I absolutely detest my life and find no joy in anything. Video games that would be enjoyable now are just the easiest way to distract myself from feeling terrible, but I don't actually _enjoy_ the time spent. For the most part, I don't do anything outside of work; I largely just sit around. I would occasionally go on bike rides or walks, but I've never been a very outdoorsy person. Life became a very dull cycle of wake, work, wait for work to end, sit around, wait and dread work, etc...
I have sleep issues, and my various medications have not seemed to help. I am (or was) typically a very passionate, motivated person. I was always reading stuff to learn, was very dedicated in school, was always thinking of side projects to work on, etc... I started a medical leave from work a month ago because I couldn't handle starting work each day. Since then, I've felt no motivation to do anything, and an extreme dread at the idea of returning to work. I haven't written code all of that time. I _liked_ writing software, my team was great, but I was always just waiting to stop working each day.
I feasibly could just outright quit my job and be fine for a long time, but I don't know how to rationalize it. It's so hard to look at other people objectively suffering from poor working conditions, low income, and other common problems, and say "well _I_ deserve to relax." I hate to let my job go, but I also hate to force myself to go to work and let down my peers because I'm unreliable. I'm weak and I don't know how not to be.
What I found to be extremely helpful, over really everything else, was seeing a therapist and working through the feelings that I had. In my case, what I realized is that I did not actually despise my job nor was I actually burnt out. Instead, I just lacked balance and fulfillment in my life.
Throughout the course of these therapy sessions, I looked inward and ended up stumbling on a number of new hobbies. All of which were in the physical world and, at the time, were a lot more fulfilling than software development for me. Things like auto detailing, fixing and improving things around the house, BBQing, etc. At one point, I remember myself literally jumping for joy after hanging a bike rack in my garage because I was so excited about it. I found that after exploring these, my love and desire for programming and software development started to return and I felt hungry again.
Reading your post, I don't think that you're weak or unreliable. It sounds like you're changing as a person and haven't been able to put your finger on what makes you happy now that you're older. People with good jobs and good income aren't insulated from feeling this way, and by no means should you feel ashamed for it.
What in the therapy sessions brought out the new hobbies? I have many things I would _like_ to do if I weren't feeling terrible; piano (I took over 10 years of lessons) and other music, DIY electronics, Lego, among other things.
> literally jumping for joy
That is not something I've experienced for a very long time. I've been using Daylio for over two years now and have logged my mood every single day. The number of times I've rated my mood as above "meh" counts less than 40 in 680 days.
With respect to hobbies, I think that the inflection point was realizing that there were truly things still did excite me. From there, it was a matter of working up the courage to explore them. It wasn’t something that happened instantly, but generally being more in tune with my feelings, through therapy, allowed me to identify opportunities for hobbies and balancing activities.
It’s interesting that you mention Lego and DIY electronics. I had similar interests which, from what I would guess, stemmed from an interest in building things (which was the reason I got into software in the first place).
Science can't provide all the answers; in fact the goal of science isn't even to explicitly provide "advice" for anything. It's simply a tool we use to understand the natural world better.
Nor is the goal of therapy to provide advice. You don't go in there, tell them all your problems, and they tell you what to do. You might find that the experience is very different than your expectation of it – hopefully more helpful.
When it comes to human happiness, I think you'll find that abandoning logic in some instances is the best path toward fulfillment. I don't know if you are religious or hold spiritual beliefs (you don't have to be to be happy), but it's not difficult to see that many people who DO hold beliefs that aren't "scientific" per se can also be very fulfilled. If your goal is fulfillment, or meaning, or finding a better center for yourself, it may help to open your mind a little bit and accept that not all human problems have scientific explantations.
With regards to being guarded toward people you don't know,please know that therapy doesn't start this way - with a dump of your intermost secrets. It's starts with talking about everyone else in your life. Over time, report builds and this person is now a friend firmly committed to seeing you succeed.
A note on choosing a therapist -find an actual doctorate that could prescribe pills (speaks to their level of education) but prefers not to. They often state this in their bio/website, and this way you can avoid any pill pushers, while getting the highest caliber of advisor.
I wish you luck, King Adepressedthrow.
While I haven't been keeping a detailed log - I did recall last time (and then several more before that) when I was able to put important/urgent project or work on hold to do something else that's more fun and has been itching for a while.
Literally last time was 3+ years ago - when I said to my team/manager "I know this project is behind/urgent, and to continue for a while longer on it, I'll take 2-3 days to work on this other thing that's not in our scope".
Since then it's been a stream of such behind/urgent/huge/important projects - and only now I realized that I didn't do those "breaks" of working shortly on something else.
I recommend lifting weights, but any physical activity will do. The key is to exhaust yourself...using an elliptical for 30 minutes won’t work.
I've read advice like this a lot, but it seems like such a difficult thing to jump into, especially if I've not had much success with small trials (i.e. the 20 mile bike rides). It also makes me wonder what the intended end goal is; if I spend all of my time exercising, and that does end up fixing me, what do I go back to?
The idea isn’t so much to get tired once and then recover, but to consistently push your body so that you are tired and sleep well. This means lifting weights 3/4 times a week, running HIIT, rowing, etc. Not just a long bike ride for a few hours. It’s not something that will fix your issues overnight.
A more balanced lifestyle, hopefully.
I've had sleep troubles as well over the years and also started biking to stay healthier. For me personally, the more regularly I exercise, the better I sleep. Thanks to modern technology, I discovered that regular exercise lowered my resting heart rate. The lower my heart rate at night, the better I sleep.
That was probably due to a lot of factors but most importantly I was not feeling well with my advisors and I did not believe in what I was doing (though I could present it in a convincing way).
I won't fix your burnout but here are things to check:
- Do you enjoy working with the people you work with?
- Do you believe in what you do? You can do any technically interesting thing in the world, but if it has no meaning for you, or worse, you think it is harmful or works against your values, that's a way to burn out pretty quickly.
- Do you really like what you do? (that's not the same question)
- is there a relationship in which you don't feel that well? Find out why, fix it or end it. Careful, if you are burnt out you could be seeing it from a pessimistic perspective.
Allow yourself to be unproductive / inefficient in your free time and to enjoy it. Take some time for yourself. You cannot really enjoy things you do usually, but maybe you can focus on making your wife, friends, family happy if you can help it, because it can be very rewarding. Don't be hard on yourself, you are not a god (afaik).
Try to rest. I have sleeping issues, I find it very hard to turn off my brain, but listening to interesting things while trying to sleep works pretty well for me, it is a good distraction. Being tired is shitty.
Maybe try something new, maybe learn to play music? It's hard, takes a lot of work, and a lot of time, but it is something you can take refuge in. And learning it is nothing like learning a new programming language or a new framework so you might find out interesting things about yourself.
I need meaning. Maybe you too? If so, seek meaning somewhere or everywhere in your life. Take time to think. This might lead you to a new job with a lower income or less technically challenging, but in which you believe and which relates to your values.
In your quest of meaning, you might end up finding out that life is quite meaningless and has no goal. If so, you could conclude that you are free and that the best you can do is to fully enjoy life within the limits set by your values :-)
Other than potential physical issues with my body and mind, this is probably my biggest issue. Somehow I've never learned how to relax and how not to min/max everything for productivity. As a child/early teen, I used to despise sleep because it was a "waste of time" and I wasn't being "productive". Now I constantly feel bad if I'm performing at 100%, which results in me feeling terrible after a week of work where I didn't accomplish 90% of what I wanted, but I still blew my management away with what I did (not always, but often).
I think I'm still working through the unstructured period of just stopping work, but I'm hoping that once I start to really settle into this free time, I will learn how to slow down and actually relax. Sit down, read a book, and don't worry about how quickly I'm reading, what projects I should be working, what I have to do later in the day.
For the rest of your comment, I do think I genuinely enjoy my current position and its goals. It's not something with high morals, but it's valuable, OSS (very important to me), and I can have a huge impact in how people interact with computers (kind of my main focus with my work). I have poor relationships with my parents, but I don't communicate with them often, so it's not really a big deal.
And perhaps also guilt from being behind on work/projects preventing you from relaxing/enjoying previously fun things ...etc
So reevaluating such deep life questions (Do you believe/like what you do) during early stages of burnout is a bad idea.
I think besides my sleep problems and potential genetic predisposition, my way of thinking tends to have a higher incidence of mental illness. I am very logical and driven, and I'm a perfectionist. I walk into a situation and if people aren't being led by a strong leader, I become that leader. I care way too much about quality and work too hard on teaching others to meet my quality standards. I actively recognize that these things are holding me back (in as much as they've also made me successful), but I don't know how/have the will to change them.
My depression began before I properly entered the workforce, and has just been worsening from there. I left my last FAANG position because I was running waaaaay too much and was the single point of failure; I had hoped that it was just that environment that was killing me. Now that I'm at a position I like much more, I'm still experiencing the same mental issues, however, and they've worsened...
1. You seem to be dealing daily with people issues as well as code issues and given your way of thinking and maybe your role, people issues might be the one you end up spending more time and energy on. I have been in this situation and I burnt out because I was trying to solve all issues that I interact even remotely with. It took a while for me to understand that there are issues that I can solve right now, issues I can solve by delegating, issues that take time to solve and issues that I cannot solve at all. Categorizing on this basis gave me the freedom to prioritize and solve issues without burning myself out and remain fresh for the new ones that pop up.
2. IMHO most problems leaders face are ones that require experience and not skill to solve. Given your career until now, if the issues you have to solve as a leader are not ones that you faced yourself or were a part of, you might not have the necessary context or information on how to approach them. You will get to a right solution eventually but it will take time and mistakes might happen. And you would be solving not just one but many issues at the same time which makes it even harder.
3. Writing down what you do on a daily basis helps. Something similar to a diary where you could always go back to see what was the cause of you having a bad day and avoiding/solving it early the next time.
I would suggest taking a break first, and then deciding if you want to join back at the same role you are right now or at a lower role with less responsibilities so that you can find time to change your way of thinking or even tone down the things that you feel are holding you back.
Well, first of all, I would echo some of the advice of others here. A sabbatical can salve burn-out, though you rightly sense that as soon as you go back to work, the feelings will foam up again --- unless you address the source.
It's probably good that you do _something_ besides sit around at home. Preferably it would be something to get you out of the house and around other people. It could be volunteering, something very unlike your day job, maybe something to get your blood flowing. For example, it might be counterproductive to choose on a hobby programming project to do in your room. Hammering houses together for the homeless, and then going to lunch with the other volunteers, sounds better. But it could be anything. Maybe your spouse could help you brainstorm a hundred things before you try some.
But that won't cure you either. You say you are a perfectionist. I find that admirable and can sympathize with it, but there are few surer roads to disappointment than looking for perfection in others, or even yourself! It's possible your feelings are partly genetic. It could also come from your dad. Even if what caused his depression did not reach you directly, moods and attitudes can be contagious. Furthermore, a great part of your feelings may be arising from your own thoughts. I have found that practically all of my feelings can be traced to some thought. It was tricky at first, because often there is a delayed reaction, or the thoughts are so fast that they fly under the radar.
You might try reading a book by Chris Thurman called The Lies We Believe. I went to seem him in Austin, and I think he is a top-notch psychologist. His writing is very easy to read and down to earth --- not the typical academic gobbledygook. It belongs to the class of counseling called Cognitive Behavioral Therapy --- which is just a fancy name for what I just said, that feelings follow thoughts. Later you might seek out a trusted psychologist to meet with face to face. I found that it isn't so much that a counselor waves a magic wand or knows some esoteric theory that solves all my problems. Most of all it was him listening, in a nonjudgmental way. And most of the advice was simple. Mental problems can often be like the tangle of cords behind your TV or computer. Our first impulse, when we're in pain, is to thrash and pull on them. But that just makes the knots tighter. We need someone who can gently help us slowly untangle them, one loop at a time. It takes time.
Don't look at other people. Sure, be grateful that you are better off than a lot but don't forget that there are a lot of people much better off than you (mentally/physically etc). So don't compare and focus on yourself.
If you can quit and feel the need, do it. You don't need to answer to anyone except yourself. You may not know if quitting will work but if that is what you THINK you need right now, you should do it.
I would talk to my team/boss and ask for time off. Serious time off like 3+ months. If they really think you are worth it, they should give that to you. Make it unpaid but tell them you want to come back. You may not though and that should be ok. Regardless, do it for yourself.
I've been on an unpaid leave for a little over a month. I thought the same as you; that if I'm worth it, they should be accepting of the break. However, they've repeatedly bothered me about getting doctors' notes (which my doctor obliged) and made it clear that if I was not covered under FMLA (I'm in the US), they would _have_ to let me go. This in and of itself makes me want to quit, because it's disingenuous to say that I'm one of the most valuable engineers, then talk about firing and rehiring me when I want to take this leave.
> If you can quit and feel the need, do it. You don't need to answer to anyone except yourself. You may not know if quitting will work but if that is what you THINK you need right now, you should do it.
This is reassuring, thank you. I'm not sure that it's the _correct_ advice, but it's nice to see :P
I agree that this is a red flag. Unfortunately in work life, companies can say one thing and do another, and it looks like you've experienced that here. I think you have done the right thing by taking time off. My advice would be to seek counselling and ask about medication to help treat your depression. Even if it doesn't solve it completely, it should at least give you a bit of breathing room to afford you a broader perspective. From there, you can hopefully make the best step forward.
Best of luck to you, in all sincerity. You sound very talented and capable, and I'm sure that latent skill will serve you well in any future role regardless of the temporary setbacks you may encounter.
It's worth saying that it was really hard coming back and starting work again. I'd say I wasn't settled being back for another 4-6 months.
This is indeed a worry of mine, though I think if I'm actually fixed, I'll be jumping to at least write code and work on software projects. I've always been very driven, and was trying to start a software business at 13. I don't think that aspect of me will ever go away, even if I'm super depressed.
> I took 8 months and traveled the world. It was great (but expensive!).
Where did you go and what did you do? I grew up relatively poor, and combined with my social anxiety, I have never really gone anywhere (I don't know what I would do when I get there). I don't even have my passport and have never left the US.
My girlfriend put a serious effort into organizing the trip (we traveled together) and I don't think I would/could have done it without her. I went to lots of different countries including India, New Zealand, Cambodia, South Africa, Namibia, Bosnia, Turkey, Brazil, Peru, Argentina, Bolivia. Some places I stayed for weeks, others just days. Some places we did group tours (https://www.gadventures.com and other similar companies) and other places we stayed in hotels/hostels/camped. You can learn about history and culture and you can enjoy yourself drinking, eating and meeting people. Each place is different.
Before: https://youtu.be/7vSBCZ1mnL4
After: https://youtu.be/0IvfL4z7XHw (uploaded today)
I had what I thought was my dream job for a number of years, also growing a startup, and I slowly realized it actually _wasnt_ my dream job. Building a company takes a varied set of skills, like sales, management, marketing. I was stretched so thin in all those directions I burned myself out, in part because I persisted in the false belief that I liked this job. Eventually it dawned on me it wasn’t a good fit, and really I enjoyed a fraction of what the role offered me. I was hung up on title and status. Further, it was hard to fill a 40 hours just with the work I wanted to do.
> I have sleep issues, and my various medications have not seemed to help. I am (or was) typically a very passionate, motivated person. I was always reading stuff to learn, was very dedicated in school, was always thinking of side projects to work on, etc... I started a medical leave from work a month ago because I couldn't handle starting work each day. Since then, I've felt no motivation to do anything, and an extreme dread at the idea of returning to work.
Wow I also had sleep issues during this phase. I attribute a lot of what was happening to the cognitive dissonance of being attached to a role I wasn’t a good fit for.
> It's so hard to look at other people objectively suffering from poor working conditions, low income, and other common problems, and say "well _I_ deserve to relax."
Would you say this to a loved one having the same issues? “Oh sorry you don’t deserve to relax”. Of course not. Be kinder to yourself! Everyone deserves to have their needs met.
> I attribute a lot of what was happening to the cognitive dissonance...
I have had significant issues with cognitive dissonance in the past. I was experiencing strong RSI-like sensations, with nothing I tried relieving the pain. I believe someone on HN pointed me towards The Mindbody Prescription by Dr. Sarno, which talks about your brain causing pain in response to cognitive dissonance. It's honestly pretty weird and probably a placebo, but actively being aware of my dissonances and mentally addressing them appeared to help, and I haven't had symptoms since. (I also use an Ergodox keyboard, just in case :P )
I do miss having in-person friends somewhat, just for the occasional hike or game night, but that's hard to achieve when you move far away. I'm very introverted and maintain few, but longstanding friendships, so meeting new people is rather difficult.
Diet wise, I eat relatively healthy compared to most of the US, but that isn't really saying much. Obviously I'm consuming more calories than necessary, hence my weight gain, but I believe it's more portion sizes than anything else.
You have more or less exactly the same story I had at the start of my career. Im just about 5 years a head of you. So I am hoping this advice can help save some of my 'wasted' years.
I went through a period about 4-5 years ago of similar depression and for me it was real burn out induced depression. Though at the time i would never had thought i was anywhere near burnout. I was getting accolades at work, promotions and more money, had a beautiful girlfriend who was very supportive. Life should have been good. It was truely the worst time in my life.
I only began the process of finding out what was wrong with me because i couldn't sleep and got so exhausted I was physically struggling to get out of bed. Like the signal from my brain was not reaching my legs when i wanted to swing out of bed. I thought I had cancer or something along those lines. I was 6'4" and 136 pounds. Went to the GP, did all sorts of tests, I think the GP was humouring me and building up the idea it was burn out induced anxiety and depression.
Went to a psychiatrist (best choice I ever made). She helped deal with the anxiety and the immediate acute suffering, also helped me regulate life so I wasn't destroying myself. I opted to not take any drugs to help, she taught me breathing techniques and thought patterns to build up some mental resilience/mindfulness. But the most important thing she told me was this. Your mind and your body are soo intrinsically connected. She told me I should start exorcising for 45mins a day of vigorous exorcise.
I definitely had never really considered the mind body connection in any more depth than a pass comment at a party or something. But it's very true, they're the same thing. It took me at least a year and a few false starts after that to really get going properly. But go to the gym and work yourself into the ground. At first it will feel shit, you wont really see any improvements for a few weeks to a few months.
But push through that and it more or less fixed everything for me. I swear in the first year of working out I gained like 10-20 IQ points. My mind is sooo much more clear, I can hold so many more variables in my head at once. Programming is fun again, literally colours are brighter, life is fun again. I don't have any neck, shoulder or back pain everything feels great. I now go to the gym minimum 4 days a week and I am so certain its this that has helped me, because if I miss even a week I start to slip into depression again. My sleeping pattern gets fucked, I eat bad (shitty food at shitty times), things start to get increasingly bad. I then go back to the gym and almost overnight things start getting better.
The last piece of advice I can give is get a PT when you start out. Signup for a minimum of two sessions a week for 3 months. I don't need a PT to help me with technique or to show me how to use the equipment properly any more (I definitely did for the first 6 months). But despite me knowing how important working out is, I almost never want to do it. Having a PT is really important for my motivation. During harder weeks having an external motivator of 'I have paid for the session I have to go', or 'Roger is waiting for me I can't cancel now' is really helpful.
Sorry for the wall of text and I hope that helps
I'm not likely to go to a gym, but I hopefully will be pushing myself to start exercising. We'll see how it goes given my asthma.
Do it. You've got FAANG, you've got awesome experience, you can afford to do this now.
Stop working for a year, I think in the US they call it a sabbatical. If you didn't take a break after college, call it the break now.
You might be limited in where you can go right now, so no overseas stuff - but if you're in the US I'd really stress taking this year to just.. Enjoy yourself. You can walk into another role tomorrow if you need to.
Obviously talk this over with your SO. Some people have different approaches to this stuff. I'd need to go over finances and explain the job market to mine. I usually take 3-6 months off between jobs - this is the first time I've worked consecutively through roles.
Now on how to go about this, take as much paid medical leave as you can. String your FAANG along as long as you can while still getting paid. It won't be a clean break with your direct report because they want you working, but they work for the big machine too. You're not impacting them. Everyone else, it doesn't really matter. Make your LinkedIn connections and get the fuck out.
When people ask what you're doing, or when you talk to employers in the future - "I was looking after my parent/sibling/family". No more questions, and it's a reasonable explanation. Like telling your boss you've got "stomach problems". They aren't going to pry and it's socially acceptable.
I can't wait for you to look back in 6 months time and think "why the fuck didn't I do this sooner". It might take you that long to start feeling better.
Now go join a gym, start regular healthy routines, learn a foreign language, make delicious food and clean the house for your SO. If I wasn't starting a job, I'd be joining you!
Take care, you'll be fine.
You haven't mentioned your location but I assume you're in the US. You were great at your job in FAANG and have a large amount of savings. Consider moving to continental Europe and work for a FAANG or similar company there to improve your work-life balance and reduce cost of living.
Take a look at Germany, Netherlands or Sweden. You don't have to learn the language before moving there, you get more vacation days a year, longer parental leaves (in the case of Sweden you may qualify for the paid parental leave even if have a small child who was born before you moved to the country), and good public transport, no need to be stuck in traffic jams. Free healthcare and education are also a plus.
Good luck finding your mojo again!
And due to that you shouldn't make any drastic and far reaching decisions untill you get that somewhat "recalibrated".
I mean sure - decide to overdo exercise for the rest of your life. Just don't decide to get a divorce, sell the house and spend all the money in short amount of time.
And yes it's rather weird to find yourself (temporarily) not working. And instead of going like "Yay I finally have time to do all (or at least some of) those things I always wanted/postponed/did-tiny-chunks-of/etc". Not feeling like any of those things are engaging, recharging or fun.
The best advice I've got is do something more physical and away from screen. Like make/build something (small or bigger), plant some fruit/vegetables, fix some stuff around the house ...
Oh and make sure you get up at same time each morning (having school age kids helps). Early in the day (ideally even from day before, though coming up on during morning) have some specific plan on things you'll do that day. Not necessarily achieve some output - just say "3 hours planting tomatoes in the garden".
Focus on following through with the plan - but without stressing that things take you longer than you expected (hence not plant X tomatoes in 3 hours).
And for relaxing/fun stuff - keep trying a mix of new/different stuff, as well as old things that used to be fun.
I have several friends in nearly the same position as you. We are trying to build our company more flexibly to support that. Feel free to reach out if this would be a helpful setup for you. I’m honestly curious to see how many people feel like they need something different than what they are currently doing.
Take a well deserved break first, and you can later think about doing things that you would enjoy. You say you have a very successful career, which is great. But personally I think it's a lot more important to enjoy life than having a very successful career making good money if it makes you depressed.
I dont have any helpful advise, just can share some things that have worked well in my case...
- 1, I would say try making a change... I know youre married, so it might be a bit harder but change cities. Usually when I go this my mood stays elevated for around a month, I have changed 7 cities in the last 7 years moving again next month. I am assuming your job is also remote- if so, I would highly reccomend taking on the "Gypsy" lifestyle just AirBnb from city to city every couple of months... Its not a long term fix but definitely a good short term fix in my case.
I am also a big gamer... the good part is beginning October, there are going to be some amazing launches. Horizon Forbidden west, FarCry 6 and many others... that will also keep you occupied for a couple of months..
Since your married, talk to your wife/husband/significant other- maybe a trip migth be in store?
Also, I dont have one personally- but if your a dog person- Go get a dog! for real- they are happiness machines..
I am not on any medicines but do have a bad addiction to nicotine (I vape) and eat crappy food...
Also- again I have no personal experience- but try meeting a therapist...
All we can do here is give suggestions that might provide you some distractions from the root issues for awhile.
