3 Causes of Burnout from a Massachusetts Depression Therapist
Hello! I’m Bronwyn, an HSP and depression therapist based in Madison, WI offering therapy throughout Massachusetts, Wisconsin and Washington, DC. I see a lot of that buzzword, burnout, in my work. I’ve talked already about how to prevent burnout and ways to recover from burnout. Today I want to spend some time looking at what causes burnout.
Burnout Cause #1: Not listening to your own limits
It’s quite common that a key root of burnout is ignoring your limits. (Especially for Highly Sensitive people, this often includes not knowing what your limits are.) What are some examples? Previously, I worked as a hospice medical social worker. Like all my colleagues, I carried a laptop and a phone with me at all times. It was sometimes tempting to keep the phone on 24/7, as some of my colleagues did. It can be hard to turn your phone off when you care a lot about your patients, as my colleagues did. They wanted to be available to give really good care. Yet they also wanted to be present to their own families after work.
An example of not paying attention to your own limits is when you bend what you want to be doing for something you feel like you should be doing. For example, if you keep your work phone on when you’re trying to read a book to your child.
Certainly it’s not always that simple. Not everyone who keeps their phone on is ignoring a limit, or burned out. And figuring out what your own limits are is not black and white.
But sacrificing what you want and need for your job might be the sign of ignoring a limit.
A part of you might be saying, Wait! I want to be able to read a book to my child without waiting for my phone to ring! If that is true, and yet you continue to check your phone, you’re not listening to your own limit. That can be a cause of burnout.
Over time, crossing your own limits at work will likely get in the way of your personal life. This in turn can lead to resentment, often of your work. You may also get more stressed out (for HSPs this often shows up as depletion), since you’re having trouble checking out from your work responsibilities and giving your mind a break.
It’s up to you to figure out your own tolerance level and limit for work life balance. The same limits don’t work for everyone. And if you don’t pay attention to where your own limits are, that’s when burnout can start creeping in.
Burnout Cause #2: Moral Injury
It may be confusing to include this as a cause of burnout, since I’m about to say that burnout is not the same as moral injury. But broken systems can lead to both, so it’s important to include moral injury when talking about burnout. Wendy Molaska, MD, a Madison, WI based Direct Primary Care provider, talks about it this way: “Most people call it ‘burnout.’ I prefer the term ‘moral injury,’ because it implies that it’s the system that is broken — and I really believe our healthcare system is broken.”
Even if what you’re experiencing is not on the level of moral injury, it’s important to acknowledge the influence of broken systems on burnout.
Working within a system that requires more of you than is possible to give is another kind of burnout.
When I worked in hospice, the nurses were assigned about 15 patients. They could give quality care with that case load. Some hospices require that nurses keep up to 60 patients on their case load. It’s impossible to give good care with that many patients. Struggling with that kind of discrepancy is different from wanting to be a dedicated employee and putting in more hours.
Burnout Cause #3: Ignoring your emotions
It’s hard to feel things like anger, disappointment, and grief! In fact ignoring your emotions can be part of good coping, so that you can continue to function in the world. But over the long term, failing to take your emotional temperature and stuffing your emotions can lead to burnout.
Just because you ignore your emotions doesn’t mean they go away.
Worse, ignored emotions often come out in ways that are not so useful. The resentment you feel toward your partner? It might show up as irritation with your boss. The grief you haven’t processed about the loss of a loved one? It could manifest as a short temper with your employees.
Some emotions are easy to suss out. You may be able to tell that your irritation with your boss is really about your partner. But the thing about emotions that you’re ignoring is that they can be very, very tricky. Sometimes, it takes time and patience to get to the root of stress, irritation and hopelessness. Therapy is a great place to unpack emotions. Things like osteopathic manipulation therapy and meditation can also be good ways to heal from emotional wounds.
I intentionally wrote about recovering from burnout before publishing this article so that you would have a place to go if any of these causes resonate with you. Things like naming and processing your emotions and focusing on the opposite of burnout are important steps in recovering. Don’t expect an immediate cure. It took time to become burned out, and it will take time to recover. But, especially if you’re Highly Sensitive, you have the capacity to listen to yourself and heal.
About the Author
I’m an HSP and depression therapist who loves to support women to find causes of burnout.
Based in Madison, WI, I offer telehealth therapy in Massachusetts, online therapy throughout Wisconsin and Washington, DC. In addition to depression counseling, I also offer HSP therapy and anxiety therapy.