I'm burning out and I can't tell anyone
I'm the cofounder of a startup that really needs me right now. I suspect I may be burning out or have already burnt out. Despite things going relatively well, I'm somewhat depressed all the time, easily irritable, resentful of my cofounder and constantly think to myself that I need a break.
My work isn't really getting affected (yet?). I've taken half days off before, but they weren't enough.
Anyone had the same problem? What did you do about it and what happened afterwards? Thanks.
202 comments
[ 4.4 ms ] story [ 245 ms ] threadThere is only one working solution. Get professional help.
If your servers crash - you ask an expert. If your car makes funny noises - you go to a garage, were there are professionals. If you have an infection - you consult an M.D.
But we tend to ignore psychological conditions and we tend to ask others (amateurs) for an opinion. But this is really nothing more than a physical illness in respect to the way it has to be treated - by an expert.
So do yourself a favor and ask your favorite search-engine for professionals, that know their stuff, when it comes to burnout. And then make an appointment. You are no good to your startup, if it crashes around you, because you crash and burn. You are no help to anybody, if your condition affects your work (and it will do that soon).
You have the responsibility for everybody, who's paycheck depends on the success of your startup - and that depends on your well being.
And: You owe it to yourself to heal.
just my two cents
Consult your primary care physician first. They are best equipped to diagnose somatic problems and will refer you out to a psychiatrist once you check out okay physically.
I for a couple of years dealt with depression and just being damn tired all the time. I actually had to go to a few doctors before I found one that was able to help me.
Turns out I had a goddamn tumor in my parathyroid gland. I'll paraphrase a bit of Dr. House, "unsquint [sic] your eyes when you take a look at your labs"
In my opinion you don't want to end up with somebody who automatically assumes it takes a complete life history and hypnotherapy with childhood regression over 10 years to deal with depression, or who assumes that the first approach should be medication, for instance, when your symptoms don't indicate a need for it.
A book like David Burns' "Feeling Good" is enough to give you quick insight (by taking the Burns Depression Checklist and explaining one therapy that has been demonstrated as effective) without turning you into a hypochondriac (the idea isn't to make excuses for not seeing a professional because you're researching, or to make excuses for why you're "incurable").
As a counter-counter argument, the truth is in the middle. There's a lot of collective wisdom and knowledge on these subjects and a lot which can only be discovered independently. A hybrid approach is head and shoulders above either one in isolation.
I've experienced burnout a number of times in personal and professional contexts and I think nearing 30, I've got a pretty good handle on myself finally.
1. You can ALWAYS and should ALWAYS talk to SOMEONE. My advice is find a great therapist. If you can't afford one, you need to find a friend, confidant, or family member that's away from the action. Talk through things and see if you can wrap your head around what's bothering you.
2. Exercise. Seriously. Exercise helps sleeps, weight loss, anxiety, depression, add--it's a pretty awesome medication. Read "Spark" by John Ratey.
3. Sleep. The times in my life I've felt most burnt out corresponded with awful sleeping patterns. (also see 2)
4. Reflect. After trying to talk through things and getting your body back on track think about your work. Are you happy doing what you're doing? Do you want to do something else? (some might recommend doing this first--I wouldn't; only because in my judgment I've made decisions I regretted because I felt like I wasn't in the right place--not because I really didn't like the opportunity)
This is obviously a reader's digest version, but it took me probably 5 or 6 iterations before I could identify, prevent (or treat) my burnout.
Reflect, but do not ruminate. Rumination (going endlessly in circles in your mind in a bad-thoughts-feedback-loop) goes with depression / mood disorders. To help with reflection, write down what weighs on your mind and analyze it.
Also, try to write about how everything would be if it went perfectly well. This way, you have something more positive to look at than your and other's(perceived) failures and shortcomings.
I had a particularly rough Friday last week and so I decided to skip coming home in favor of a long bike ride.
I was fully expecting to go home, mope around, and fall asleep. Instead I came home - clear headed - and had a great weekend.
--
I'd also recommend biking as a great form of exercise. Personally I don't like the gym, memberships can get kind of pricy, and for some reason I always feel uncomfortable at a gym.
Biking however gives you access to tons of free trails, it's great for your cardiovascular system (you won't get ripped biking, but you will feel fantastic.)
Plus being out on a scenic trail does wonders for your mental health.
Just my $0.02
All this sensitive therapy crap - just change your life and do what you want. That billion dollar cashout is a fucking joke.
so I would just say you are not alone!
Despite how it may seem there's no chance your company will die or suffer any irreparable harm in a week. Just do it.
When you come back have a discussion with your co-founders. Try to talk through (calmly and without resentment) the problems you see. Focus on finding the best solutions to the problems. Don't get into arguments about the past. Everything before is water under the bridge. You will have to accept that certain things probably can't be fixed, and that's okay. Fix the things that hinder your company's ability to succeed.
Also, make sure you sleep enough every day. Don't skimp on sleep at all. Nothing will make you burn out faster than chronic sleep deprivation. Everyone can get 8+ hours of sleep per night if they make it a priority.
Or put it another way: If you taking 1 week vacation to heal your spirits leads to the demise of the company, it means that it wasn't viable in the first place. Is what you've built really that fragile that it can't take a breather for one single week? I doubt it.
Take at least a week off, and come back rejuvenated. You're worth more to your company well-rested and in the right frame of mind rather than burnt out and ineffective.
There are different kinds of meditation, but I am talking about mindfulness meditation in the Buddhist tradition. When people hear the word meditation, they often associate it with some kind of new age non-sense. This kind of meditation has nothing to do with that. It also does not require to convert to Buddhism either. If you are interested I would recommend the book Mindfullness in Plain English. It's also available for free as an e-book on the internet.
Aside from it being a form of moving meditation for the mind, it helps the body, especially for a tech nerd. I began studying Tai Chi, I came near burnout partly because my body was always in a similar posture all week. I developed RSI in my neck and my shoulder from constantly tensing muscles to use a mouse or trackpad. If I worked through a weekend, or two in a row, then I might spend 20 or 30 days in a row with my shoulder tight. Tai Chi is not intense exercise, but it moves all of your muscles through their full range of motion. Simply having that "program" that I can run with my body eliminated my RSI. Even though I still have to spend way too much time at the keyboard.
The everyday experience closest to meditation is probably when you're in the zone while doing something athletic.
* Sleep like a rock, when you get the chance. Lack of sleep, among alcohol abuse are the most common causes of depression (at least from my personal observation)
* Hang out with friends, family as much as possible, when you get the chance. They'll constantly remind you why you work so hard. Also try to explain them why are you doing certain tradeoffs in your relationship with them.
* Swallow a boatload of Magnesium + B6. IMHO it's the biggest source of happiness one can buy for little money. It keeps your stress levels in control and your heart condition in shape.
* Meditate. I cannot stress this enough. Constantly talk to yourself when you're alone and seek thoroughly for things that cause distress in your life. Debug yourself. You have to like yourself for others to like you!
* Get a girlfriend that understands you or dump the one that doesn't get it (unless you're already married)
In that last case, get a divorce?
It took my wife a long time to understand what the life of a founder is like and getting here there was equal parts work for both of us. I spent a lot of time and energy in pervious startups making sure she could see what was going on and why it was important. I also made sure she understood why the whole thing is important to me on a personal/life level.
I don't think it's fair to say "she's selfish". She/he is probably more scared, a little jealous, and feeling un-engaged.
There is no decent scenario for a founder where his/her partner supports them "blindly". If you come to know these people, "the other half", you'll probably see that it is the opposite of blind. They see and know everything that is going on and they work their ass off to make sure their husband/wife is still human through it all.
Some of the homes she went into had a panoramic view of open water. Some were house trailers with an addition consisting of a hole in the wall, a van without rear doors, duct tape and a tarp. Some were worse.
At times it involved getting up in the middle of the night and watching someone die. At times she knocked on the door and found the body. Once it had been feeding the cats. The time she found the lady who had fallen between the toilet and wall and survived four days despite being stuck was probably worse.
She had clients who were suffering the slow debilitation of Alzheimer's, clients who were losing body parts, and clients who were facing death in the prime of their life.
All the while, she had those clients' families. Some were close, some weren't. She told me that death doesn't fix dysfunction.
If we had a dollar for every time I didn't get it, or was selfish, I'd be an angel investor.
Also, and this is important, do they do node?
Furthermore, it turns your pee bright neon-yellow which is hilarious the first time you see it :)
Magnesium deficiency has, in some instances, been linked to depression. I'm not sold on its effectiveness as an over-the-counter treatment, but it probably doesn't hurt either since it is a relatively well tolerated compound that your body uses in a myriad of fashions.
Also, 5-HTP is another common compound to help stave off depression.
So make sure you take a sub-200mg dose of B6 if you plan to take it. I semi-routinely take a B-100 pill, which is 100mg of various B vitamins (including pyridoxine), so just take one of those instead of a monster B6 1500mg pill or something sill.
If you take some time off to rest and you don't feel any better seek professional help. Mental health is just as important as physical health and isn't something that you should feel ashamed about.
Adjust your work life balance. This means doing things like (as have been mentioned) getting more exercise and getting better sleep. Both of these will not only help your mood, but they will make you more productive.
You need to talk to your team. Explain what's happening.
You have awareness and insight - you say "despite things going well I'm somewhat depressed" - that's good. Try some cognitive behaviour therapy techniques. A good book is "Mind over mood"; a good website is the Australian "mood gym". You could see a therapist.
Luckily this kind of stress / low mood responds excellently to interventions.
I'd check on sleep deprivation first. Take a week off, sleep 10 hours every night, exercise every day lightly (long walks listening to music are good), read a book. If you do all this and you still think you're at the end of your rope then you need to talk with your cofounder.
You also said it isn't affecting your work yet, but people are smart and social signals are sent without even realizing it. Its impacting your work already, in little ways, and will only get worse. Deal with this now, don't wait.
P.S. If you are my co-founder, take a vacation already. You work too much!
The options turned out to be worth a lot, by I couldn't enjoy work for 3 years, so I am not sure continuing to work was a good decision.
In my case the reason for a burnout was personal (relations with my boss) and I suspect that the reason is always personal.
I would distill it to 2 advices: ask yourself the 5 whys about the burnout and don't continue working in this state.
I second the advice to uncover the causes that are pushing toward burnout, because if they are left to fester then burnout becomes inevitable and post-burnout recovery takes even longer. Exercising more isn't going to fix it. A week vacation isn't going to fix it, a month vacation isn't going to fix it, because when the vacation is over nothing will have changed. The best a vacation can do is delay.
I suppose there are several reasons why someone can burn out, and as well as getting some rest to clean the mind it is also important to find out why that's happening. Otherwise it would happen again.
My first and best manager I had, once told me, that jobs are a bit like relationships, the more you try different ones the more you find out what you _don't_ like. I have found that to be a great piece of advise. So I guess my advise to you would be find out what it is not working for you. Talk to someone outside the whole situation that can have a clear picture of what's happening to you, either a therapist, an old pal or just a family members I guess would be able to help you.
I hope this helps :) I have been there and I was miserable for family and friends.. but having them close to me was a huge help to get back to my old self once again :)
S
Daily exercise helped me, try getting your pulse up, if you do this regularly you will get much better mood, more energy and things will lighten up.
Personal life hacks:
1) All the folks telling you that diet and exercise will magically make things better are actually right in micro scale. (You can't pushup your way out of being a salaryman but it is very hard to not get a QOL boost from reguar exercise.) Blew my mind to experience this since I had always assumed it was social signaling.
2) Your startup will always send signals that it really needs you. Consider making a commitment to maintaining family/friendship/church/whatever ties so that you can maintain perspective on how much the bat signal going off really matters.
3) You'll tend to end up like the folks you hang around with. If you steep yourself 100% in startup culture, you'll tend to pick up its cultural pathologies. I mean, do your five closest friends all overwork? That might be why seeing half days off as a luxury item became your new normal. Consider reconnecting with old friends or broadening your social circle.
edit: Ok, well prominently there's the "zero defect mentality" that was supposedly eradicated from the military in the past 20 or 30 years but is still very much present. Obviously this varies from command to command, but... anyway that's probably more big-picture than you're thinking of.
One small way (small as in every day life for people not big Marine Corps issues) is this notion I'd guess I'd describe as "maximal accountability" for your actions. Which is good up to a point but when coupled with the zero-defect thing, tthen suddenly you're living a life where there's no such thing as "not a big deal."
This also translates into being treated like a child when you're not in a combat zone, with curfews, checking in, signing in and out on your own personal time, and so forth. I get why it happens but as a 30-year-old guy when I got out, I was getting a little too old to be THAT accountable to someone else.
Ironically, when it came to my professional life as a Marine (all easily verifiable btw if you google my name in case you're wondering if I'm another poser) there was no simpler time than being in Iraq or afloat. Bullshit levels were at a minimum because there were real things to accomplish. That's coincidentally why I love being a programmer. :)
These signals are dangerous, because you can always find something that needs to be done. In fact, those somethings almost always find you, and it's hard not to deal with things as they come to you, even if that means from when you finish supper until two hours after you should be in bed.
Most of those things don't need your attention, at least not immediately. Set yourself working hours, stick to them. The mantra you're looking for is "quality (of work) over quantity (of time)". If you can't get everything you think you should do in 40 hours (or 50, or 60, but whatever number you set yourself) a week, take a moment and see what tasks or responsibilities are wasting your time.
My old boss would come in on evenings and weekends to solder PCBs when we'd get first prototypes in (which wasn't his responsability). He'd throw away an evening with his family and a good night's sleep, and gain what? The prototype could be handed on to the next person a couple hours sooner the next day, out of a multi-month production schedule. (Additionally, it's easier to make mistakes when you're tired or rushed, he was not as suited to do the work as I was, and I missed the opportunity to familiarize myself with the prototype I would be debugging later.)
Don't become so attuned to your company's needs (wants) that you miss out on your personal life or reduce your own value to the company.
Basically, that experiment you are running on the weekend - so you can get that critical data a few days quicker - will invariably fail to produce any data at all. It is doomed before you start. We were never sure if it was due to tiredness and fatigue, your mind subconsciously sabotaging you or the angry science gods.
But it never worked. You were guaranteed to waste your weekend doing something that had to be repeated on Monday.
So, I'm agreeing with patrickyeon. Is soldering that PCB board really important right now? Do you really need to run that experiment this weekend?
It can be hard to overcome the inertia if you haven't exercised in a while, but it's ALWAYS worth the time.
Get enough sleep. This should be #1 really - it's more important than exercise, but exercising helps you sleep. Find a way to get 8 hours a day for the foreseeable future and make it a priority. There are lots of ways to deal with insomnia, feel free to email me (see profile).
Eat right - good food, fruit & vegetables, nuts, the usual. Don't overeat, go hungry, or stuff yourself on junk food & stimulants.
Finally, make regular plans to do social/physical activities and commit to having the REST OF THE DAY off, whether it's on a weekend or a weekday evening. Your worries (and gadgets, emails, etc) should be shut off and locked away until you wake up the next morning.
I'd recommend some sort of mind training... just relaxing doing what other people says is relaxing almost never helps (beach, book, etc).
Check this out [english audio]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHjyMq6eZB8
This one is good too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogH3KAge6zw
I would recommend to take some time off and _travel_, ie. active vacationing. If you just sit around at home that's probably no good. Also, if you can't sleep, take some pills.
This may sound odd, but I found reading books from the Dalai Lama also helps to handle issues like this on an intellectual level, ie. remove the negative emotions and just figure out what's bothering you.
http://www.amazon.com/Art-Happiness-10th-Anniversary-Handboo...
If you're startup is doing good, then thank the Hacker News Gods and don't worry!
Best of luck! Cheers =)
PS.: if you need someone to talk to check my profile for contact info.
Also, make sure you're surrounded by motivating people, or atleast people that get you thinking. I lack this sometimes in the work environment and it's a drag...
Who was it that said if you can't take a month off without telling anyone you don't really have a business? Yes, yes, I know that a startup is not yet a true business, but one of the most important things in a startup is letting go as you grow. It's very easy to convince yourself that you are absolutely essential, but in reality your job is to build a money-making machine where you are not essential. One cause of burnout is being overworked because you are taking on too much personally. When you build something from the ground up, you have a lot of knowledge that others might not have, which makes it psychologically difficult to delegate, but nevertheless you have to find a way to let people make their own mistakes or your own treadmill will go faster and faster until you flare out spectacularly.