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Ask HN: How to deal with burnout and its consequences?

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Re: Ask HN: How to deal with burnout and its consequences?

#11

Post by omginternets »

>During my time off I've been poked and prodded by psychologists and they seem to think I have ADHD and that it was a large contributing factor to this, though I'm not completely sure I buy this explanation.

I think you should give this idea more thought. The situation you find yourself in is not uncommon among high-functioning ADHD persons, and your life can truly get a whole lot better with a bit of therapy and medication.

While you're at it, you can use the therapy as an opportunity to probe why your job was such a bad fit, why you ended up in it, and how you can recognize and avoid such work environments in the future.

It may be a good idea to leave your current job, as others have suggested, but I think it would be quite dangerous for you to do this without also exploring the above more forthrightly. My advice, as someone who has dealt with a similar burden: don't overthink this. Just go to your GP, tell them you are suffering, and tell them you would like to investigate ADHD therapy. Approach this with a calm curiosity. You are in control.

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with burnout and its consequences?

#14

Post by aaronyarborough »

MrMan wrote: post #3

this happened to me 10 years ago and there is basically no way back

But what are you doing now? Do you have a job, and if so, is it in the same industry? Did a complete career change help you find something you can work on/care about again?

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with burnout and its consequences?

#15

Post by ThrowAway1922A »

monk_e_boy wrote: post #4

A different job? Go travelling for a while? Travelling is a lot of fun and makes you realize that life is short and that you should make the most of it. I changed careers and found the change fun. I may go back to coding at some point, I kinda miss the that deep thinking it requires .... but I can do that in my spare time if I really need to. Or, if you need the money, just phone it in for a while.

I am actively applying to jobs, but of course that takes time. I actually had an offer signed, but the employer reneged on it last night which really, really sucks because it was exactly what I think I needed.

In terms of career change, I'm not sure that's possible without moving. I live very rural, there's almost no jobs here that aren't retail. If I stay here I'm basically forced to continue remote dev work. I actually want to move, but I don't think I'm in a good position to take such a risk.

> Or, if you need the money, just phone it in for a while.

One way or another I'm going to draw it out as long as possible, I basically don't have a choice.

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with burnout and its consequences?

#17

Post by ThrowAway1922A »

omginternets wrote: post #11

>During my time off I've been poked and prodded by psychologists and they seem to think I have ADHD and that it was a large contributing factor to this, though I'm not completely sure I buy this explanation. I think you should give this idea more thought. The situation you find yourself in is not uncommon among high-functioning ADHD persons, and your life can truly get a whole lot better with a bit of therapy and med…

I mean if they want to try and medicate me I'm not going to say no at this point, regardless of my personal views on the diagnosis. I've reached a point where I don't think any additional harm would be caused by doing so.

I'm going to find out in ~2 weeks at my next meeting whether they want to try medicine or not and I will just do whatever they tell me to do. I mean I'm not a psychologist, I'm paying them for their expertise on this and it would be foolish for me not to take their advice.

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with burnout and its consequences?

#18

Post by ryangittins »

A lot of people say they left a job too late. Not many say they left one too early.

I think you know that you are still in the midst of burnout. If you can go a few months without a job and be okay, my suggestion would be to quit immediately and start looking for a new job in your own time. You need time to decompress followed by a complete change of environment. Recovery is not going to happen in this environment.

Feel free to contact me if you want to chat about your experiences. I went through something similar last year.

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with burnout and its consequences?

#19

Post by Overtonwindow »

Rather than ADHD, have you considered severe anxiety? I had a serious problem of not being able to start and complete basic tasks because I was so filled with anxiety about, well everything, that I was self-defeating.

What so you do instead of completing tasks? Is it just a wall preventing you from completing tasks, or do you get distracted by other things?

I have ADHD and it’s been a lifelong struggle, however, as I’ve gotten older I found that it had a lot more to do with anxiety than the inability to focus. I was so wrapped up in failure, impostor syndrome, worried I wouldn’t be able to do some thing, worried that if I did a good job people expect more of me, etc. etc.

It doesn’t sound like burn out, it sounds like anxiety

Re: Ask HN: How to deal with burnout and its consequences?

#20

Post by henpa »

Hello! I've recently discovered about this guy named Dr. Andrew Huberman. He is "a neuroscientist and tenured professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine". I've found that his videos super helped me with my lack of motivation issues. He has videos about every possible topic which I believe should help anyone trying to get better.

His youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/AndrewHubermanLab His website: https://hubermanlab.com/

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