How design saved my life

I got a physical card, a Christmas one. It said “don’t you think it is strange we share so many hours with our colleagues, but at the end of the day we don’t know jack shit about them?”. It got me thinking about how I ended up as a UX Designer. Feeling fantastic and enjoying work. How it, in many ways, saved my life. Here’s my story.

The dark

To reach a point where very basic functions of your life just don’t work out. A point where you can’t pick up your kids from daycare. Where you can’t buy your groceries. Where you can’t play piano because your ears can’t handle the sound. Where you can’t walk onto the subway to get to work afraid of getting a panic attack or throw up. Where you can’t work. It wasn’t something that had crossed my mind. Me?! The creative. The fun guy. The musician. The caring dad. The good friend. The one in the middle of everything.

In retrospect I of course could, or should, have seen it coming. Or at least that something was wrong. But to crash to that extent… However, I had faced exhaustion syndroms. To the level where I just couldn’t cope with anything but doing nothing. I had to say stop. I called work and informed that I couldn’t continue working and didn’t know when I could return.

As a Solution Architect with a very broad competence and range of interests I have worked with all sorts of aspects of IT solutions from databases, integrations, apis, internal applications, external applications, information architecture, ux, ui, tests, project lead, strategies, requirements etc. Most often with a burning energy. But then I got to an environment where I didn’t feel safe. Not too much work — it was too much of things I couldn’t control and I had no proper support. Lack of leadership and organisation.

The light

So what happened? At first I felt very lonely, like I had failed. But at the same time I felt like I wanted to be as open as possible with my situation and came to the understanding that a lot of others also had experienced similar things.

It took me months…but slowly I started to do other things like buying an old sewing machine and learnt some “heavy-duty sewing”, gently exploring the piano again and creating songs, being in the nature, being with my family.

I arranged so that I could get some kind of therapy through work. Not great but it at least got me to leave my apartment to talk to someone outside my closest circle about me and my work. My foundation became stronger. After a soft restart at work I started to question my work situation a lot and came to the conclusion that I needed to focus only on things that gave me energy. Creativity on my terms. That was me. And suddenly it struck me that, from all different tasks at work, UX design was what got my juices flowing.

UX design was something that I had worked with through the years but only as one of many tasks on my table, since we seldom had a UX designer in our projects. But I had never taken a deeper dive into the world of UX.

The new

So I found the key to the door I wanted to choose. It got me the possibility to change my work title, at the same company and the same business area. I loved the project, the business, the opportunities, the challenges within my work. And most importantly I really enjoyed my colleagues. It was just the tasks I had to handle that didn’t fit me. I became a UX Designer. Which I now understand was what I already was to a large extent. But as I opened the door, I let myself dive into the world of design and especially UX Design. To strengthen my skills and my “new start” I took an “Interaction design” course. I became a part of Fortum Design Team including colleagues with the same interests, same challenges, giving me a supportive home ground.

Now I felt I could contribute more and better to our products. Adobe XD became my best friend and I found it fun again to discuss with developers, product owners, testers, customers and other stakeholders.

After going through something like exhaustion syndromes, it’s not like I feel like “myself again”. I do have changed. It was some years ago now but I do avoid being the center of attraction. I rather want others to shine. But I have found the glow again. And I want to try and learn new stuff. I have so much to learn. And as a result from that change, I also recorded new music for the first time in ten years. Design literally saved my life in so many ways.

Tips

So here are my tips if you run into the same wall:

1. Talk to as many people you can about it— you are not alone
2. Don’t judge yourself
3. Buy a sewing machine — preferably a Husqvarna Automatic 21E
4. Chill
5. Focus on what you think is fun
6. If you have the strength — challenge your employer

And what do I work with? Applications for car charging. Great ones. And as designer I will continue to challenge myself. This year I will deepen my relation to Figma. But I will tell you about that another day. At least you know me a bit more.