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Ask HN: Burned Out. What Now?
271–277 of 277 posts
Re: Ask HN: Burned Out. What Now?
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Re: Ask HN: Burned Out. What Now?
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Re: Ask HN: Burned Out. What Now?
#274- I didn't tell my team because I didn't have the energy to. They called me and asked what's wrong. Then I took 3 months off. Then got back with 25% basically staring at a screen doing nothing then walk home. I did this for another month. - Summer came. - I started therapy and joined a group that helped me understand my behaviour of perfectionism etc. Most helpful 12 week programme. - I played video games to offload…
Can you provide details about the 12 week programme that you mentioned? What kind of a program is it?
CBT - cognition based therapy. You can search for burnout + cbt therapy e.g.
Depending on symptoms the program can be longer.
Re: Ask HN: Burned Out. What Now?
#275Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did you consider medical leave instead of LOA? Medical leave should be paid at some capacity.
I took a medical LOA. Who... did not pay out. I'm glad I'm in Washington State in the USA, they gave medical leave pay, as opposed to the STD and LTD insurance I assumed would actually help.
Can you explain? The insurance didn't pay you anything during your medical leave?
Re: Ask HN: Burned Out. What Now?
#276The bad news is it’s going to take a long time to heal. The good news is you can come back happier than you can imagine. In an ideal scenario you would quit working entirely to focus on your health, but I’m guessing this is not an option. You need to focus on the body first. The most important is sleep, but that is also difficult to address directly, so it’s best to focus on diet and exercise. You’ll likely have to d…
> psychedelics (fast but more risk)
Do you have any pointers or experience to expand on that point? How to go about it specifically so that it helps move towards a solution? What about combining it with psychotherapy?
Re: Ask HN: Burned Out. What Now?
#277In the first semester of COVID my mind crashed. I could not balance between job and time with my family, my wife had lost her job the week before COVID and the real state into which I had invested before COVID was idle. All this had happened after taking a promotion in a different city in Germany. The ambitious thriving younger me turned to someone full of dispair and self blame in few months. Those harmful feelings drag me into a depression that lasted around 5 months. I told my boss, but I did not take leave. I took running 3x week as mandatory habit, found a long term tenant for my Airbnb apartment, and set a mid-term goal with my wife: moving to Berlin. That boosted me for the first semester 2021. We moved to Berlin in July, found a nice school for my 2yo daughter, and my wife changed her career from Graphic Designer to Software Developer. However, after all those changes, my mind crashed again. Depression tends to come back and I still lacked of proper self-awareness.
I started to broaden my reading topics: psycology and neuroscience to understand my behavior; philosophy to improve my thinking; and physics to make my environment more relative. Besides, I engaged into long term therapy.
I have learnt to understand myself better, to lower my ambitions, and most of all, to prioritize my family. Besides, I decided not to make my free time productive: just reading, going to cinema, and taking walks out. That has reduced my anxiety and I have hope that soon I could be a more sustainable professional with more settled ambitions. I am thankful I did not lose my job and my family.
Everyone has different needs. I just wanted to share my experience