Burn-out: How it all started
29 January 2020
This is the first of a serie blogs which will tell the story of Carin Jansen. Carin will write about her experiences with being burned-out. In this blog, Carin will give you an insight on how her burn-out started.
Burn-out, strained too much, sabbatical, on a quest to find oneself. Call it what you want, but you have to be able to explain the gap on your resume.
However, it can be scary to talk about your burn-out; having strained yourself too much is seen as unstable, on a quest to find yourself is strange and too airy. Tell me what to say when applying for a job, because I have no clue. Not anymore.
My story begins with an organisation where I had finally found my place. I started there with the idea and promise that I could achieve the ideal position for me: guiding and training junior employees into the business. It is said that you don’t always end up at the place you want to be, just because you want it. There has to be a possibility as well. After two years of hard work there still wasn’t any progress towards my ideal position. In the meantime, the amount of work piled up on my desk. I gladly accepted the work, because I excelled at it and liked what I did. However, due to circumstances I often had to fend for myself. Then, above all, the company merged and moved to our capital city, Amsterdam. It added an hour traveling time to reach my office.
At home things weren’t great either; the one place that should give me peace and rest after a long day of work. In the end it left me without a single place where I truly felt at peace.
Then the bomb dropped. I literally bumped my head (against the sill of the car). I had been running for weeks. I had been fighting for what I truly wanted (helping people, being creative). That day was like any other day; exhausting. When I hit my head, I stayed in the car, a little dizzy. I sent a message home saying I would be late. “Who is going to do the groceries, it’ll be late.” Next thing I knew, I threw the phone away and burst into tears. It felt like these tears came from the depths of my soul and it took fifteen minutes before I felt able to do anything again. As life has it, I had just paid my parking ticket and I had to find someone to explain the situation so I could leave the parking garage.
What a day!
But it was in that moment I reached a sense of clarity. I am truly miserable! For whom am I doing all of this?
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Stay tuned for Carin’s next blog!