There are many different kinds of burnout: diabetes burnout, advocacy burnout, and just plain life burnout.
Diabetes burnout rears its ugly head for many of us living with diabetes, and what starts as a diabetic affliction can gradually worsen.
The more I talk to my advocacy friends, the more advocacy burnout seems inevitable. Living with, working with, and supporting people with diabetes is hard. Too much.
And in the fast-paced, breathless, always-on lives we live, burnout seems inevitable.
When the three collide, it's a triple threat fiery mess.Welcome to my world.
The white noise of diabetes burnout was always there, but slowly but surely it was being amplified. It was the little things: I regularly forgot to inject my bolus when I ate. I didn't replace my CGM sensor right away when it fell off. I neglected to make diabetes follow-up appointments, schedule pathology visits, or check my inventory so I wouldn't run out.
I’ve been teetering on the brink of activist burnout for a while, and it hit me earlier this year while dealing with complex issues that arose while providing collaboration and support to a volunteer grassroots effort in Australia.
And then the burnout of my life suddenly manifested in the form of exhaustion, inability to sleep well, and brain fog that could be explained as symptoms of menopause. But it was more than that. It was 4pm before I realized I hadn't eaten anything all day. I couldn't remember if I'd showered or how many days it had been since I last washed my hair. It was a lethargy that plagued me all day.
I was focused on planning the US conference and then spent a few days at the HQ. It was a busy, great time and I knew there would be a lot of interesting work. I thought I could do it. And I did. The conference was fantastic. The diabetes advocates there were glowing. And all in all the conference was a great success.
Laugh. Breathe. Laugh. Breathe.
Until I couldn’t. Last week, that moment felt like a weight had been lifted off me.
I was in the office doing a job I love, spending the day talking to amazing people with a lot of work to do. I am inspired and learn so much from the people I work with every day. Plans were in motion for exciting things to come, and I sat in the conference room I had prepared for the day, feeling content and happy. Work was done, I packed my bags and hit the streets.
Then there was a flash of light. Suddenly, I felt an intense pressure from below and all around me, squeezing my chest. I struggled to breathe and my vision became blurred. The sounds of New York City suddenly seemed to come from beneath the layer of concrete, muffled and silent, yet piercing at the same time. Bright sunlight burned all around me, and I had to shield my eyes from the glare.
“Breathe. Breathe.” I felt the fear building of what I knew was a panic attack and knew I needed to get through it safely. “Concentrate. Concentrate.” I looked around for something to grab onto. There was a little dog sitting still, gazing lovingly at its owner who was sitting at an outdoor cafe sipping iced tea. I hunched my back a little, arms around myself, watching this little dog sitting still. I started counting down from 50, and when I reached 34 the dog started to move, jumped on its hind legs and put its front paws on my owner's lap.
It was as if all the chaos of the past few months had finally come together. I tried to stave it off bit by bit. I limited the time I spent online, muting words and accounts whose sole purpose was to argue and incite. I welcomed the quiet that came when my Twitter feed was free of people shouting about my food choices and my Instagram feed was filled with images of only those closest to me. Outside of work, I focused on access to aid, especially advocacy for aid workers. I dove into work because it allowed me to focus on and celebrate the work of others. I amplified the voices of #dedoc° and other advocacy efforts, trying to keep my own work out of the spotlight. These things seemed to work.
But at that moment, on the streets of lower Manhattan, those efforts were meaningless and useless. “But he seemed fine last week.” A friend I spent time with at the ADA a few days ago said, “I was. I was. I thought about how I looked to other people.” “Sometimes it's too much. Now it's too much. Forever… it's too much.”
I felt my heart rate increase, and I realized it had been happening all along. It had happened after my first challenge with grassroots advocacy, and any time I had to confront a source of stress. Sometimes confronting meant a comment on a LinkedIn post. Sometimes it meant a mean direct message or, even worse, a comment someone sent to me. I realized it was happening every time something mean happened on Twitter. It happened whenever conflict happened around me, even if I wasn’t involved. Seeing conflict anywhere was enough to trigger an anxiety response.
“it's okay” I told my friend, “I feel like it's too much.” I felt myself, my mind, and the space around me shatter into millions of sharp, jagged pieces, and each piece cut my skin.
That's burnout. That's what it feels like. Plus there's anxiety, stress and feeling overwhelmed. We all experience it to some degree. And having diabetes makes it even harder. The diabetes support just makes it even worse. Jet lag doesn't help. Then you add in menopause. And finally there's this vulnerability that makes you feel a little scared and vulnerable.”But he seemed fine…' A friend of mine told me that. And I was. Until I burned out. And I'm not anymore.