I cannot survive from burnout
143 points by delirehberi
143 points by delirehberi
I burned out two years ago, went through a divorce, and relocated to a new city. I live alone now and care for seven cats.
Over the last two years, I’ve tried forcing discipline, making detailed plans, and restarting over and over. Despite this, I’m still carrying significant debt.
My main struggle is staying focused on paid work. I’m constantly building and working on my own side projects, but I struggle to put time into client work. Because of my experience, finding clients isn't hard, but I tend to lose them after a few months due to low throughput. I deliver high-quality code and solve their core problems, but I can only bring myself to work on client tasks for about 5–6 hours a week.
I’m struggling to survive day-to-day and losing hope that this will change, though some days are good and I can get solid work done. I’ve tried all the standard advice for burnout with little success. At this point, I wonder if burnout has become a habit, an excuse, or a form of self-sabotage.
I’m posting here to see if anyone who has experienced something similar found a practical way out or a working routine that stuck.
Thank you for being open about this: it helps others realize they are not alone!
The brain needs attention and maintenance just like a car, and sometimes we have to try a few therapists before finding the right one. They will diagnose the thought patterns that keep you in the burnout cycle, and then recommend specific techniques to help you break free.
Do you actually have experience with the "break free" part? I and a lot of my friends are in therapy but it seems more like a habit than something with an end point...
+1
I honestly believe the idea of "breaking free" or "no longer needing therapy" is harmful. I've seen a lot of friends and family get stuck in a cycle of going to therapy, feeling better, stopping therapy, and then going back to the bad headspace where they were.
I'm sure there are some people who can truly "break free" of their problems, but I think for most of us therapy is like exercise where you stay healthy by keeping the habit.
Any particular reason we glossed over the prior statement?
The brain needs attention and maintenance
As for the notion of breaking free, we absolutely want OP to be liberated from his current predicament. (Which does not negate the usefulness of ongoing therapy.)
Ah! I read "the brain needs attention and maintenance just like a car" and thought about how car tires need to be replaced every few years or periodically fixed. I think exercise is a better metaphor because it's not like you're taking your car to the shop every week or two (or at least I hope not!) like with therapy. I also like the exercise metaphor better because I prefer to think of myself, friends, and family as someone who is getting stronger rather than something broken that is getting fixed.
Regardless, I'm pretty sure everyone in this thread 99% agrees about the importance of therapy and hopes to see OP overcome his current struggles.
Are you diagnosed for ADHD? I have a friend for whom, Ritalin, has basically flipped him from close-to-becoming homeless to actually being able to get several hours of focused work per day.
As someone with a similar arc to OP and your friend, a diagnosis and medication kind of saved my career, frankly. I was totally burned out in 2024, to the point that I was grateful when I was hit with by a layoff. I had a lot of time at the company, so the severance was pretty good and I planned to take 4-6 months off, focus on a career pivot to something tech-adjacent (product mgmt was the target), and start ramping up applications in the second 1/2 or 1/3 of my planned personal time.
One of the first things I did was establish a relationship with a psychiatrist to talk ADHD after a few friends and coworkers spotted the patterns in me in the past. Went in for in-person testing, got a diagnosis, got medicated... and spent the next 18 months out of work, burning through my severance and much of my savings. I still didn't feel ready to take on tech work at the end of all of that, but my hand was forced by an awful job market and what was basically a sureshot job opportunity. I blew the interview and their assignment/test out of the water and got an offer within a couple of days.
I've been working since February and while I'm well underpaid for my skillset, my bills are handled, I have a roof over my head, and the tentative promise of a salary correction Q1 next year - we'll see how that goes. I'm skeptical.
I went from full time WFH infra admin/engineer to full time in-office... amorphous DevOpsy, sysadmin, Python guy. The work is enjoyable and engaging, the 5 days in-office is miserable, but at the very least I'm stable again and if I need to, I can use this as a springboard to something better. I'd still like to find a WFH gig that's not tech-heavy in a direct sense, but where my background would be valuable - and I'm still not sure what that gig even is - but I don't have to thumb desperately through job postings anymore.
Regarding the ADHD, specifically, OP's description of being able to work on his own side projects but only being able to bring himself to work on client work for a few hours a week absolutely smells like chasing novelty/dopamine or at least kind of like the phenomenon of "hyperfocus," which in turn smells like executive function issues.
OP: If you can't break this pattern with willpower, which it sounds like you can't, consider at least meeting with a doctor and seeing if this is a possibility. If it's not ADHD, then they may be able to pinpoint something else as the cause or as an exacerbating factor and help with that. I'm not sure what your options are in Turkey, but there are also non-stimulant medications if you do end up getting diagnosed.
I know you want to help, but please nobody give or take medical advice over the internet like here. Please.
What's the harm? The next step would be to see a doctor who can diagnose ADHD accurately. It's not like OP is just going to suddenly start taking Ritalin without a prescription just because someone suggested it.
Everything can happen – including loss of life – to someone who feels burnt out and helpless and who takes unprofessional advice the wrong way, sometimes while intoxicated. The brain is a complex machine.
Its not being offered as professional medical advice. Just raising awareness about a potential cause, shouldn't be an issue.
Advice often uses the word "should". It does not mean "must" it means "should consider". And that translates into "do your own research".
I'm probably the only person on the planet who welcomes unsolicited advice, because it's either worthwhile or worthless. If the former, hooray! If the latter, no harm, no foul.
Unsolicited medical advice on a bad back (which generated a buttload of unsolicited advice) helped lead me to a solution I had not considered.
I struggle to avoid giving advice because it's almost always met with an inherent "don't tell me what to do!" but sometimes I slip up and go ahead and offer a suggestion to help someone who may benefit from it. Mea culpa.
I got an ADHD diagnosis the other day. Weird to learn that there is a solution to what felt like a personal failure. Living in the UK that means I'm now on a 12-month waiting list to start any kind of medication unless I can afford £400/month for private treatment.
This also made all the difference to me after I got diagnosed during a particularly bad episode in University (went from effortlessly getting good grates pre-Covid to missing most classes and struggling incredibly hard to study and get projects done after). I started taking Concerta and it was like those issues were just gone.
Unfortunately I had to get off it because the side effects were too bad (started losing too much weight due to appetite loss), and the alternative is Elvanse which worked really well for me but has no generics in Portugal and costs over 50€ per month (Concerta and Ritalin were less than 10€ for a generic), so I’m trying to do without for now…
I have a stable full time job now and finally wrapped up my master’s so I’m not feeling the need nearly as much, but I might have to start again if I start struggling like I did in the past.
As a neurodivergent person and from experience with similar stories by friends and family, let me suggest something else: If you think you need medical advice or psychotherapy, I strongly suggest you talk to a professional.
In this forum, you will find lot’s of similar stories and anecdotal evidence, but you will also find survivorship bias.
All the best for you. <3
You're certainly not alone in feeling like that. I struggled similarly a few years ago. No matter how much I tried, I just couldn't convince my brain to enjoy my day job, and if I can't enjoy something then I can't work consistently on it. Fwiw, these are classic ADHD symptoms: if you're like me, it takes an extremely tight deadline to finally coax your head into doing what you want it to do. Anything less, even the threat of missed rent or not affording basic necessities, is not enough.
I solved it, but it took (a) realising that I simply can't deal with remote working and (b) finding an office job with colleagues I genuinely enjoy the company of. One thing that always got me fired up was feeling like I was helping out somebody else (hence: long list of open-source projects, but performing terribly at work), and so doing a mixture of team lead & project management alongside regular development seems to be the perfect combo for me right now. Plenty of pair programming, plenty of mutual code review, plenty of talking ideas through on a whiteboard with people. I'm in my happy place now.
Maybe something similar would work for you?
I should say though: don't beat yourself up about it. Some of us just have heads that work this way. Dunno why. It's not laziness, it's not habit, it's not self-sabotage. Once I found myself in the right environment, I woke up one morning and suddenly I was firing on all cylinders again. I have also heard from many folk I trust the opinion of that prescription medication does wonders too.
This is a good point. I too have been sliding into this pattern, especially given the progressive lack of interest (and decent challenges from my standpoint) in my day job.
The fun part is when you can enjoy something and you will have a great time focusing on that exact thing for 15 hours straight… at some point later, maybe right before the deadline, maybe on some completely arbitrary day, but absolutely not now and not this week at all.
Yeah I burnt out in 2015 and it messed me up pretty bad for a good while. It gets better, but I'd be lying if I didn't say it hasn't been a long recovery.
Consider seeing a professional. Like these concentration issues can be a lot of things, some of which are treatable. ADHD has been mentioned, and it's plausible, but depression also has a strong overlap with burnout and the two often co-occur and it similarly fucks with your ability to focus and bring yourself to do stuff.
My main struggle is staying focused on paid work. I’m constantly building and working on my own side projects, but I struggle to put time into client work.
...
I’m posting here to see if anyone who has experienced something similar found a practical way out or a working routine that stuck.
I experienced something similar. Ultimately, I decided that writing software, for me, was akin to a nearly-spiritual practice (in its intensity or purpose), and that I could not, as such, continue writing software as a career, where I exchanged the practice for money, almost always also "exchanging" (read, sacrificing) some form of ethics as well. Ultimately, I had to change careers entirely. I'm wrapping up nursing school and intend to be a practicing RN.
I still write software for myself. But I don't see myself ever returning to a pattern of further enabling deeply anti-social patterns with that practice in exchange for money.
Sorry to hear that but also sorry to say that: I didn’t recover as well but to me it returns in waves: sometimes a bit harder, sometimes a bit easier.
Better to see a specialist that can help. Advice from my friends who already recoveres.
thank you. I know i need to take a therapy, tried that a few different doc, but not helped. Still i am researching another one.
This. Been in therapy for 10 years. It won't be a quick fix. And improvements are gradual. But it works. I wish you all the best, and more grace and love for yourself. You've struggled and fought hard, no matter what you think it looks from the outside. From the inside it was really really hard.
I hope you find help :)
Is it a challenge to start work, to keep working, or both?
When it's hard to start the thing I really need to do, I'll open a text file and type the goal repeatedly, like Bart Simpson at the chalkboard, or Kill Bill's "Wiggle your big toe." Maybe I'll narrow down on writing what the first step is, or the first step of the first step. After a minute or two of that, I'd rather start the task than keep naming it!
To keep working, it helps me to do the hard thing first and leave the simple things for the end of the day. Taking breaks is healthy, but I had to learn the difference between a break and giving in to a "get me out of here" impulse, from which it's harder to return to useful work.
One other thing that helped me is to avoid getting sucked into unhelpful semi-work, especially reading Slack, by putting my workstation in Do Not Disturb mode 24/7. Notifications collect, and I look at them when I want to.
Hope there's something here you can use :)
Alone Seven cats.
I’ve tried forcing discipline, making detailed plans, and restarting over and over. Despite this, I’m still carrying significant debt. I’m constantly building and working on my own side projects
It sounds like you moved yet dragged your burdens along for the ride and that you simultaneously have too little yet too much. My practical fix would be to
Many people's minds will follow the familiar path despite malaise that accompanies them or itch on the edge of their minds that it's not really what they want to or should be doing. It's like you're compelled to think about those things that are not worth your time or cycles. Ruthlessly remove them, they're not enriching your existence or anyone else's. You won't think about them once you've filled your life with people that continually lead to more joy as you interact with them and help others. You will forget. It will take time but forgetting is healthy. It's just that consciously you have to put yourself into a position where you can forget the things you don't need anymore.
Hoarding comes in many shapes but it's rarely healthy. The fact that you're finding work means that you have an avenue to improve your life. You're not stuck, you're not homeless, you're not hopeless. You can do something. Of course, I am not a doctor.
Good luck.
Staying focused on work was always a problem for me - it really fucked my school life, for example - but I found it much easier to keep to it once I started working full time. That's also why I never tried doing contracting work. Maybe you can try to find a job in a company and use the office routine as a way to motivate yourself.
I am doing freelancing for last 10 years, i am not sure how i can adapt an office after that. Also, its not easy to find fulltime work for me in my location. I do not like working culture in turkiye, this is why all my clients are remote from europe and united states. And, turkish companies always says i am overqualifed, lol. I am thinking about relocation to belgium or somewhere else, but in my condition not easy to decide relocation. thanks for your idea.
Freelancing with what sounds very much like unmedicated ADHD is always a disaster. The one (very recent) period in my life when I'd spent all my savings and had literally zero money in the bank was when I was freelancing through a platform and having to find hourly/fixed contracts for very tight market rates and work on whatever the heck was "closest" to my areas of interest but never quite that. Right after that scary moment I managed to find my dream full-time job (remote, still) but I realize that not everyone can be so lucky. Listen to what everyone else says about ADHD, definitely try to find a professional about it!
P.S. I've been to Istanbul once… not that surprised by the seven cats! (:
Thank you for posting this. Ive struggled with similar challenges. I hope things improve for everyone :)
Are you able to maintain non-work life, like eating, hygiene, and social contact? When I burned out, I felt my coping skills for aspects of my entire day to day life degraded and left me feeling disabled in ways I hadn't ever felt before. Looking back four years later, I suspect I might have undiagnosed autism and experienced autistic burnout. You may want to look up the symptoms of adult ASD, especially if you have already been diagnosed with ADHD.
I struggle with this exact problem. For me, any kind of obligation turns me off to the work even if I find the domain/technical challenge interesting. There is something about having to do it that makes my brain shut down and want to work on something else, like a side project.
I can only speak for myself, but the main things that really helped me were:
The first two were kind of a prerequisite for the third one for me. So talking to the professionals about it made a huge difference.
I wonder if burnout has become a habit
It definitely did for me. Breaking the cycle is really hard. We're working against many thousands of years of evolution that made our brains really good at learning and reinforcing patterns. It makes sense for it to feel natural, automatic even.
First I have to be attuned to when burnout is starting to happen in the first place, which is hard on its own. Then I have to do something to shake things up and break the pattern, to teach my brain new habits and not reinforce the old ones. The whole thing is a continual process, and it's not linear.
One habit I found really helpful was having a physical "menu" of activities to choose from that can help me break out of the spiral: go on a walk, listen to some music, whatever brings you joy (preferably not involving a screen though; for me, it's really important to budget my screen time). It helped to have this written down, so that I don't have to remember (or feel bad for not remembering, lol).
Another thing was just developing a regular sleep schedule and an exercise regimen. Again, a constant struggle for me.
A good therapist can help you with all of this. Good therapists that you actually click with are also really hard to find. Bottom line: it's definitely worth continuing to seek professional help.
Best of luck and I hope you find what you need.
Talk to both - a psychologist and a psychiatrist. You may be dealing with something you are unaware of. If some talk therapy doesn't help you figure out what's going on, perhaps it's a physiological issue a psychiatrist can help you with.
I started having panic attacks literally out of the blue in my mid 30s. (am 50 now) Had no idea what was causing them. Never gone to a psychologist or a psychiatrist before that in my life. I had ways of 'self medicating' that were unproductive (and destructive) until that too didn't work anymore - the law of diminishing results.
Little did I know that a little pill that's been around for decades, Zoloft, would help ward off the panic attacks completely. How was I supposed to know I'm wired in such a way that I deplete serotonin faster than a 'normal' person? To me, it looked exactly the same like you - lack of motivation, purpose, 'slacking'....though I've not known myself to be such.
Thanks for sharing.
I don't have a solution for you, but I wanted you to know you're not alone. I'm in a very similar situation. I hope you find a way through!
Two things I would recommend for you which have helped me build some structure in my life: 1. get a Bullet Journal and use its Daily Log to manage your day. 2. develop a daily routine in the form of a checklist and just do that every day. It's easier to overcome procrastination with a checklist because all you have to do is the next thing on the list. I use timers to set limits on some of my daily activities. For example I read the world news every day, but only for 15 minutes. Siri on my iPhone is handy for setting timers with voice activation. I put simple things on my daily routine like "make bed", "exercise", and "shave, brush, bath". it's encouraging and motivating to cross things off the list, even when they're simple and quick like make the bed. Good luck getting your life back in order. Burnout sucks!
There is a lot of good advice here. I suggest using the Pomodoro technique to help you focus and avoid procrastinating. Knowing that you'll only work on it for 25 minutes before a break really helps to trick your brain into getting started.
I went through a very similar experience. I was absolutely unable to focus on anything that actually had any requirements. I had trouble keeping myself clean/fed. To some degree, the effects are still there, after 4 years, but in my case it's because the stress source is still present. My biggest advice, what actually helped me, go to a psychiatrist and get some prescription drugs. You need to sleep, you need to slow your head down (i.e. stop the side projects for a while), and start to focus on your human needs. After that, things start slowly improving and you can get off the meds. I was skeptical, I was keeping it off, but ultimately they did help me.