I’ve written in the past about how our experienced with trauma, particularly childhood trauma, often intersects with our likelihood to burn out at work. If you grow up feeling that you’re unloveable, worthless, not good enough, dumb, that you don’t belong, then how likely are you to go above and beyond to prove yourself.
Now add in the verbal confirmation from a parent, or emotional neglect, or abuse, and well, it must be true, right?
One of the problems with talking about this, is that our definition of ‘trauma’ is a tiny bit warped.
If you don’t already know your Adverse Childhood Events score then you can click here to find out, but whilst we think of trauma as big, soap-worthy stuff, 64% of the population will score at least 1 on the ACE score. And if you have a score of 1, it’s an 87% chance you’ll score 2 or more.
So when I talk about trauma, you may not see yourself a a traumatised person or a victim, but you’re more likely than not to have experienced some significant ‘trauma’ that has impacted you. In many ways it’s just par for the course.
What’s really interesting about the ACE score is the longitudinal study that has gone alongside it, showing how our likelihood of diabetes, lung disease, violence, even our life expectancy, can be tied to those early experiences. It’s not guaranteed, because of course we can take that knowledge and do something about it, put ourselves in a better position by acting on it, but let’s take a look.
For someone like me, who scores 4+ on the ACE test (they only trace outcomes for being in the 0, 1, 2,3 and 4+ brackets which probably speaks volumes) I am:
400% more likely to suffer from emphysema or chronic bronchitis
7 times more likely to be an alcoholic
1200% (no that’s not a typo) more likely to attempt suicide that someone with a score of 0
As someone in the 6+ score group I’m at risk of my lifespan being shortened by 20 years
I’m at higher risk for both prescription and non-prescription drug addiction alcoholism, eating disorders, self harm, depression, severe mental health issues and suicide.
And yet I barely drink, have never taken an illegal drug, and bar 2 short interventions in my 36 years on the planet, have not been regularly medicated for anxiety or depression. Why is that?
Because burnout was my addiction.
Overworking was my way to manage anxiety. It was my self-soother and my self-harmer.
My chronically over-developed fight or flight response dovetailed beautifully with a never-off, always thinking, always overworking mindset, and I channelled the adrenaline and cortisol constantly pumping through my body thanks to years of trauma, into swinging through the monkey bars, working 12 hour days as standard, one day or less off each week.
And much like any other chronic over-achiever and self-starter, I was rewarded for it. I worked with bosses who liked that I didn’t need my hand held or could put things together quickly, spotting patterns before others, making my commercial awareness and business focus seem hyper developed.
(Of course, any of you with traumatic childhoods will know that pattern spotting and observation is just survival 101. Reading someone’s non-verbal cues can mean the difference between dinner being on the table or up the wall, the difference between being tucked up in bed asleep or racing through the house to dial 999 before they catch you)
As a natural control freak (see observation and pattern spotting above) I was used to managing over people’s emotions, talking people down before they lost their cool, bending and adjusting to fit in order to not make a fuss.
Those skills translated into: oh but Leah you’re so good with difficult clients, but the passive-aggressive women love you, they need someone who can put a proverbial arm around their shoulders. You’re much better with them than me.
Yeah, no shit, I’ve been doing it my whole life.
It meant that I was working on way-above-my-paygrade stuff because I was one of the only ones who could seem to handle it.
I say seem because, of course, those of us in the Aces-High bracket often have a well-polished veneer of in control, happy, calm, handling whatever comes our way - whilst underneath we are a roiling mess of emotions and fears and worries and doubts… all of which we neatly side-step and channel into our work as a way of desperately maintaining some semblance of control.
It meant I appeared to be doing more than almost anyone else… because there was no time or energy expended on taking care of myself. I didn’t know what that meant. It’s something I’m still figuring out in many ways. I didn’t think I needed weekends or holidays or days off because, well they had never happened in my family. Ever.
My addiction was overworking to the point of exhaustion so I could finally sleep.
My addiction was validation and praise from people in power, people in control, people who I was convinced had their shit together far better than I did and so I must have been doing a good impression of coping.
My addiction was chasing the ‘what’s next’ of status and safety. New qualification, new certificate, new payrise.
My addiction was seeing and knowing everything so nothing could surprise me. Apologies anyone who ever attended a Christmas party with me, I didn’t drink nearly as much as you thought and watched everything like a hawk.
My addiction was making the world better for other people because I didn’t actually think I deserved to be happy, or knew how to get there.
My addiction was hiding it all and trying to convince everyone I was fine.
And just like every other addiction, it was a long-term, well hidden process. One of the most commonly misunderstood parts of burnout is what burnout actually means. Most of my clients wait for some kind of crash, explosion or crisis as being the point at which they know that they are experiencing burnout; this is incorrect. Crises and problems are a key feature of burnout, along with illness, absenteeism and an ever lowering productivity rate, but for the vast majority of us burnout is not a straight line graph. It is instead a progression through chronic depletion and stress, with peaks or occasional crises and small recoveries, with a continual downward trend.
For most of us, like addicts, we live in burnout for years. Functional, presentable, reliable. Our addiction to overwork and seeking validation maintains within acceptable limits and the people around us not only turn a blind eye, but often encourage us.
You’re so good at this work.
I’m so grateful for how hard you’ve worked on this.
Let’s celebrate a job well done.
Burnout is the most middle-class of all the addictions.
It is acceptable, encouraged, promoted (sound like booze yet?) until we go to far.
And then it’s us. We couldn’t cope. We’re the mess.
We become the ostracised few in order to protect the status quo of the majority, and work is focused on getting us back to productivity rather than health.
My argument is simple: in a world where more than two thirds of the population have experienced trauma, where overwork and exhaustion as a badge of honour is not just encouraged, but lauded to the point of being fetishised, burnout is a natural consequence.
We can wait to change the overworking culture, change our impacts with trauma, change the way we respond to high achievers…
Or we can take a few hours to educate ourselves, to understand our processes and the impact of our experiences on the way we interact with work, and putting in place practical tools to help us maintain sustainability over the long term.
You know my view, because I refuse to accept a 20 year limiting of my lifespan and am doing all I can to make sure my life and work are sustainable for a very long life.
How about you?
PS I am currently inviting 3 new 1:1 clients to start working with me at the end of this month. Working with me 1:1 is a completely bespoke service, where we meet once every 2 weeks via video call, with completely unlimited support by email and messenger service in between. We focus on the challenges you’re facing right now, together with your approach and responses, and make small but striking changes to help you put in places boundaries, redefine your approach to work and life, reduce the impacts of imposter syndrome, people pleasing and the chronic overwork behaviours I’ve outlined in this blog.
If you would like to talk in greater depth about working together to bear burnout and make sure it doesn’t keep you stuck and struggling for years, reach out to me directly by email here or book a one-off 1:1 Let’s Talk call here