When Enough is Enough

My burnout warning signs

I am slowly migrating some of my favorite pieces to Substack. Even if you have read this one before, take a look! A year later, I’ve added a few reflections. With the U.S. Surgeon General releasing an Advisory on the Mental Health and Wellbeing of Parents (read his NY Times opinion - gift link), I thought it was a good time to reshare. It’s all connected.

Originally written September 2023, updated August 2024

Burnout. I certainly don’t own the market on burnout. It’s quite a hot topic lately as we emerge from the insanity of the last three years. The uncertainty, economic pressures, divisiveness (I could go on) wore down so many of us. It’s been particularly difficult for parents. A recent study found that 68% of moms (or primary caregivers) are experiencing anxiety (even above April 2020 levels) and over a third describe it as moderate to severe. On top of it, 75% of parents said don’t have enough support in the form of a village. Now, burnout and anxiety are not synonymous, but it’s definitely apparent that this trend isn’t isolated (nor is it isolated to parents). Anyway, I’ll share a little bit about my experience and personal signs of burnout.

It’s a System

I’m no stranger to burnout. I’m a workaholic, and I’ve worked hard for that gold star for as long as I can remember. In high school, I carried a full-time job squeezed in between school and another twenty hours a week of extracurricular activities. In college, I was gunning for medical school. My inadvertently honed system was to sprint as hard as I could for six weeks, while carrying 18 credit-hours, a full-time job, and all the crazy extracurriculars required for a “well-rounded” medical school application. But of course, it wouldn’t last, I’d crash, sleep for an entire weekend, and repeat.

I did it again when I traveled about 40 weeks a year for my corporate gig. I’d work all day, take recruiting dinners at night, hop on a plane home, and not talk to a single person (including my husband) for 24 hours. It was amazing for our marriage… not. Sprint for as long as your body will hold up and then rest just enough to be human again.

You see, I had a system.

Until It Broke

I’m not sure when I turned on my grind-only, never rest setting. It could have happened anytime between being pregnant with baby number one, a global pandemic, and career that never took a breath. Oh, and did they tell you, when you become parents, you never stop being a parent? Like there are no breaks, ever? These babies who I love dearly really should come with BOLD, RED warning labels. I could analyze what happened until I had 95 potentially valid theories on how I got here. I guarantee I don’t have a unique story. The point is, the merry-go-round never stopped. My perfectly honed (albeit destructive) system of grinding for as long as I could, collapsing, resting, and then restarting no longer worked.

You can Google burnout signs and get millions of results. I’d occasionally pull them up, run down the list, and check them all off. You’d think I’d tell myself “no shit, you’re burned out.” But, more often, I’d think, “isn’t this just how life is?” or “it must be mom brain or sleep-deprivation or post-covid brain fog”, or “it will be fine after this next launch,” or whatever other excuse came to mind. All of those thoughts are perfectly valid, but after years of this, my constant burnout companion wasn’t leaving my side. Anyway, these are the burnout signs I experienced most over the past few years.

Burnout Sign #1: My Brain No Workey

If my previous gold-star was workaholism, my gold-star from the past couple of years was staring at the computer for hours and accomplishing absolutely nothing. As a people leader in for a face-paced tech company, not squeezing out every ounce of work from my day was not an option. It was like any higher-level, critical thinking was extracted from my brain. Instead, in its place was sheer panic.

A soap box for a different day: corporate America’s meeting culture that sucks up every unblocked moment on your calendar. Not to mention being “on” via constant influx of emails, Slack messages, and calls all day doesn’t help. There’s not even mental space for two thoughts to bump into each other. It’s not only me - check out

Derek Thompson

’s piece in The Atlantic titled “White-Collar Work is Just Meetings Now.”

Anyway, memory, focus, execution, decision making capabilities were all gone. For a while, I wrote it off as newborn-induced sleep deprivation or “mom brain” (I hate that term), until I started sleeping again and it didn’t go away.

Burnout Sign #2: Autopilot

Your body has a brilliant, yet infuriating survival mechanism: autopilot. When you’re stressed, your body knows exactly what to do to keep you alive – and that means, it will do what it’s always done. So, no new habits, no changes, just plugging along.

I knew what burnout looks like. I logically knew which small changes I could make to reduce the impact of burnout. But. I. Could. Not. Change. For a long time, I’d beat myself up about it - “it’s not that hard – it’s drinking water,” or “you’re so lazy.” (You see, I’m super nice to myself – but that’s topic for a different day). Then my therapist told me that it’s near impossible to make changes when your brain and body are under stress. Survival is key, not self-improvement. This info was helpful in no longer shame-spiraling about not the making changes I knew I needed to make.

But surprise, surprise… knowledge didn’t help me snap out of the passivity of autopilot.

Burnout Sign #3: A Nap Ain’t Going to Fix This

To top it off, I was exhausted. Like, bone-crushing, no energy at any point in the day, exhausted. Even when I got out of newborn-induced sleep deprivation, there was no amount of sleep that would wake me up refreshed. I’d white-knuckle it throughout the day, pumping as much caffeine into my system as possible without my hands vibrating on a keyboard. Then, after putting my toddler to sleep, I’d collapse in front of the TV. Weekends didn’t look any different. On a good weekend, I’d take my kid to the park once, cross off only the required adulting tasks I couldn’t muster during the week, then crawl right back in front of the TV. I was living the life (sarcasm).

Burnout Sign #4: Cheyanne the Grouch

On a normal day, my emotions are pretty laid back. I typically have a good handle on outwardly controlling my emotions. While I’d never describe myself as an optimist, when I’m in a good spot, I’m not overly pessimistic either. I’m a hyper-logical person. But, in the throes of burnout, I’m intractably cynical, irritable, rage-prone, and even illogically weepy. Work often got the brunt of my cynicism. My husband and kids got the brunt of my rage. Typically, I was fully aware how out of whack my responses were, which made it worse. I felt crazy and totally unlike myself. I was so sick of my own shit. I’m not proud of any of this, but it’s the truth.

I could go on and on about other ways I saw burnout creep into my life. But, for me, these are the burnout signs that really stood out the most.

So How Did I End Up in Europe?

When I look back, it’s a legit miracle that I’m sitting here writing this from Portugal (and updating it from Paris). I was going through the motions in almost every aspect of my life. Changes had to be made not only for me, but my family. But my brain couldn’t even make a decision, let alone have the energy to actually implement it. Until the the possibility of moving abroad crossed my mind. Quitting my job with no backup plan? Traveling and moving across the world with my husband and two young boys? Taking a year off to be with my family?

When something lights you up like that for the first time in quite a while, you grab onto it with both hands. Could I have dug myself out of burnout in Seattle? Of course. But where’s the adventure in that?

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A year later - thoughts from 2024

As I re-read these words, I can still deeply and viscerally remember what it was like to be so deep in that burnout hole. And as much as I’d like to tell you that a year off magically fixed everything, that’s not real life. It’s definitely not life with toddlers, trading a corporate gig for full-time caregiving. After this last year, I’m convinced burnout is cyclical. For a recovering workaholic like me, it’s going to be something that’s always around. It’s a warning light when life gets off the rails a bit. I’m only working on catching it earlier and earlier.

That said, I don’t regret hitting the hard reset button and leaving it all behind in the hopes that something changes because it worked. I am lightyears away from the person I was before I left. My family is heathier than we’ve ever been. I’ve got energy, excitement, room for curiosity and inspiration that I haven’t seen in years. So, yes, I’d absolutely do this journey all over again.

I’d love to know of any of this resonated with you. Sometimes it’s easier to know you’re not the only one.

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If you’re new to In Search of Nourishment, welcome! I’m thrilled you’re here. To explore more about my journey through burnout, leaving the corporate world, and moving to Portugal, check out my post Oversharing on the Internet or Nothing Changed, Only Everything Changed.

Oversharing on the Internet

Nothing Changed, Only Everything Changed

P.S. I moved to Paris! Hit the subscribe button if you’re curious to know why we left Portugal, why we picked Paris, and what’s next for us.