It’s 6:45 am, Christmas morning 2018. I’m finishing up my 12 hour night shift at an ICU I had been working at for about a year. The charge nurse came around to get a final report for how my patient was doing and to get any info that would be helpful for the day-shift team to know.
Before I could even start talking she said “Wow, you don’t look well. Go home and get some sleep. I’ll mark you down as sick for your next few shifts. I hope you feel better.”
The next hour was a blur of me giving report to the day-nurse coming on shift, me changing out of my scrubs and back into street clothes, somehow walking to the train and getting home to say Merry Christmas to my husband of three months before crawling into bed for what I thought would be my usual 5 hour sleep after a night shift.
But I slept for 20 hours.
Then I slept for 20 hours the day after that. And the day after that.
I went to the walk-in clinic down the street to get tested for what I thought was a flare up of mononucleosis, but I was sorely mistaken.
The clinic doctor walked into the room and said “How long has that lump been there on your neck?”
I said “what now?”
Fast forward a few months of me feeling like absolute trash, unable to work due to crippling fatigue, always feeling like I had the flu, nausea, inability to tolerate nearly any kind of food, dizziness, headaches, and the most peculiar feeling that I now know to be brain fog. I had met with multiple specialists, had a bunch of different tests and turns out I had a 4.5 cm lump on my thyroid.
I called it Bob.
Things like thyroid masses are a lot less scary when you give it name.
On the day of my surgery to serve Bob his eviction notice (aka to get my thyroid mass cut out) I remember the surgery being delayed. I was starting to get worried about my partner because he’ll be the first to admit that he gets a little hangry sometimes. So I was telling him to please go and get something to eat – but he wanted to stay with me.
The anesthesiologist came out to talk with me and it was wild to hear the questions from this side of the hospital bed. Usually I’m the one standing in scrubs holding the paperwork and answering any questions the patient might have after the doctor left.
But not this time.
As I walked into the operating room it felt uncomfortably familiar, yet harrowing to know that the bed in the center of the room was for me. The oxygen mask applied for pre-ventilation to make my intubation safe. The midazolam and propofol going into my IV and then … nothing.
I hear the alarm bells going on a vital signs monitor beside me and I hear someone say “take a deep breath, hon.” I struggle to open my eyes and realize that she’s talking to me. Waking up from anesthetic is awful for me. I felt like I was on a boat in the high seas, with anchors tied to my eyelids. I couldn’t keep them open.
My partner comes back into the recovery room and looks white as a sheet, but I didn’t know why. Not yet.
I knew the drill. I had to get out of bed and walk to the bathroom before they’d let me go home.
And I so desperately wanted to go home. It was so noisy in the recovery room. So busy. I just wanted to be somewhere quiet where I could close my eyes and make the world stop moving.
I slowly made my way over there, went pee, and was walking up to the sink to wash my hands when I saw it.
The thing that had made my partner go white.
The 4 inch incision horizontally across my neck. A little bloody. Lots of betadine and iodine to clean it. And not a stitch in sight – this surgeon was highly skilled with their internal, dissolvable stitches.
My hope that all of my symptoms that came on literally overnight would go away with Bob.
But as I healed from the surgery and the incision turned into a scar – nothing changed. I am grateful that Bob was gone. But it hurt that he didn’t take these other symptoms with him.
Another six months went by with more tests, more doctors, a scary migraine that presented as a stroke, and I was finally given a diagnosis.
Myalgic Encephalomyelitis.
It hit me so hard. I went through all of the stages of grief, denial, bargaining, anger, it was ugly.
I tried so many different treatments, went through so many different programs, and nothing worked. Nothing got rid of the fatigue, dizziness, aches, flu feeling, brain fog.
I couldn’t work as an ICU nurse. I could barely keep up with the tasks for my simple stress management business.
I could barely move for more than three hours a day without crashing for the next couple of days.
I didn’t know who I was anymore.
I didn’t know what I was capable of doing anymore.
I didn’t know what my life and the life of my new husband was going to look like anymore.
I didn’t feel like I was a valuable human anymore.
But it was in this dark space that I started to find my Self. My true capital ‘s’ Self.
Like so many high achievers, I had equated my worth as a human with what I could accomplish. I did this without even realizing it until I was diagnosed and became aware of my permanent disability. My identity was tied up in: my career, how others perceived me, how many people I could help, my ability to make other people happy, or how quickly I could learn and master something new.
For a while, it felt like I couldn’t do any of those things any more. So what’s the point? If I wasn’t able to contribute as a valuable member of society, why was I still around?
I felt like a burden – something I still struggle with on occasion.
But then I started to do the work. I started to redefine who I was and what I was capable of.
I chose a new name – Avery – and let Heather and the life she had planned go. I grieved her, but found a way to move forward.
I wasn’t going to let this illness win. It wasn’t going to define me.
But it did have to become a part of who I am.
So, like I said before, things like this are less daunting when you name them, so I call her Emmy. M.E. Myalgic Encephalomyelitis? Get it?
Emmy and I have come to an understanding over the years, and she’s taught me a lot of things.
One of which is the emotional destruction that follows when your identity is tied up in your work and you can no longer do what you felt you were once called to do.
This.
This is what I want to talk about today.
Looking back, because hindsight’s a jerk, I can now see all the red flag warning signs of burnout that I missed. But my epic burnout experience is your gain because I’ve learned the main identities and personality traits that lead to burnout and my friend, I had all of them.
Another hindsight as a jerk moment is looking back and seeing that the majority of these traits were in the sabotaging side of things, rather than serving me. Shoot.
So I give these traits to you here to help you also maybe see some of those red flag warning signs before burnout hits you as hard as it hit me.
Identity Traits that Can Lead to Burnout
When I tell you that I identify with this whole list, I mean every single word of it. If you’re going through this list too and feeling like you’re checking off all the boxes – this is your sign that you need to be extra careful to prevent burnout from knocking at your door.
- Perfectionism: A tendency to set exceedingly high standards for oneself.
- Workaholism: Placing excessive focus on work to the detriment of personal well-being.
- High Achiever: Constantly striving for success and recognition.
- People Pleaser: Difficulty saying no and prioritizing others’ needs over one’s own.
- Type A Personality: Characterized by competitiveness, impatience, and a strong drive for achievement.
- Over-identification with Career: Tying self-worth closely to professional success.
- Identity as a Caregiver: Taking on roles that involve caring for others, leading to neglect of self-care.
- Identity as a Provider: Feeling responsible for providing for others financially.
- Strong Sense of Responsibility: Feeling personally accountable for outcomes beyond one’s control.
- Fear of Failure: Aversion to making mistakes or not meeting expectations.
- Work-Life Imbalance: Blurred boundaries between work and personal life, prioritizing work excessively.
- High Sensitivity: Being deeply affected by external stressors and emotional experiences.
Feeling a little called out?
Me too.
Like I do with all of my guests here on the Truth About Burnout, I always ask them what turned the corner for them? What helped them get out of burnout?
For me?
It was a couple things:
- Becoming Avery and letting Heather go
- The conclusion that burnout isn’t a stress management problem so much as it’s an energy management problem
- Redefining what being a high achiever means to me
You see, the truth about burnout is that you don’t often see it coming until it hits you.
And I’m on a mission to change that.
With that in mind, I’d like to mention that I do have a quick 12 question quiz that will help you determine your risk of burnout. Interested? Go to becomingavery.com/burnout to take it and get ideas for what to do next to help you prevent or recover from burnout.
Awareness is the first step.
Kicking burnout’s ass is the next.
