It doesn't sound like burnout as much as a bad fit.
Go work for a good manager.
Ask HN: How to deal with burnout and its consequences?
101–110 of 232 posts
Re: Ask HN: How to deal with burnout and its consequences?
#102> I can survive 4-6 months with no salary
In my experience, how long runway is is not the point. Or, it's not "runway of money", it's a "runway of your soul". Your soul will be eaten alive before running out of money. I hope you will be fine soon.
Re: Ask HN: How to deal with burnout and its consequences?
#103Re: Ask HN: How to deal with burnout and its consequences?
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a government thing, my workplace had no say in the matter as long as my GP said I needed it.
Even if your employer 'had no say in the matter', it is still generous. Somebody had to pay for that medical leave whether it came out of the profits of the company you work for, their insurance company (which leads to higher premiums for everyone), or came out of the taxpayer's pocket. It sounds like you could benefit from a completely different environment. If you can't find any joy working in your chosen field, it…
I don't consider it generous, it's a basic right of workers that anyone in my country is entitled to should they need it. It's part of the social safety net and every worker pays into it should they need it.
I felt extremely guilty having to use it myself and beat myself up for it so much early on, but in the end it was the right thing to do.
> If you can't find any joy working in your chosen field, it might be time to explore a completely different field. Many people have switched careers because of this.
I agree.
Re: Ask HN: How to deal with burnout and its consequences?
#105>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…
My experience is that despite everyone involved in the process -including myself - being totally convinced I have ADHD, I have still had to advocate for myself every step of the way.
And that really sucked.
But it was worth it.
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Whether or not you do have ADHD, the most important thing to know about is executive dysfunction.
ADHD isn't people who can't pay attention: it's people who can't choose where their attention goes. ADHD isn't hyperactivity, it's a vacuum of understimulation that - for some - is most easily filled with activity. For others, that void is filled with mental/introverted activity.
Re: Ask HN: How to deal with burnout and its consequences?
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd think hard and long before taking medications (personally, I already have, and decided not to). Psychologists have a tendency to overprescribe drugs and you have no idea how that will screw up who you are and what you think. Even if you don't have to pay for those drugs thanks to some healtcare insurance (whether public or private), some money will still flow towards the maker of drugs and that means they have an…
Psychologists don't prescribe drugs.
Not necessarily true - several states allow clinical psychologists to prescribe now.
Re: Ask HN: How to deal with burnout and its consequences?
#107The reality is that deep down in your soul, this is not something that you really want to be doing with your life. Unfortunately in modern society, we have to trade our time and focus, staring at a piece of glass all day, just so we can survive. It’s absolutely insane if you think about it. I’d bet that most ADHD, depression, anxiety is caused because we see no end in sight working on these meaningless tasks. My advi…
> The reality is that deep down in your soul, this is not something that you really want to be doing with your life
You're not wrong. I only went into this line of work because I was naturally good at it. It seemed like I was just naturally destined to do this with my life.
Re: Ask HN: How to deal with burnout and its consequences?
#108Hey man, sounds like you are depressed. But you can get through this, you're gonna have to break things down into very small steps and take breaks in between what you do. First, make sure you eat well, take some B vitamins and fish oil. Also stop drinking if you drink. If you can get out for a nice walk in the fresh air do that too.
After that, find a cognitive behavioral therapy service. Get a referral from your GP. If you are interested in self-help there's the Let's Talk about CBT by the British CBT association: www.babcp.com . That gives you a good overview of what to expect.
Try this episode: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/cbt-for-depression/id1...
You're going to have to go deep and explain the working experience and why it was bad. Think about it in the 3rd person. Write a journal about the experience etc... Putting things in writing helps us make sense of things.
It could be the job is shit and the corporate environment is shit. You could be surrounded by assholes. There are other jobs out there.
Re: Ask HN: How to deal with burnout and its consequences?
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
bootstrapped saas / apple ecosystem apps in niches i'm familiar with. mostly passive recurring revenue (most of my time spent goes into r&d, i chose architectures to minimize ongoing operational needs). i bootstrapped to avoid "working for" investors. and on some projects where i'm working with others, we've formed anarchist coop-like structures to avoid hypocritically subjecting others to the hierarchies i escaped.…
Leaving the ratrace to start a bootstrapped SaaS worked good for the first 5 years. Now into year 6 of bootstrapping a SaaS.. I am in the same exact boat as OP. And I can't take time off, at least not enough time off to "fix" the burnout.
It's painful. I didn't realize selling apps is very less of building software. Sure market is important, but it's even less than "changing our type of person". If self-promotion or narcissism is not our type, we are doomed.
Re: Ask HN: How to deal with burnout and its consequences?
#110>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…
For what it's worth, I had a situation similar to yours about a year ago. I was diagnosed with ADHD about 2.5 years ago. The problems I was having were not all specific to my ADHD, but all my problems at work were because the environment didn't allow me to have my condition and trying to mask it just lead to an insane amount of stress. On top of that, anything I did to try and correct the situation was met with complete resistence, leading to more stress and eventually my break down.