S L O W L Y) learning to orient my life around.
🙌🏼 “I want to orient my life around the opportunity to knit.” Yes to this Cate--you put into words something I’ve been doing/trying for the past two years or so: orient my life around the non-work things. Reading a novel before work in the morning. Moving my body *before* the end of the work day. Thank you for putting what I’ve been experimenting with myself so eloquently ✨
Honestly, death and grief did it. I was one of those people who changed when millions of us died from Covid. Then around my 45 birthday a childhood friend of mine back who I had not stayed in touch with went into the ER w Covid and died there alone (she lived in France; my people Cabo Verdeans immigrate a lot). It is a cliché but the voice inside did ask me, “If this was it, would it be okay with you, your life?” In the pandemic I also felt guilt bc so many people (especially people who looked like me: Black women, immigrant women) had no choice but to burn out: go to work, risk everything, they were not allowed to be home or safe. I had a choice and was behaving like I didn’t, I was burning out of my own accord. So the work burnout (Black academic in comfortably polite racist dept) became unacceptable to me. I quit. Since then, I’ve lost someone again, this time someone who was like a brother, to suicide that was not directly burnout related but had a lot to do with an unhealthy relationship between worth and work. So, again, the lesson for me is very clear: burnout and over identification with work that makes us feel awful is a kinda slow and polite dance with death. And I’ll be damned if I ever do that again unless I have absolutely no choice.
I relate so deeply to this. I burned myself out over the first 35 years of my life -- rough childhood with economic insecurity, super intense all-consuming jobs, kids, divorce, etc.
Something I wish I'd known earlier and which I want to tell the world is that you WILL eventually pay for pushing yourself too hard. In the moment feels like you're facing this conscious choice of whether to keep pushing or to slow down, but your body will start physically breaking if you don't give it a break.
I dealt with infertility all through my 30s (for sure related to stress), and now that I'm 40 I'm realizing I have several chronic health conditions that are all tied to adrenal dysfunction (aka burnout) which had been progressing over the past 10+ years. So even if I wanted to work really hard now I'm not physically able. I'm lucky that I'm able to slow way down and still pay my bills. I try to celebrate my new "slacker" mentality -- hooray for missing deadlines! The old me would NEVER allow that.
If I'd known at 30 what I know at 40, I wonder if I would've pushed through anyway. I don't really know. I was so consumed by the drive to achieve (and never re-experience the hardships of my childhood), I'm not sure anything would've stopped me. But would've been nice to know.
I connect some of this inability to understand "your body will pay for this" with an overall societal negligence of longterm consequences about pretty much ANYTHING. If it works in the short term, IT WORKS, why would you think about anything else?? As I get older I find that more and more of my frustrations with the way we've arranged our American society are connected to that reticence, whether we're talking about investing in care infrastructure or just thinking about climate change (or health care/health outcomes) or grappling with housing shortages.
I did some coaching earlier this year (I was coached, not doing the coaching) and through it I realized that absolutely *every time* I thought "I'll just push through this" it was the wrong choice. Every time.
I mentioned this over in my own comment downthread, but "the old me would never allow that" idea has been a very hard but very real thing for me to wrestle with. Missing deadlines, cancelling meetings for "small" reasons (being not quite over a sickness, etc.), reneging on commitments -- lots of things that I thought were anathema to my personality are little treasons I'm committing all the time now. And it's kinda great, and it kinda sucks.
I feel this so hard. I'm in the middle of a confluence of stressful burnout-inducing circumstances right now and am struggling to maintain previous standards I held myself to.
One thing that I've been thinking about too -- I'm learning (way too late!) how menstrual periods are basically another vital sign, just like blood pressure, pulse, etc. If the period is off -- painful, irregular, etc -- it means something's wrong! Yet our medical system is set up to just throw people onto birth control, which essentially shuts down your hormones and creates an artificial vital sign, if the period gets bothersome.
Same with infertility. When I was 31 years old an unable to get pregnant yet seemingly otherwise healthy, doctors didn't inquire deeply into WHY that could be -- I just was referred to a fertility doctor who used hormones to force my body to do what it wasn't able to do naturally. And I didn't inquire either, which now I regret.
Anyhow, I think if people & doctors started really tuning into menstrual cycles and took very seriously any irregularity, signs of burnout could be caught earlier and taken more seriously. Stress, elevated cortisol, adrenal dysfunction, etc etc are all physical manifestations of burnout. It can be concretely tracked and addressed -- it doesn't have to be just an abstract feeling.
I have a physical history that's very similar to yours. I am in my 50's, and my list of diagnoses for chronic conditions is long. I finally found a doctor (in PDX, not sure if that is your city) who connected the dots for me. I don't have structural issues to explain my pain/fatigue/etc. or positive tests for autoimmune markers. I do have a history of childhood adversity--what I think of as lower-case trauma, the persistent-over-years-kind that got my fight/flight/freeze response stuck in a permanent on position. She helped me understand the neuroscience of chronic pain, which has been very helpful in finally making some progress in diminishing it. Happy to pass on a name if that might be helpful for you.
Thanks for passing this on--I wasn't aware of it, but Alan Gordon is one of the people my doctor pointed me to. Migraines are my most persistent pain, and I appreciate knowing that it helped you with yours.
I’m usually pretty skeptical of non traditional approaches to medicine, but what convinced me to try curable was that I had daily migraine pain, it cost $50 for the entire year (so very little downside risk), and I read a testimonial about a lawyer (like me) who had been hospitalized for her extreme migraines and had tried every medical treatment and only curable worked for her. I think it only took a month of employing one or two of the basic strategies and I was almost cured. I say “almost” because I still occasionally get migraine pain but it’s not daily and I can usually “think” my way out of it now rather than take meds. It’s weird to describe to people but it worked for me. At the very least, it’s $50 and worth trying if you’re in pain all the time.
I've been reading about chronic pain from Dr. Rachel Zoffness through "The Pain Management Workbook" and it's been a useful framework for me to rethinking my conceptions about pain.
Her name is Rebecca Kennedy, and I was able to get treatment from her through Kaiser. She has left Kaiser (in part because of burnout, I think!) and the only current information I can find on her is here: https://resilience-healthcare.com/ Looks like she is not taking insurance, though.
There’s a really interesting theory that polycystic ovarian syndrome (a misnamed endocrine disorder) was a strength in pre-modern times (higher body fat=survival in famine, being less fertile in times of feast and more fertile in times of famine means babies still get made when others are not able to have them, etc) but is the canary in the coal mine of modern times. PCOSers are more sensitive to endocrine disrupters like BPA, PFAS, etc. PCOSers are less able to tolerate ultraprocessed foods and high-calorie/low-nutrient diets, etc.
So how is PCOS generally treated? Throw people on birth control until they want to get pregnant, then give them clomid so they can get pregnant.
It's nuts to me how we view PCOS as inevitable and something to just suppress via hormones rather than address the root cause. Just because it's common doesn't mean people need to live with it!
I definitely think the connection between burnout and infertility needs to be explored more. Ultimately some people need fertility treatments to become pregnant, full stop, and telling those people to “just relax” isn’t helpful. But if we had more data telling us how to combine personal lifestyle changes with good anti-burnout policy with just-right treatments for those that need it, that would be a massive improvement compared to the current status quo.
I read the Buzzfeed piece you linked to and kept nodding my head because it was all so familiar. Except, I'm not a Millennial. I'm an elder Gen-Xer, one who is very aware of the external advantages I've had over those born in the generation after me. (More affordable higher ed meant I graduated without debt and at a time when real estate in the PNW was within reach for many people, which allowed me to buy a house as a first-year K-12 teacher. A house, btw, I could no longer afford to buy with the salary I was making at my top level of earning.) So, obviously, yeah: There's definitely a personal component to burnout.
I'm wondering about some variables, though. I worked in a field where my easing off or missing deadlines wasn't about a company's profits or about my own promotion/continued employment; it was about the well-being of children. As societal supports changed/diminished and expectations of those doing the work I was doing increased (in large part to mitigate the degradation of those supports) my work became harder and harder. My own economic prospects dimmed, too, and nothing about the way I did my work had any impact on them. So, the way I worked (all the time, except for breaks that didn't so much restore me as let me know how damaging all the other weeks of the year were) wasn't about economic survival or even (not really) my own desire to perform well. It was about feeling that I needed to give my students resources they needed to survive in an increasingly difficult-to-survive world while not being given the resources I needed to do so without working many hours beyond those I was contracted to work.
I guess what I want to know is: How do you do less (to create space for the other kinds of things that counter burnout) when your job isn't about profit but is about providing care to vulnerable members of our society? And it exacts a pretty heavy mental health toll because you're constantly encountering pretty painful stuff? I'm wondering how burnout is the same/different for those in helping professions or non-profit organizations vs. those in other kinds of settings. I've seen all manner of educators adopt all kinds of stances. I tried a lot of them on myself. I did all the personal things: therapy, guardrails, mindset shifts, etc. I tried "working smarter and not harder," I abandoned practices with no evidence of effectiveness (even when doing so flew in the face of workplace culture, which meant it was not without costs), I changed positions within my field. Some things got a little better, but the only thing that worked to cure my burnout was (finally) retiring. That's not a viable solution to the problem for those still needing to bring in a paycheck.
This is such an important question and one I've fielded a lot over the last five years. We did a few episodes of Work Appropriate really trying to grapple with this question when it comes to passion jobs, and the answer from my various co-hosts always came down to: if you're not caring for yourself you cannot provide your best care for others, full stop. But that's really, really hard to internalize when it feels like more is always, always needed.
Thank you for responding. I started listening to one of the episodes awhile back, and when it became clear that was the answer, I drifted away. I shifted from working in the classroom to a role that was supposed to be about providing support for teachers, so this is something I've had a lot of conversations with a lot of educators about. I think many of us *have* internalized that understanding; our difficulty isn't in buying into it, but in actually doing it. Because it doesn't just feel like more is always needed; more *is* always needed because more is being required. I also want to push back a little on the idea of teaching as a passion job. For many of us, it is not a passion. We care about our jobs and students, but it is not a passion. We want to do good work that we can feel morally good about and receive compensation that allows us to take care of our own needs and live a healthy life. I think the idea that it is a passion (or a calling) is a thing that is used to excuse the unreasonableness of what we ask for from educators (and, especially during high pandemic, healthcare workers, and others). I am so concerned about my younger colleagues--and by extension, the quality of public education--because what we're asking of them isn't sustainable. The job was challenging when I started 33 years ago, but it was nothing like today. I stuck with it as long as I did because it mostly met my needs and I had the promise of a secure retirement. That's rarely the case now. (Sorry if I'm preaching to the choir or rambling. I have some feelings! And lots of thoughts!)
It feels so cruel that we live in a society where it can be impossible to have the space to care for yourself within a vital societal role like teaching. Cruel that if you walk away to protect yourself, you personally know the children who will be impacted. It is incredibly unfair. I'm sorry how hard it was for you, Rita, your colleagues, and teachers everywhere. I'm sorry for all of us! I do hope we're reaching some kind of breaking point in terms of underfunding public education - too many of us are aware of how difficult it's been for teachers, and it does seem more top-of-mind in the general news, at least.
I feel this deeply. It isn’t just that we imagine that more is needed. When you know kids don’t have enough food at home, when you’re part of a team that’s trying to keep a queer kid from being kicked out of their home or running away or worse, when a student who is old enough to enter the workforce is considering joining a gang instead because they can’t read... more *is* required. Being a teacher is not just about having a hard line of work. It’s about being a witness to all the work that others in our society are not doing to create a world in which kids can thrive, and not having the choice to look away. When you can’t look away and no one else is coming to solve the problem... it’s very hard to rest at all, much less rest easily, even when you desperately need to.
Ooh, boy, do I hear all of this! You've articulated exactly what makes this job both so burnout-prone, but also what makes it so hard to disentangle from. In a high-poverty school district, there's an implication that teachers *are* the social safety net for their students. We're the entities that provide physical safety, emotional well-being, and future financial security for the kids. The solution seems pretty simple--a massive investment in public schools to provide more support for kids in the form of additional staff (social workers, psychologists, post-secondary coaches, after-school care, etc.). Simple but not easy, as they say.
At my school, we're going through some uncomfortable changes around boundaries. Staff are much less interested in running after-school/weekend programs and asking to be paid for that time. Admin is pissed that they now have to budget for, say, paid tutoring time after school or staffing at a weekend basketball tournament. (One vice principal called teachers "greedy" at a recent board meeting.) I feel conflicted: I was raised by parents who raised the money for new playground equipment and then *literally* built it themselves with a few other parents. They believed that service to the school is public service, but...when it's also your job, it gets (like you said) complicated!
Yes, to all of of this. (I also worked in a high-poverty district.) For years, I told myself that the extra time I gave was my public service, my contribution to the greater good--so it was OK that I didn't do anything else along those lines. But, it didn't really work. Too much of one things was...too much, ya know? (I know you know.)
I think we have to (collectively, as a society) recognize that this work (which is so vital) needs baked in periods of downtime. And I don't just mean evenings and weekends (which, as you say, are not always possible) but actual sabbaticals where a person's whole job is rest, and time to think, and time to learn whatever they want or need to in their own time. Sabbaticals are such a niche thing right now, and they need to be mainstream.
"except for breaks that didn't so much restore me as let me know how damaging all the other weeks of the year were"... In my second year as an educator I am having a ton of painful realizations and that line summed a few things up for me so perfectly.
The first few years are so challenging! Some things do get easier/better as your skills grow and you develop resources that you can use again. I hope you are able to find ways to be ok in it.
I'm so sorry about all the difficulty you faced towards the end of your career. I have friends in the profession, have tried to support them as they do donation drives to stock their classrooms, even over the last 10-15 years seen second-hand a whole host of changes. I know that burnout is precisely higher in those caring professions, like teaching and healthcare for the reason that you mentioned--it's hard to step away when you know there are people who need you. I can only hope that something changes and the more support is given to those in the teaching profession.
For me, work burnout has never not been autistic burnout.
Running a freelancery where I frequently accidentally worked 60 hour weeks for years on end never burned me out. Not in 15 years.
However, I've never managed a long term job without imploding into burnout. Looking back, I realized most of the flames feeding my burnout were accessibility issues. An open office layout where I was constantly observed. Meetings where I kept blurting out "the quiet part" (memorably, once gasping "so we're LYING to our client!?" in naive dismay). Meetings that I was asked to stop drawing through, at which point I ceased to be able to follow or remember the meeting. Constant interruptions disturbing flow state. Getting in trouble for using the bathroom too much (many autistic people have gastro issues and touchy bladders). Going into shutdown on business trips (with shared hotel rooms) where I was required to be "on" 24 hours a day. Getting in trouble for doing the work so efficiently I didn't "prove myself" by staying late. Getting in trouble for doing the work instead of chatting up the team. Just always in trouble despite delivering award-winning work, and never really understanding why. Just being around people and their confusing expectations all day tanked me like none other.
The thing that kills me is, I'm doing the same role as a freelancer...but people love me. They're so happy with the work, when it's just about the work. When I don't need to try to be neurotypical. All the hyperfocus and loyalty and tenacity that comes with autism are suddenly strengths in the right context.
I wish more employers could learn to harness them.
Yes! It would actually make a great column or article...how despite the gig economy being a good chunk of the workforce...MOST gov't + support systems have no idea how to treat us. Currently feeing that as I'm supposed to guess my 2024 income to figure out my health insurance? Why can't we just square up at tax time when we actually KNOW!?
as someone who recently made the move from salaried to self employment and has been loving it (because it turns out my brain is actually not broken and it really is just impossible to do anything in an under resourced role with constant interruptions and fires to put out at my old job) I would love for Culture Study to have a topic/discussion thread/feature on self employment!
I think of outside interests as “avocations.” The official definition is “subordinate to vocation” meaning what you do for a living. Hobbies are fun; avocations have a little more heft to them. For instance, my father was deeply involved in launching and then running our church when I was small. Definitely not a hobby.
I don't think I knew that! "Amator" / "amatore" being lovers of the subject. That is such a beautiful root to something with such a negative connotation now.
It's so interesting, I didn't know this word so I translated it to French, my native language, and it just says it means: past-time, hobby, leisure! It doesn't translate that connotation at all
In French, it could be passé-temps (to pass the time). Metier might be another option, but I think of metier more as a specialty rather than a sideline. Fun with language!
Métier would be your occupation, but that's only for your work, we wouldn't use it for a fun activity! But yes, passe-temps is very different because it feels almost dismissive to me compared to "avocation"!
The point on raising kids as a counterbalance to burnout is interesting to me. In my (albeit limited) experience, some
People just transfer the burnout mindset to raising their kids. I say that with as little judgment as possible, because I find myself there too when I’m deep in burnout mode.
Yup. Largely driven by the same economic/everything insecurity, I would guess. If I have to work all the time in a pressure cooker job environment, I want better for my kids but the only way I can imagine getting there is being so privileged they can opt out of the system. Snowball snowball snowball.
Came here to say this. I’m a full-time parent burning myself out on school volunteer commitments. When education budgets get gutted, the people who take on the fundraising load are unpaid parents, usually mothers.
I interpret that line of thinking as “having kids gives you something that makes work less of a priority” and perhaps avoids burnout from work. I was at a 40th birthday this weekend and many of us were saying we are staying in our (flexible but not so inspiring jobs) because it’s a time in life we are less focused on our careers. But agree burnout can just manifest in another areas of parenting/life.
I can deeply relate to kids as a counterbalance to burnout in my career. I went into the pandemic 5 weeks pregnant, with a 16 month old, and a job that had me traveling 3 of 4 weeks each month. I remember doing bedtime one night in the first month of the pandemic and thinking “wow, I really don’t want to miss this ever again”. I did change jobs (no more travel) and cities (near family). I had originally thought this time would just be a career “pause” of sorts. As time passes and I invest my energy in therapy and community, I’m really not sure that I’ll go off the career “pause”, which has not really been a pause at all - I’m still working really hard and I’m good at it! But my mental shift is slowly turning towards accepting that career will likely never again be priority number one, and I’m starting to love my comfort in accepting that!
I felt a huge surge of frustration reading this because I WANT SO BADLY to be living the life you describe, but it just keeps feeling out of reach. Between ever more complex caregiving duties, and a financial position that continues to feel precarious, I keep looking for, and not finding, the space to ease up a little and stop hustling. Instead, I'm still where I have been for the past several years: working a full-time job, selling clothes online to make some extra money, AND trying to carve out space to write (although I have completely stopped pitching stories or working on my book proposal, even though I could badly use the money that would bring in). Every other conversation in my house is about how we could save a little more money, or cut our spending, or do something more cheaply or efficiently. Burnout feels so much harder to escape when expenses exceed income!
I wish I had a better answer than "this is so hard, and I have absolutely been there," because that doesn't make it better. I think it's particularly hard when you have kids and their needs/costs are just not negotiable — it's one thing for us adults to make do with the clothes we have, for example, but kids need MORE CLOTHES and BACKPACKS, etc. etc. etc. The only thing that worked for me (and for some others that I know) was ultimately getting a new job (or their partners getting a new job) that paid enough (more) to ease the tension of, well, everything. But that is a huge ask and for so many reasons not always on the table. Sending you strength and empathy no matter what.
Loved this. Just came here to say that AHP’s productivity astounds me. Every piece is so deeply considered. Sometimes I even get mildly stressed when CS newsletters pile up in my inbox unread. I feel like, “eek I can’t keep up but I don’t want to miss out!” All this to say that even if newsletter content/pace decreased by HALF, it would STILL be one of the most engaging and valuable things I pay for. So if you decide to run a dahlia farm and publish here half as often, I would enthusiastically support it and still give you my $.
I really distinguish between writing that feels like work and writing that feels like processing (and thus not the same sort of work) — this is the latter! I'm grateful for these comments sections where I can poke and prod and expand my own thinking, too.
Just came here to say this same thing - my inbox is VERY backed up with things like this that I want to read, but can't seem to find (make) time for lately. Trying to give myself grace and not let it stress me out, but I'm such an inbox zero person that it's tough. And I NEVER regret taking the time to read and engage with this content, yet somehow my brain tricks me into putting it off all too often. Not sure where I'm going with this comment. Mostly wanted to say ME TOO! 😂
I’m addicted to work and the internet, and these addictions exacerbate one another. After work, I feel like I have no energy to do anything. With the internet, you don’t have to do anything, you can just be on it.
For me, it’s been a black hole, taking not just my time and attention but also my ability to direct and sustain my attention. The outcome is feeling like outside of work, all I have is the internet, and outside of the internet, all I have is work. (I also have a partner and friends, but I expend so much time and energy on work and the internet that I’m losing my humanity. I feel more like an instrument.)
I have the feeling that most people are addicted to the internet, and it gets in the way of developing a rich life outside of work—and a rich life inside yourself (inferiority)—but I also feel that people don’t talk about it as much as I would expect, making me feel alone.
I just submitted my notice of resignation (I work in higher ed), my last day being December 31st. I’m gonna start the New Year anew. More than anything, I want to rest, recover, reflect, and discover who I am and what I want (and want to want). I wanna give myself a chance.
I once heard someone say that if you only have energy after work to watch TV, work is taking too much from you. I see TV and internet as coping mechanisms, a chance to “turn off”, but also a signal that if I have to turn off, that I’m “on” in too many other areas of my life.
I was diagnosed with ADHD this year at age 33, and so many things about work history made sense in hindsight. I was expending so much mental effort to “stay on top of things,” and then let that go when I worked with a great therapist and read Dr. Kristin Neff’s book SELF-COMPASSION.
Still working on cultivating meaningful hobbies, because even now that I’m taking medication, feeding myself and maintaining a somewhat tidy house feels like it takes up a lot of my spare time after work.
This essay really resonated with me and I could say so much! I'm currently in my Year of Unfucking My Burnout, as I've been calling it. Teaching online for a year and a half of the pandemic, and then the ricochet of going back in person, redoing a whole curriculum AGAIN, the pressure of combating learning loss, plus a handful of intense family traumas/griefs, wrecked me. I had all the classic signs of burnout last spring and over the summer, especially finding zero joy in any actual accomplishments.
My process of healing burnout has been, as I've been telling people, frustratingly simple. Teach less (one class instead of 3). Write more (I'm working on my first novel and journalling all the time). Exercise and be outside (I'm taking horseback riding lessons again after twenty years away! and using extra time in my schedule to bike commute more). Totally a huge privilege to be able to do all of the above. But I definitely noticed how those external changes only make containers within which I have to make personal changes. The challenges don't stop once those containers are made. For example, I didn't automatically sit down at my writing desk on Day 1 of the Burnout Healing Semester and work on my novel for hours; I first spent quite a few weeks (months?!) watching TV and dicking around on Instagram. Which, I know, rest takes all sorts of forms, etc. But I did have to consciously think about this as a new phase of life, not just a rest period from which I'll bounce back more ready to work than ever -- which is how we often conceive of rest.
What's cool is that just now, about 2+ months into this experiment, I am seeing those changes. This last week I happily sat down to my writing desk, almost every day, 1-2 hours. (There's also something here about not applying the standards of burnout work to our other arts/vocations -- like, I could smash about curriculum development for hours and teach 3 classes in one day from 8am-8pm, but no, I probably can't write my novel that way. And why should I want to?)
I've also had to reckon with how much I'm a yes-man when it comes to opportunities that float my way, and I've had to act like someone I hate to be: someone who renegs on promises! I recently had to do that in a big way. A colleague offered me the opportunity to teach a class that he usually teaches. I accepted it automatically, as the old me would have done, and it was only once the dean approved me for it that I realized what I had done to myself. I checked in with my accountability buddies, and then had to tell the dean, and my colleague who thought he was doing me a big kind favor, "Actually, no thank you." That felt absolutely terrible to do (my colleague, having his own feelings about it, used the phrase "left in the lurch") but also what I needed to do to maintain my own boundaries around burnout. That's a real deep unlearning process that I think I'll always need to be on the lookout for.
That's my experience — that I need to stay on the lookout — and I'm considered an expert on burnout. Culture is a loud voice in our ears and we live in a culture of overwork.
I am not in a burnout space right now (though my wife is and I’ve forwarded this essay to her), but I am facing the question of filling time when child free, in particular, now that I am sober. Sobriety opens up so much time! Garden Study, Ross Gay, and Robin Wall Kimmerer have pushed me over the edge and I’m officially a wannabe gardener who is going to spend the winter reading books about vegetables and flowers. We are staking the ground for a raised bed design today.
Before 2019 I was your classic over achiever with an impetus to prove my worth through what I could produce, in the climate movement specifically. Then I was hit by a truck on my bike and almost killed. There aren't many silver linings to having your life thrown off course and being permanently disabled by a negligent driver, but one of them might be, that the sense I must produce to earn my place on this earth and to pay penance for having privilege.... is gone. Sheathed like a cloak.
"I didn’t have anything better to do with the hours I’d regain" resonates and is a similarly embarrassing truth for me. I worried a lot about my screen time and my work time -- sometimes feeling like I preferred working because it was better than Twitter. Ultimately, the only thing that worked was introducing new activities that were good enough to compete with Twitter. Then, it felt surprisingly natural to use my phone less and work less. But it took a real investment in developing hobbies (and their required skills), making lists of books to read, finding different games for different moods, etc. It's really paid off.
Oof, I am working on this... as of yesterday, when I listened to this podcast interview with Safiya Noble. https://www.npr.org/2023/11/08/1197954253/code-switch-draft-11-08-2023 The second half turns into a discussion of the ways in which endless doomscrolling is essentially playing right into capitalism's hands. Which I knew, but something about how Noble articulated it really resonated. I suspect reframing my search-for-non-scrolling-things-to-do as an investment could really help.
Earlier in the week, for instance, I watched The Deer Hunter in all its 1970s glory, and I intentionally did it *without a second screen*. That meant I waited until afterwards to google the stuff I was curious about (no, those hunting scenes were definitely not shot in Pennsylvania), so I didn't just drift away into my phone without meaning to. It was a really great experience to just focus on one thing (and my cuddly dog)--perhaps especially to do so at the 1970s pace of filmmaking.
Anyway, this ramble is just to say -- I appreciate your example and am working on following suit!
Yes, yes! I appreciate you adding this to the discussion about burnout, as well as hearing other people's stories here in the comments. My story is similar: raised by two parents who both clawed their way up class echelon (i.e. overworking) and, absent a faith practice, were devoted to community service through the public school (i.e. my mom's job, my parents' off-hours fundraising, school board positions, etc.) The result: I have spent the last 18 years overworking in my public teaching job in an inner-city high school! The conditions of the work absolutely have fostered burnout--even before the pandemic, the paradigm for the job was "*good* teachers will go the extra mile if they *really* care..." And I did care! I love my job, too! And though I did not love working 12 hours a day, I simply didn't know how to do my job any other way.
Like others... the pandemic was a big wake-up call! I lost a parent 6 weeks before the pandemic hit, so it was a real one-two punch of existential questioning. But after we returned to a degree of normalcy, my job felt more stressful than it ever had before. I had already started dreaming of an exit plan, but when I developed an stress-induced autoimmune disorder and my hair all started falling out (fun!) in February, I got serious about it. We hired a financial planner, maxed out our retirement contributions, and put a 4-year exit plan into place. Even now, my sense of obligation towards work is completely different. I just....don't care like I used to. I still put in hours outside of the school day--I truly don't think it's possible to not in this profession--but it's on my terms, and it's limited.
When I was in my 20s, I used to jokingly tell friends I wanted to retire from teaching at 45 to work in a yarn store and be a screenwriter (despite the fact that I had no experience doing that?). Guess the joke's on me, because that now seems to be the plan. Not to be trite, but what DO I want to do with my one wild and precious life?
I burned out at my job (in academia) pretty spectacularly in the spring. This is the first time I've called it burnout - it was easier to say that I was ill (because I was and because that meant less immediate deep thinking about what had brought me to that place). I just couldn't anymore. I lost function. I fell apart. I physically felt like I had actually run into a wall.
I had a sabbatical scheduled for this fall - I'm on that sabbatical now. (I can't go further without plainly stating just how deeply fucked up it is that *everyone* doesn't get sabbaticals, no matter their line of work, because a period of time where you get to pause and engage in some deep thinking outside the regular schedule of your career is transformative. It's particularly fucked up in academia that so many people doing the lion's share of teaching never get a sabbatical because they haven't been given the protection of tenure. To get a sabbatical is a wholesale privilege, and it shouldn't be. It shouldn't be a prize. It should be the way we do what we do, no matter what we do.)
I did not approach this sabbatical as an opportunity to be wildly productive. I looked at it as an opportunity to rest. I deep-cleaned my house in June. A friend offered her house on the west coast for me to get away in July, and I went there and I read and I wrote but I also spent hours looking at the ocean, and knitting, and painting watercolors until I kinda sorta got the hang of it. I traveled a bunch to give workshops this fall, but I had long periods of downtime between.
And I knitted. I am not a good knitter. I've been doing it a while but still regularly manage to knit holes into whatever I'm working on, and reverse the pattern, and bork my stitches. I knit scarves, mostly - sometimes for me, but mostly to give away when it gets cold to the local domestic violence shelter, or the clothesline in the library where people can pick up warm clothes for free. I buy nice yarn for the pleasure of working with it, and if I don't knit in a given day, I know something's up. My days are punctuated by sitting and knitting between chores or errands or reading or writing, and it has become a priority to me to do it, to sit down and enter into the particular, methodical silence of knitting over and over again. And somewhere along the way I realized . . . I want to orient my life around the opportunity to knit. It sounded wild to me to say it the first time I had the thought (still does somewhat), but I want space in my life that is for me, and for others, and that's quiet and creative. It's both about the kntting and not about the knitting - it's about prioritizing rhythms to a day that are not at someone else's behest.
In January I'll go back to the classroom with a new order to my day. "Did I knit?" will be a question that's not about making progress on a project so much as holding space for breath and glee.
So many feelings about the sabbatical thing as a longtime adjunct. It feels like the actual act of teaching, which is (at least nominally!) the mission of the academy, is just continuing to be more and more siloed -- adjuncts increasingly doing the teaching, as you note here, with no offices and little visibility and zero support from most departments/university institutions. As if we don't exist at all. The actual teaching seems increasingly auxiliary to the rest of what any given university wants to accomplish, and once it's been made invisible, why would anyone need to rest from it?
I often joke that my school's (Western Michigan University) ideal situation would be if they could run a university without any teachers at all...or students.
All of this. And the fact that the people *doing the work* don't get offices, or material, administrative, financial, and health support is beyond unjust. Contingent faculty and instructional staff are holding the line against learning meaning nothing to legislatures and a lot of administrators, and get so little by way of compensation, acknowledgment, or reward.
Damn. This was happening when I was in school (class of 2011) and is clearly worse now. I was marshall for my department at a massive state school. Chose a beloved teacher who was adjunct to walk with me-- in large part to make a point that her untenured work offered the care and nurturance that resulted in being said marshall, the kind of student they liked to show off. Pissed it keeps getting more egregious.
Cate, this is great. Creating space for habits and hobbies that restore us seems sustaining. (Also an academic who’s burning pretty seriously at the moment.)
How serendipitous that when I read today’s newsletter I thought, “wow, that sounds so nice…hopefully I get approved for a sabbatical for Fall so I can experience that.” and then the top comment is from someone on their own sabbatical. I’ve honestly considered including in my sabbatical application that I’m incredibly burnt out, and likely far too burnout for someone my age/someone that’s been at my community college for only 8 years. Like, please sabbatical committee—have mercy on me because I can’t be an effective contributor to this community without a true break. How bleak.
I was mentioning to my partner the other day that I’m almost scared about going through the application process because I’m so scared I won’t be approved—and what would that mean for me in that moment. I started writing my whole life story of the past 16 years…but basically I could boil it down to between going to school for both my degrees back to back, earning tenure (and thinking I’d get to catch my breath after) but going directly into a pandemic and then thinking I might catch my breath because it seemed like the world stopped for so many other people my age but our institution didn’t stop going for 2 seconds (my marriage falling apart simultaneously) and then going into a grueling but temporary leadership position I didn’t want (dept. chair equivalent—large dept.)…I’m really freaking ready for a break but also very scared I won’t get one because every time I think I’ll get one something happens that doesn’t really allow for it. I also now know (in part through lots of therapy, but also from reading stuff like todays newsletter and realizing how far my current life is from the life I desire) how much it is necessary for me to have a meaningful pause in my life at this moment.
I have a backup plan if I’m not approved—basically to not do anything more than my exact job duties(no committees, no projects, no helping) and that’s it, but it’s not the same as knowing I’d have 7 or so months where I wouldn’t have to be professionally responsible for anything or anyone. I want to be able to fill my time with pottery classes and long walks and gardening and spending real undistracted time with my friends and family. My attitude/addiction to work early in my career combined with a series of life events that didn’t leave much of an option leaves me really yearning to be a person again.
I so hope you are able to get a break. You deserve it.
Nothing too earth-shattering to add, only that I am also on sabbatical (my first--I had to start my sabbatical clock over when I changed institutions), and that I am also a hard-core knitter! I hope you are planning to knit during faculty meetings when you return--it's been a major resentment-management tool for me....
I strongly agree that all professions should offer sabbaticals, but also that we should be given guidance on how to spend them, that we should be told we are "allowed" to stare at the ocean and all of the other necessary things (not the message I am being given by my institution). I'm also so appreciative that you and others who responded pointed out the outrageous fact that the people who are doing most of the teaching (and a lot of the advising/letter-writing/career counseling despite not being paid for it) don't get breaks. They are researchers too (duh) and the inability to have the time to publish keeps them from being as competitive for TT jobs. Similar (if much less drastic) inequalities exist within groups of tenured faculty: those whose projects/disciplines are more fundable are able to buy out classes, publish more, continue to get more funding, and rise in the ranks, taking breaks that are also made possible by adjuncts and graduate student researchers, as well as other faculty who have not been as successful in finding ways to carve out time.
This as all been on my mind as I process 13 years of R1 teaching and advising, during which time the usual life things intervened (the onset of a chronic health condition, a parent's death, several moves, the pandemic), while the workload and expectations continued to divide in the night. I am super burned out, very resentful, and incredibly angry that my ability to get a break (or to create a more reasonable work schedule when I return) depends on extracting labor from others who are in worse situations. Reminds me of when I read (heard?) the line about academia being an MLM at some point within the AHP multiverse, I burst into tears.
Sending rest and solidarity to Cate, Luka, Nigel, Dana, and Allison and all others in our dysfunctional cult!
I know my job used to give sabbaticals, but they found many people would look for a new job on sabbatical, so they stopped giving them.
My college roommate knew I was in a bad way when I stopped baking.
I really love this. One of my favourite years of adulthood was my sabbatical year: AND that was the first full pandemic year (2020-2021), which seems impossible.
I'm not a knitter, but I crochet and quilt and make little things, and I absolutely agree that in daily life, one of the key essential elements of wellbeing is having the time to (1) read fiction; (2) make something with fibre and my hands; (3) chat with people; (4) write creatively (at least here and there); (5) go for walks. These are the touchstones that I'm slowly (S L O W L Y) learning to orient my life around.
If you haven't already read it I recommend The Knitting Sutra by Susan Gordon Lydon. Really wonderful book.
🙌🏼 “I want to orient my life around the opportunity to knit.” Yes to this Cate--you put into words something I’ve been doing/trying for the past two years or so: orient my life around the non-work things. Reading a novel before work in the morning. Moving my body *before* the end of the work day. Thank you for putting what I’ve been experimenting with myself so eloquently ✨
Honestly, death and grief did it. I was one of those people who changed when millions of us died from Covid. Then around my 45 birthday a childhood friend of mine back who I had not stayed in touch with went into the ER w Covid and died there alone (she lived in France; my people Cabo Verdeans immigrate a lot). It is a cliché but the voice inside did ask me, “If this was it, would it be okay with you, your life?” In the pandemic I also felt guilt bc so many people (especially people who looked like me: Black women, immigrant women) had no choice but to burn out: go to work, risk everything, they were not allowed to be home or safe. I had a choice and was behaving like I didn’t, I was burning out of my own accord. So the work burnout (Black academic in comfortably polite racist dept) became unacceptable to me. I quit. Since then, I’ve lost someone again, this time someone who was like a brother, to suicide that was not directly burnout related but had a lot to do with an unhealthy relationship between worth and work. So, again, the lesson for me is very clear: burnout and over identification with work that makes us feel awful is a kinda slow and polite dance with death. And I’ll be damned if I ever do that again unless I have absolutely no choice.
I relate so deeply to this. I burned myself out over the first 35 years of my life -- rough childhood with economic insecurity, super intense all-consuming jobs, kids, divorce, etc.
Something I wish I'd known earlier and which I want to tell the world is that you WILL eventually pay for pushing yourself too hard. In the moment feels like you're facing this conscious choice of whether to keep pushing or to slow down, but your body will start physically breaking if you don't give it a break.
I dealt with infertility all through my 30s (for sure related to stress), and now that I'm 40 I'm realizing I have several chronic health conditions that are all tied to adrenal dysfunction (aka burnout) which had been progressing over the past 10+ years. So even if I wanted to work really hard now I'm not physically able. I'm lucky that I'm able to slow way down and still pay my bills. I try to celebrate my new "slacker" mentality -- hooray for missing deadlines! The old me would NEVER allow that.
If I'd known at 30 what I know at 40, I wonder if I would've pushed through anyway. I don't really know. I was so consumed by the drive to achieve (and never re-experience the hardships of my childhood), I'm not sure anything would've stopped me. But would've been nice to know.
I connect some of this inability to understand "your body will pay for this" with an overall societal negligence of longterm consequences about pretty much ANYTHING. If it works in the short term, IT WORKS, why would you think about anything else?? As I get older I find that more and more of my frustrations with the way we've arranged our American society are connected to that reticence, whether we're talking about investing in care infrastructure or just thinking about climate change (or health care/health outcomes) or grappling with housing shortages.
I did some coaching earlier this year (I was coached, not doing the coaching) and through it I realized that absolutely *every time* I thought "I'll just push through this" it was the wrong choice. Every time.
This.
I mentioned this over in my own comment downthread, but "the old me would never allow that" idea has been a very hard but very real thing for me to wrestle with. Missing deadlines, cancelling meetings for "small" reasons (being not quite over a sickness, etc.), reneging on commitments -- lots of things that I thought were anathema to my personality are little treasons I'm committing all the time now. And it's kinda great, and it kinda sucks.
“Little treasons” -- I love that! It’s got the rebelliousness and the guilt all wrapped in there together!
I feel this so hard. I'm in the middle of a confluence of stressful burnout-inducing circumstances right now and am struggling to maintain previous standards I held myself to.
One thing that I've been thinking about too -- I'm learning (way too late!) how menstrual periods are basically another vital sign, just like blood pressure, pulse, etc. If the period is off -- painful, irregular, etc -- it means something's wrong! Yet our medical system is set up to just throw people onto birth control, which essentially shuts down your hormones and creates an artificial vital sign, if the period gets bothersome.
Same with infertility. When I was 31 years old an unable to get pregnant yet seemingly otherwise healthy, doctors didn't inquire deeply into WHY that could be -- I just was referred to a fertility doctor who used hormones to force my body to do what it wasn't able to do naturally. And I didn't inquire either, which now I regret.
Anyhow, I think if people & doctors started really tuning into menstrual cycles and took very seriously any irregularity, signs of burnout could be caught earlier and taken more seriously. Stress, elevated cortisol, adrenal dysfunction, etc etc are all physical manifestations of burnout. It can be concretely tracked and addressed -- it doesn't have to be just an abstract feeling.
I have a physical history that's very similar to yours. I am in my 50's, and my list of diagnoses for chronic conditions is long. I finally found a doctor (in PDX, not sure if that is your city) who connected the dots for me. I don't have structural issues to explain my pain/fatigue/etc. or positive tests for autoimmune markers. I do have a history of childhood adversity--what I think of as lower-case trauma, the persistent-over-years-kind that got my fight/flight/freeze response stuck in a permanent on position. She helped me understand the neuroscience of chronic pain, which has been very helpful in finally making some progress in diminishing it. Happy to pass on a name if that might be helpful for you.
I found the app Curable really useful for helping to cure the pain from my chronic migraines.
Thanks for passing this on--I wasn't aware of it, but Alan Gordon is one of the people my doctor pointed me to. Migraines are my most persistent pain, and I appreciate knowing that it helped you with yours.
I’m usually pretty skeptical of non traditional approaches to medicine, but what convinced me to try curable was that I had daily migraine pain, it cost $50 for the entire year (so very little downside risk), and I read a testimonial about a lawyer (like me) who had been hospitalized for her extreme migraines and had tried every medical treatment and only curable worked for her. I think it only took a month of employing one or two of the basic strategies and I was almost cured. I say “almost” because I still occasionally get migraine pain but it’s not daily and I can usually “think” my way out of it now rather than take meds. It’s weird to describe to people but it worked for me. At the very least, it’s $50 and worth trying if you’re in pain all the time.
Yes! I cannot believe that the biopsychosocial model of pain is still considered niche. (Well, I can, because our healthcare system runs on $$.)
Just wanted to say that 100% recovery is completely possible!
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-cure-for-chronic-pain-with-nicole-sachs-lcsw/id1439580309
I've been reading about chronic pain from Dr. Rachel Zoffness through "The Pain Management Workbook" and it's been a useful framework for me to rethinking my conceptions about pain.
I am indeed in Portland! I have a naturopath now who has been great but I'd love to know who your doctor is in case I want another take on things.
Her name is Rebecca Kennedy, and I was able to get treatment from her through Kaiser. She has left Kaiser (in part because of burnout, I think!) and the only current information I can find on her is here: https://resilience-healthcare.com/ Looks like she is not taking insurance, though.
There’s a really interesting theory that polycystic ovarian syndrome (a misnamed endocrine disorder) was a strength in pre-modern times (higher body fat=survival in famine, being less fertile in times of feast and more fertile in times of famine means babies still get made when others are not able to have them, etc) but is the canary in the coal mine of modern times. PCOSers are more sensitive to endocrine disrupters like BPA, PFAS, etc. PCOSers are less able to tolerate ultraprocessed foods and high-calorie/low-nutrient diets, etc.
So how is PCOS generally treated? Throw people on birth control until they want to get pregnant, then give them clomid so they can get pregnant.
It's nuts to me how we view PCOS as inevitable and something to just suppress via hormones rather than address the root cause. Just because it's common doesn't mean people need to live with it!
I definitely think the connection between burnout and infertility needs to be explored more. Ultimately some people need fertility treatments to become pregnant, full stop, and telling those people to “just relax” isn’t helpful. But if we had more data telling us how to combine personal lifestyle changes with good anti-burnout policy with just-right treatments for those that need it, that would be a massive improvement compared to the current status quo.
I read the Buzzfeed piece you linked to and kept nodding my head because it was all so familiar. Except, I'm not a Millennial. I'm an elder Gen-Xer, one who is very aware of the external advantages I've had over those born in the generation after me. (More affordable higher ed meant I graduated without debt and at a time when real estate in the PNW was within reach for many people, which allowed me to buy a house as a first-year K-12 teacher. A house, btw, I could no longer afford to buy with the salary I was making at my top level of earning.) So, obviously, yeah: There's definitely a personal component to burnout.
I'm wondering about some variables, though. I worked in a field where my easing off or missing deadlines wasn't about a company's profits or about my own promotion/continued employment; it was about the well-being of children. As societal supports changed/diminished and expectations of those doing the work I was doing increased (in large part to mitigate the degradation of those supports) my work became harder and harder. My own economic prospects dimmed, too, and nothing about the way I did my work had any impact on them. So, the way I worked (all the time, except for breaks that didn't so much restore me as let me know how damaging all the other weeks of the year were) wasn't about economic survival or even (not really) my own desire to perform well. It was about feeling that I needed to give my students resources they needed to survive in an increasingly difficult-to-survive world while not being given the resources I needed to do so without working many hours beyond those I was contracted to work.
I guess what I want to know is: How do you do less (to create space for the other kinds of things that counter burnout) when your job isn't about profit but is about providing care to vulnerable members of our society? And it exacts a pretty heavy mental health toll because you're constantly encountering pretty painful stuff? I'm wondering how burnout is the same/different for those in helping professions or non-profit organizations vs. those in other kinds of settings. I've seen all manner of educators adopt all kinds of stances. I tried a lot of them on myself. I did all the personal things: therapy, guardrails, mindset shifts, etc. I tried "working smarter and not harder," I abandoned practices with no evidence of effectiveness (even when doing so flew in the face of workplace culture, which meant it was not without costs), I changed positions within my field. Some things got a little better, but the only thing that worked to cure my burnout was (finally) retiring. That's not a viable solution to the problem for those still needing to bring in a paycheck.
This is such an important question and one I've fielded a lot over the last five years. We did a few episodes of Work Appropriate really trying to grapple with this question when it comes to passion jobs, and the answer from my various co-hosts always came down to: if you're not caring for yourself you cannot provide your best care for others, full stop. But that's really, really hard to internalize when it feels like more is always, always needed.
Thank you for responding. I started listening to one of the episodes awhile back, and when it became clear that was the answer, I drifted away. I shifted from working in the classroom to a role that was supposed to be about providing support for teachers, so this is something I've had a lot of conversations with a lot of educators about. I think many of us *have* internalized that understanding; our difficulty isn't in buying into it, but in actually doing it. Because it doesn't just feel like more is always needed; more *is* always needed because more is being required. I also want to push back a little on the idea of teaching as a passion job. For many of us, it is not a passion. We care about our jobs and students, but it is not a passion. We want to do good work that we can feel morally good about and receive compensation that allows us to take care of our own needs and live a healthy life. I think the idea that it is a passion (or a calling) is a thing that is used to excuse the unreasonableness of what we ask for from educators (and, especially during high pandemic, healthcare workers, and others). I am so concerned about my younger colleagues--and by extension, the quality of public education--because what we're asking of them isn't sustainable. The job was challenging when I started 33 years ago, but it was nothing like today. I stuck with it as long as I did because it mostly met my needs and I had the promise of a secure retirement. That's rarely the case now. (Sorry if I'm preaching to the choir or rambling. I have some feelings! And lots of thoughts!)
It feels so cruel that we live in a society where it can be impossible to have the space to care for yourself within a vital societal role like teaching. Cruel that if you walk away to protect yourself, you personally know the children who will be impacted. It is incredibly unfair. I'm sorry how hard it was for you, Rita, your colleagues, and teachers everywhere. I'm sorry for all of us! I do hope we're reaching some kind of breaking point in terms of underfunding public education - too many of us are aware of how difficult it's been for teachers, and it does seem more top-of-mind in the general news, at least.
Thank you for these words. I'm sorry for all of us, too.
I feel this deeply. It isn’t just that we imagine that more is needed. When you know kids don’t have enough food at home, when you’re part of a team that’s trying to keep a queer kid from being kicked out of their home or running away or worse, when a student who is old enough to enter the workforce is considering joining a gang instead because they can’t read... more *is* required. Being a teacher is not just about having a hard line of work. It’s about being a witness to all the work that others in our society are not doing to create a world in which kids can thrive, and not having the choice to look away. When you can’t look away and no one else is coming to solve the problem... it’s very hard to rest at all, much less rest easily, even when you desperately need to.
Ooh, boy, do I hear all of this! You've articulated exactly what makes this job both so burnout-prone, but also what makes it so hard to disentangle from. In a high-poverty school district, there's an implication that teachers *are* the social safety net for their students. We're the entities that provide physical safety, emotional well-being, and future financial security for the kids. The solution seems pretty simple--a massive investment in public schools to provide more support for kids in the form of additional staff (social workers, psychologists, post-secondary coaches, after-school care, etc.). Simple but not easy, as they say.
At my school, we're going through some uncomfortable changes around boundaries. Staff are much less interested in running after-school/weekend programs and asking to be paid for that time. Admin is pissed that they now have to budget for, say, paid tutoring time after school or staffing at a weekend basketball tournament. (One vice principal called teachers "greedy" at a recent board meeting.) I feel conflicted: I was raised by parents who raised the money for new playground equipment and then *literally* built it themselves with a few other parents. They believed that service to the school is public service, but...when it's also your job, it gets (like you said) complicated!
Yes, to all of of this. (I also worked in a high-poverty district.) For years, I told myself that the extra time I gave was my public service, my contribution to the greater good--so it was OK that I didn't do anything else along those lines. But, it didn't really work. Too much of one things was...too much, ya know? (I know you know.)
I think we have to (collectively, as a society) recognize that this work (which is so vital) needs baked in periods of downtime. And I don't just mean evenings and weekends (which, as you say, are not always possible) but actual sabbaticals where a person's whole job is rest, and time to think, and time to learn whatever they want or need to in their own time. Sabbaticals are such a niche thing right now, and they need to be mainstream.
"except for breaks that didn't so much restore me as let me know how damaging all the other weeks of the year were"... In my second year as an educator I am having a ton of painful realizations and that line summed a few things up for me so perfectly.
The first few years are so challenging! Some things do get easier/better as your skills grow and you develop resources that you can use again. I hope you are able to find ways to be ok in it.
I'm a teacher too and I always think about this during conversations about burnout.
I'm so sorry about all the difficulty you faced towards the end of your career. I have friends in the profession, have tried to support them as they do donation drives to stock their classrooms, even over the last 10-15 years seen second-hand a whole host of changes. I know that burnout is precisely higher in those caring professions, like teaching and healthcare for the reason that you mentioned--it's hard to step away when you know there are people who need you. I can only hope that something changes and the more support is given to those in the teaching profession.
For me, work burnout has never not been autistic burnout.
Running a freelancery where I frequently accidentally worked 60 hour weeks for years on end never burned me out. Not in 15 years.
However, I've never managed a long term job without imploding into burnout. Looking back, I realized most of the flames feeding my burnout were accessibility issues. An open office layout where I was constantly observed. Meetings where I kept blurting out "the quiet part" (memorably, once gasping "so we're LYING to our client!?" in naive dismay). Meetings that I was asked to stop drawing through, at which point I ceased to be able to follow or remember the meeting. Constant interruptions disturbing flow state. Getting in trouble for using the bathroom too much (many autistic people have gastro issues and touchy bladders). Going into shutdown on business trips (with shared hotel rooms) where I was required to be "on" 24 hours a day. Getting in trouble for doing the work so efficiently I didn't "prove myself" by staying late. Getting in trouble for doing the work instead of chatting up the team. Just always in trouble despite delivering award-winning work, and never really understanding why. Just being around people and their confusing expectations all day tanked me like none other.
The thing that kills me is, I'm doing the same role as a freelancer...but people love me. They're so happy with the work, when it's just about the work. When I don't need to try to be neurotypical. All the hyperfocus and loyalty and tenacity that comes with autism are suddenly strengths in the right context.
I wish more employers could learn to harness them.
And I wish we had a tax code (and healthcare system) that was set up to support and reward freelancers — because all of what you say is so true!
Yes! It would actually make a great column or article...how despite the gig economy being a good chunk of the workforce...MOST gov't + support systems have no idea how to treat us. Currently feeing that as I'm supposed to guess my 2024 income to figure out my health insurance? Why can't we just square up at tax time when we actually KNOW!?
as someone who recently made the move from salaried to self employment and has been loving it (because it turns out my brain is actually not broken and it really is just impossible to do anything in an under resourced role with constant interruptions and fires to put out at my old job) I would love for Culture Study to have a topic/discussion thread/feature on self employment!
I think of outside interests as “avocations.” The official definition is “subordinate to vocation” meaning what you do for a living. Hobbies are fun; avocations have a little more heft to them. For instance, my father was deeply involved in launching and then running our church when I was small. Definitely not a hobby.
AVOCATIONS. Thank you for the gift of (remembering) this word, Michelle.
You’re welcome!
I want to reclaim the word “amateur.” The root of amateur is amor, which means love. It’s something you do for love instead of money.
I don't think I knew that! "Amator" / "amatore" being lovers of the subject. That is such a beautiful root to something with such a negative connotation now.
Yes! The word ‘avocation’ gives so much gravitas and heft to our chosen passions/how we spend our time.
It's so interesting, I didn't know this word so I translated it to French, my native language, and it just says it means: past-time, hobby, leisure! It doesn't translate that connotation at all
In French, it could be passé-temps (to pass the time). Metier might be another option, but I think of metier more as a specialty rather than a sideline. Fun with language!
Métier would be your occupation, but that's only for your work, we wouldn't use it for a fun activity! But yes, passe-temps is very different because it feels almost dismissive to me compared to "avocation"!
The point on raising kids as a counterbalance to burnout is interesting to me. In my (albeit limited) experience, some
People just transfer the burnout mindset to raising their kids. I say that with as little judgment as possible, because I find myself there too when I’m deep in burnout mode.
Oh *absolutely.* Like, what is intensive parenting if not a burnout factory????
Yup. Largely driven by the same economic/everything insecurity, I would guess. If I have to work all the time in a pressure cooker job environment, I want better for my kids but the only way I can imagine getting there is being so privileged they can opt out of the system. Snowball snowball snowball.
Came here to say this. I’m a full-time parent burning myself out on school volunteer commitments. When education budgets get gutted, the people who take on the fundraising load are unpaid parents, usually mothers.
I interpret that line of thinking as “having kids gives you something that makes work less of a priority” and perhaps avoids burnout from work. I was at a 40th birthday this weekend and many of us were saying we are staying in our (flexible but not so inspiring jobs) because it’s a time in life we are less focused on our careers. But agree burnout can just manifest in another areas of parenting/life.
I can deeply relate to kids as a counterbalance to burnout in my career. I went into the pandemic 5 weeks pregnant, with a 16 month old, and a job that had me traveling 3 of 4 weeks each month. I remember doing bedtime one night in the first month of the pandemic and thinking “wow, I really don’t want to miss this ever again”. I did change jobs (no more travel) and cities (near family). I had originally thought this time would just be a career “pause” of sorts. As time passes and I invest my energy in therapy and community, I’m really not sure that I’ll go off the career “pause”, which has not really been a pause at all - I’m still working really hard and I’m good at it! But my mental shift is slowly turning towards accepting that career will likely never again be priority number one, and I’m starting to love my comfort in accepting that!
I felt a huge surge of frustration reading this because I WANT SO BADLY to be living the life you describe, but it just keeps feeling out of reach. Between ever more complex caregiving duties, and a financial position that continues to feel precarious, I keep looking for, and not finding, the space to ease up a little and stop hustling. Instead, I'm still where I have been for the past several years: working a full-time job, selling clothes online to make some extra money, AND trying to carve out space to write (although I have completely stopped pitching stories or working on my book proposal, even though I could badly use the money that would bring in). Every other conversation in my house is about how we could save a little more money, or cut our spending, or do something more cheaply or efficiently. Burnout feels so much harder to escape when expenses exceed income!
I wish I had a better answer than "this is so hard, and I have absolutely been there," because that doesn't make it better. I think it's particularly hard when you have kids and their needs/costs are just not negotiable — it's one thing for us adults to make do with the clothes we have, for example, but kids need MORE CLOTHES and BACKPACKS, etc. etc. etc. The only thing that worked for me (and for some others that I know) was ultimately getting a new job (or their partners getting a new job) that paid enough (more) to ease the tension of, well, everything. But that is a huge ask and for so many reasons not always on the table. Sending you strength and empathy no matter what.
Loved this. Just came here to say that AHP’s productivity astounds me. Every piece is so deeply considered. Sometimes I even get mildly stressed when CS newsletters pile up in my inbox unread. I feel like, “eek I can’t keep up but I don’t want to miss out!” All this to say that even if newsletter content/pace decreased by HALF, it would STILL be one of the most engaging and valuable things I pay for. So if you decide to run a dahlia farm and publish here half as often, I would enthusiastically support it and still give you my $.
I really distinguish between writing that feels like work and writing that feels like processing (and thus not the same sort of work) — this is the latter! I'm grateful for these comments sections where I can poke and prod and expand my own thinking, too.
Just came here to say this same thing - my inbox is VERY backed up with things like this that I want to read, but can't seem to find (make) time for lately. Trying to give myself grace and not let it stress me out, but I'm such an inbox zero person that it's tough. And I NEVER regret taking the time to read and engage with this content, yet somehow my brain tricks me into putting it off all too often. Not sure where I'm going with this comment. Mostly wanted to say ME TOO! 😂
I’m addicted to work and the internet, and these addictions exacerbate one another. After work, I feel like I have no energy to do anything. With the internet, you don’t have to do anything, you can just be on it.
For me, it’s been a black hole, taking not just my time and attention but also my ability to direct and sustain my attention. The outcome is feeling like outside of work, all I have is the internet, and outside of the internet, all I have is work. (I also have a partner and friends, but I expend so much time and energy on work and the internet that I’m losing my humanity. I feel more like an instrument.)
I have the feeling that most people are addicted to the internet, and it gets in the way of developing a rich life outside of work—and a rich life inside yourself (inferiority)—but I also feel that people don’t talk about it as much as I would expect, making me feel alone.
I just submitted my notice of resignation (I work in higher ed), my last day being December 31st. I’m gonna start the New Year anew. More than anything, I want to rest, recover, reflect, and discover who I am and what I want (and want to want). I wanna give myself a chance.
I once heard someone say that if you only have energy after work to watch TV, work is taking too much from you. I see TV and internet as coping mechanisms, a chance to “turn off”, but also a signal that if I have to turn off, that I’m “on” in too many other areas of my life.
I resonate with all of this. I just have nothing left to give after work, and the internet demands nothing but half-hearted attention.
I meant “interiority”
I was diagnosed with ADHD this year at age 33, and so many things about work history made sense in hindsight. I was expending so much mental effort to “stay on top of things,” and then let that go when I worked with a great therapist and read Dr. Kristin Neff’s book SELF-COMPASSION.
Still working on cultivating meaningful hobbies, because even now that I’m taking medication, feeding myself and maintaining a somewhat tidy house feels like it takes up a lot of my spare time after work.
This essay really resonated with me and I could say so much! I'm currently in my Year of Unfucking My Burnout, as I've been calling it. Teaching online for a year and a half of the pandemic, and then the ricochet of going back in person, redoing a whole curriculum AGAIN, the pressure of combating learning loss, plus a handful of intense family traumas/griefs, wrecked me. I had all the classic signs of burnout last spring and over the summer, especially finding zero joy in any actual accomplishments.
My process of healing burnout has been, as I've been telling people, frustratingly simple. Teach less (one class instead of 3). Write more (I'm working on my first novel and journalling all the time). Exercise and be outside (I'm taking horseback riding lessons again after twenty years away! and using extra time in my schedule to bike commute more). Totally a huge privilege to be able to do all of the above. But I definitely noticed how those external changes only make containers within which I have to make personal changes. The challenges don't stop once those containers are made. For example, I didn't automatically sit down at my writing desk on Day 1 of the Burnout Healing Semester and work on my novel for hours; I first spent quite a few weeks (months?!) watching TV and dicking around on Instagram. Which, I know, rest takes all sorts of forms, etc. But I did have to consciously think about this as a new phase of life, not just a rest period from which I'll bounce back more ready to work than ever -- which is how we often conceive of rest.
What's cool is that just now, about 2+ months into this experiment, I am seeing those changes. This last week I happily sat down to my writing desk, almost every day, 1-2 hours. (There's also something here about not applying the standards of burnout work to our other arts/vocations -- like, I could smash about curriculum development for hours and teach 3 classes in one day from 8am-8pm, but no, I probably can't write my novel that way. And why should I want to?)
I've also had to reckon with how much I'm a yes-man when it comes to opportunities that float my way, and I've had to act like someone I hate to be: someone who renegs on promises! I recently had to do that in a big way. A colleague offered me the opportunity to teach a class that he usually teaches. I accepted it automatically, as the old me would have done, and it was only once the dean approved me for it that I realized what I had done to myself. I checked in with my accountability buddies, and then had to tell the dean, and my colleague who thought he was doing me a big kind favor, "Actually, no thank you." That felt absolutely terrible to do (my colleague, having his own feelings about it, used the phrase "left in the lurch") but also what I needed to do to maintain my own boundaries around burnout. That's a real deep unlearning process that I think I'll always need to be on the lookout for.
actual lol at UnFucking My Burnout, I love it.
That's my experience — that I need to stay on the lookout — and I'm considered an expert on burnout. Culture is a loud voice in our ears and we live in a culture of overwork.
Teaching is nothing but a burnout factory
I am not in a burnout space right now (though my wife is and I’ve forwarded this essay to her), but I am facing the question of filling time when child free, in particular, now that I am sober. Sobriety opens up so much time! Garden Study, Ross Gay, and Robin Wall Kimmerer have pushed me over the edge and I’m officially a wannabe gardener who is going to spend the winter reading books about vegetables and flowers. We are staking the ground for a raised bed design today.
<3 <3 <3
Before 2019 I was your classic over achiever with an impetus to prove my worth through what I could produce, in the climate movement specifically. Then I was hit by a truck on my bike and almost killed. There aren't many silver linings to having your life thrown off course and being permanently disabled by a negligent driver, but one of them might be, that the sense I must produce to earn my place on this earth and to pay penance for having privilege.... is gone. Sheathed like a cloak.
"I didn’t have anything better to do with the hours I’d regain" resonates and is a similarly embarrassing truth for me. I worried a lot about my screen time and my work time -- sometimes feeling like I preferred working because it was better than Twitter. Ultimately, the only thing that worked was introducing new activities that were good enough to compete with Twitter. Then, it felt surprisingly natural to use my phone less and work less. But it took a real investment in developing hobbies (and their required skills), making lists of books to read, finding different games for different moods, etc. It's really paid off.
Oof, I am working on this... as of yesterday, when I listened to this podcast interview with Safiya Noble. https://www.npr.org/2023/11/08/1197954253/code-switch-draft-11-08-2023 The second half turns into a discussion of the ways in which endless doomscrolling is essentially playing right into capitalism's hands. Which I knew, but something about how Noble articulated it really resonated. I suspect reframing my search-for-non-scrolling-things-to-do as an investment could really help.
Earlier in the week, for instance, I watched The Deer Hunter in all its 1970s glory, and I intentionally did it *without a second screen*. That meant I waited until afterwards to google the stuff I was curious about (no, those hunting scenes were definitely not shot in Pennsylvania), so I didn't just drift away into my phone without meaning to. It was a really great experience to just focus on one thing (and my cuddly dog)--perhaps especially to do so at the 1970s pace of filmmaking.
Anyway, this ramble is just to say -- I appreciate your example and am working on following suit!
Different games for different moods! Yes!
Yes, yes! I appreciate you adding this to the discussion about burnout, as well as hearing other people's stories here in the comments. My story is similar: raised by two parents who both clawed their way up class echelon (i.e. overworking) and, absent a faith practice, were devoted to community service through the public school (i.e. my mom's job, my parents' off-hours fundraising, school board positions, etc.) The result: I have spent the last 18 years overworking in my public teaching job in an inner-city high school! The conditions of the work absolutely have fostered burnout--even before the pandemic, the paradigm for the job was "*good* teachers will go the extra mile if they *really* care..." And I did care! I love my job, too! And though I did not love working 12 hours a day, I simply didn't know how to do my job any other way.
Like others... the pandemic was a big wake-up call! I lost a parent 6 weeks before the pandemic hit, so it was a real one-two punch of existential questioning. But after we returned to a degree of normalcy, my job felt more stressful than it ever had before. I had already started dreaming of an exit plan, but when I developed an stress-induced autoimmune disorder and my hair all started falling out (fun!) in February, I got serious about it. We hired a financial planner, maxed out our retirement contributions, and put a 4-year exit plan into place. Even now, my sense of obligation towards work is completely different. I just....don't care like I used to. I still put in hours outside of the school day--I truly don't think it's possible to not in this profession--but it's on my terms, and it's limited.
When I was in my 20s, I used to jokingly tell friends I wanted to retire from teaching at 45 to work in a yarn store and be a screenwriter (despite the fact that I had no experience doing that?). Guess the joke's on me, because that now seems to be the plan. Not to be trite, but what DO I want to do with my one wild and precious life?