…and we’re back!

Basically right after my first OkieCoder post, I hit burnout

I want to tell you about my burnout story. Because we need to have real, raw conversations about how mental health impacts our work and vice versa. We need to know it’s okay to not be okay.

I burnt out of my tech job, and I came back to the same company after taking a 12-week, job-protected leave of absence (LOA) where I didn’t sustain adverse financial impact.

I came back transformed — 168% better. I came back with compassion for myself for the first time. I came back acknowledging that first and foremost, I am a human with a nervous system, and that I’m worthy just because I am here. I came back as an empowered person, friend, and employee, equipped with self-love and the tools to keep myself regulated no matter the external circumstances.

I count myself incredibly lucky. I had access to therapy and health care. My company supported me, made it relatively easy to take the leave, and welcomed me back warmly.

Unfortunately, not everyone has access to the same resources that helped me get to the other side. That’s a big problem.

Burnout backstory

My burnout from my job was a lifetime in the making:

• A lifetime of conditioning and self-expectations where I derived my value externally. From my productivity, if I met my goals, how well I set myself apart from others, my title, my level, my pay. Was I doing ‘big things’? If not, I was not ‘succeeding’.
• A lifetime of not feeling ‘good enough’, aided by toxic gender norms and damaging societal messaging especially directed at women and girls.
• A specific background with intergenerational trauma which manifested in my life as sexual abuse (as a teenager, being filmed by someone addicted to child pornography in my household), which was swept under the rug and caused further harm later.
• Precipitated by mass layoffs happening in early 2023 industry wide, but which I was unable to ‘come back from’ mentally, even though I wasn’t impacted that time. I did not feel safe inside (and I didn’t know how to create safety within myself) so that when the storm came, I had no shelter. I wanted to ‘be resilient’ but couldn’t.

What I knew when the layoff happened

It impacted ~30% of the company. But not me.

I thought it didn’t hit me because I happened to be going up for promotion for the first time (entry level to mid-level). Honestly, I felt I should have been able to go up for promo much sooner judging on what my peers were saying, but I didn’t take those steps at the time for myself. So the company was able to keep me at the same base salary for work at the next level for longer; I was inexpensive labor compared to someone who went up for promo sooner (when I realistically should have). I felt I had slipped by, just barely, and on technicalities.

From what was a three-person project (myself, a senior server engineer who was acting Tech Lead, and a mobile engineer), I was the only one not affected by the layoff. The three of us were in such a great groove before rumors of the layoffs started circulating in late March/ early April. With the abrupt, merciless change of resourcing, I had no desire to soldier forth on the project alone. I missed my teammates. I felt so much pressure come crashing down on my shoulders. We were supposedly a month from launch. We were 75% of the way there. I was scared I couldn’t do the remaining 25%. I let fear overtake me.

What burnout felt like

I was going through the motions but just barely, and just that was extraordinarily draining. I had no motivation and was sliding down a dark tunnel of anxiety and panic.

I dreaded going to work. I dreaded getting out of bed. I dreaded sitting down at my desk. I started having insomnia and panic attacks.

I knew I had to take a break. My body simply would not let me continue.

I knew it was triggered by work because the minute I got up from my desk to go outside for a walk, I was able to eventually reduce my heart-rate back to normal levels. But when I rounded the corner to come back home, the sight of my house and the thought of sitting back down at my desk would send the heart-rate right back up. Tension in my chest. Heat in the front of my forehead. Tears welling up in my eyes.

I started breaking down in my 1:1s with other folks still left on the team.

I let most everything non-essential (including writing posts for OkieCoder) slip away.

I needed help.

I got the help I needed by:

• Finding the number to call for taking a Leave of Absence (managed by a third party company, Larkin, in my company’s case)
• Calling that number and following the helpful guidance and advice of my representative from Larkin
• Going to my primary care doctor and getting a LOA medically approved and the paperwork submitted
• Informing my manager that I was taking a LOA and would expect to be back in ~12 weeks
• Continuing therapy during the LOA (I already been seeing her every 1–2 weeks for the prior 2 years)

Over the 12 weeks, here’s a summary of what I did and learned:

• I kept going to therapy. I started listening to Calm AF, a podcast about regulating your nervous system to create a life you’re in love with. My therapist recommended it to me, and I’m so grateful she did. I learned that our human brains are wired for survival, not happiness.
• I started learning about self-compassion. After scoring super low results on this quiz, I assigned myself homework from this workbook. I realized that for the past 30 years, I had not learned how to have compassion for myself. I didn’t learn it at home. The fact that I have been walking around like this for so long without basic self-compassion skills is likely by society’s design (i.e. the Powers At Be do not want you to feel enough just as you are right now — they want you to buy your worthiness).
• I traveled back home to visit my family (already planned for a wedding, but I extended my stay).
• I asked my partner to come with me for moral support as I confronted my abuser from all those years ago. I knew I had to stand up for myself as an adult. I knew I had to speak my truth. I asked for help in moving my remaining stuff out of their house.
• I did the above ^. It was incredibly hard. But I did it. I was grateful for the support my partner gave throughout that process.
• I learned my maternal grandmother passed away. I grieved and felt released in some ways from the burdens she bore in being forced to immigrate to the US, leaving behind her life and home in Japan.
• I traveled to Boulder, CO to reconnect with a friend and and tried multi-pitch climbing for the first time- in the Flatirons.

An experience I never knew I needed or was strong enough to do. I highly recommend jeff@smilemountainguides.com if you want to try it — he was excellent.

• I read ‘The Body Keeps the Score’ by Bessel van der Kolk. I learned about how unresolved past trauma (direct and indirect) informs most everything about the default operating system in your brain, whether you’re aware of it or not.
• I started listening to and just sitting with my body. I started a daily yoga practice. (Shoutout to Yoga with Adriene!)
• It didn’t take too long, maybe 3-4 weeks after I confronted my abuser and started implementing self compassion and yoga practices into my life, that my body finally felt safe enough to let me know the truth of what happened that night — my biggest regret of my study abroad experience. I had been raped in college (about 9 years ago). It wasn’t my fault. My body was ready to let the rest of me acknowledge the truth and handle it. As hard as it was, this revelation was an enormous, unexpected gift. Perhaps the biggest gift.
• I processed and grieved. I leaned on my support system. I wrote my emotional origin story — what turned out to be a 14-page document which allowed me to see the facts for what they were, but then to let them go. My past doesn’t get to define me now. I am not what happened to me. I am a survivor. But now I get to thrive. I get to share my story and hopefully help others know they’re not alone.
• I learned how to create safety for myself. I decided the role I want alcohol to play in my life going forward (hint, it’s little-to-none). I cut it out completely for more than 60 days and felt better than ever.

Near the end of my leave:

• I started feeling like I got the rest and resolution I needed.
• I made the empowered decision to return to my company. I let my manager know the date I’d be coming back. I started getting excited to see if I could bring my new learnings and desired feeling states into my work. It felt like a new beginning, because I was a new and better version of myself.
• I started working with a life coach — Kristen Finch from the Calm AF podcast. I dreamed new dreams for my future. I decided the way I want to feel at work and in the rest of my life. I made a plan to get there.
• I decided that my full needs, and not just most of them, are worthy, and that I deserved to be truly in love, and not just love my partner. At the core of that relationship was friendship. It was a good relationship for so many reasons. But I ultimately made the hard decision to break up with my partner, for the last time. For the first time in my adult life, I felt safe from within (and supported enough by my therapist, life coach, family, and close friends), to follow through on something I had been contemplating for a long time (and reversed my opinion on twice before during our 6-year relationship). We are now in a fulfilling ‘heart friendship’ and it feels wonderful to be able to stay in each other’s lives in this way.

This is getting quite long/rambly?, so I’ll save what the return process was like and what I’ve been up to since for a later post. Thank you for reading to this point. If there’s any aspect of this story you want to hear more about specifically, please let me know in a comment.

For now, just know that I’ve recovered from my burnout, I’m doing better than ever, and there will be more OkieCoder posts coming very soon. I’m so ready to share more of my learnings, technical and otherwise, with you.

One way I’m doing that is by incorporating more self-compassion into my work through Becca’s Brave Cafe! If you’d like to receive short emails from me on weekdays reminding you of your worth, your strength, and your bravery, giving you permission to prioritize your mental health at work and beyond, and to hopefully help you feel a little more inspired during The Grind, you can sign up for Becca’s Brave Cafe here (totally free) or send me a message at beccasbravecafe@gmail.com. Signing up will guarantee you get to see more pictures of my kitties Lighthouse and Hoodwink.

I’m here for you. You are not alone. We got this. ❤