• Do you have difficulty identifying burnout?
  • Do you have difficulty identifying when you’ve recovered?
  • How do you decide when to go back to work?

Sorry, no answers here. I was asking you…

I’m off sick from work, because I’m burnt out, and because I know what can often occur when I am burnt out (losing temper, upsetting people, getting really frustrated with people and it getting perceived as aggression).

I didn’t feel burnt out, but evidence was mounting and I had a hunch that I might be. And then I reacted kind of badly to something, and I knew “hey, I’m burnt out!”. The first two days off sick involved lots of sleeping, and not being able to begin menial tasks at home.

I started to feel a lot better yesterday - I say “feel”, but I don’t really feel it; my physical being does something or does not do something, and then I observe that it has or has not done something. I was back to doing things like housework and hobbies, and could hold a conversation with my mum on the phone without being to braindead to talk. I must be feeling better…

I started work this morning (from home today, just by luck of the schedule), and a few hours in it was clear to me that I shouldn’t be back yet. On reflection, it probably hasn’t really been enough time to recover, but:

  1. I experience guilt that I’m just bunking off work because I don’t feel like it today while I’m off
  2. Each day I’m off, I’m going to have to catch up on that work, which might be stressful, so I begin to get stressed that I might get stressed in the future
  3. I don’t feel much in myself, it all just feels very much the same - burnt out and normal. Introspection isn’t something I do well and I need to see the effects of what’s happening inside me to know what’s happening inside me.

I’m hoping others can share thoughts and experiences that might help me. Also, it’s just nice to dump my thoughts at times like this and see that I’m not on my own in some of my experiences.

Oh, and finally: a positive I have taken away from the experience is that I seem to be getting better at preempting my burnouts, as I had the hunch it was coming before it came.