To the outside world, I had it all.
I was 29, married, with a lovely flat, and working for a luxury brand climbing up the corporate ladder.
On paper, I was achieving my personal goals.
The truth, however, was very different.
My job as a product manager had become demanding and frustrating and my marriage was falling apart.
I was trying to keep the mask from slipping and do what I thought was expected of me: to be a good wife, a dutiful daughter, a loyal friend, and a high-performing employee.
But that list, while admirable, completely ignored my own needs and the stuff ‘Claudia’ needed in order to have the energy to push through the day and wake up in the morning refreshed rather than drained and exhausted.
In the beginning, I tried to speak up and address these problems but it was futile.
And so I just kept doing what needed to be done and keep functioning to fulfil all these roles.
But something had to give, and it was me.
Looking back, I can now see the process of burnout has been brewing for some time.
l had given away everything that was valuable to me: my time, my energy, and my health.
I struggled to find a moment of inner peace. Under stress, I got easily agitated and emotionally unstable. I was tense most of the time and the simplest thing would send me over the edge. My phone running out of charge or my laptop playing up would set me off.
After another frustrating meeting at work, I would flee to the bathroom and cry and feel that I couldn’t cope anymore. I just wanted it all to stop. But somehow I was able to keep going on autopilot.
When I got home after work I would pass out on the sofa straight away. I felt constantly fatigued. I lacked the energy to work-out or meet with friends. Talking to them or even just listening to them would drain my energy.
Weekends were the worst. Life felt meaninglessness and I dreaded Sundays because I knew that the next day this hamster wheel of an unfulfilling life would start all over again.
As I approached my thirties I realised my marriage was over. And in 2020 I filed for divorce.
Despite this I continued to work in a job I no longer liked.
Although I had been furloughed for a short while during the pandemic, once I returned to my job the workload intensified.
I was working even longer hours and my stress levels went through the roof.
No matter how hard I tried I could not unwind. I was under constant stress day and night. Nights became my battleground. I couldn’t fall asleep, my brain was working overtime: whirring away and ruminating. Thinking. Constant questioning. I just could not switch off.
Every two hours I would wake with a start gripped with panic. I was lucky if I managed four hours’ sleep. The knock-on effect was that each day I felt worse than the day before.
All the things that I would usually rely on to help me I had abandoned, believing I didn’t have spare time for them. So no yoga, no mediation, no walking in nature.
I had reached what I now know was stage one of burnout: constant stress and inability to relax.
Soon I started to withdraw entirely from others – the second stage of burnout.
I couldn’t cope with others. I felt too weak, too exhausted to even speak to people. In no time, I noticed that even the tasks at work had no meaning to me anymore. I couldn’t bear to engage as much as before with anything work-related. It all became pointless and insignificant. And so very soon I reached stage three of burnout in which I started to de-personalize myself with everyone and everything around me.
The months from June to August during that time are little more than a blur. In truth I felt like a robot fulfilling my duties, helping my parents move house, and work, work, work with seemingly no end in sight.
Even more worrying, was the brain fog. I struggled to understand or take in what people were saying to me either in work meetings or in personal conversations.
I could hear words but they just did not make sense. I partly lost my reasoning capability which scared me a lot. But I didn’t allow myself the time to look into it further as I had things to do. ‘I have to function” was the mantra pushing forward.
I felt clouded and couldn’t feel any emotions whatsoever. I became emotionally numb. I struggled to focus at work and began to make mistakes which in turn caused me more stress and trouble.
Friends told me that I sounded chaotic and manic when I spoke to them on the phone as if I was being chased and on the run. I didn’t understand what they were trying to tell me. I had tasks to do, expectations to fulfil.
A vivid memory I have is of one Sunday afternoon, I was lying in bed unable to move. My limbs were heavy, and I was crying silently in deep soul pain, telling myself: “I don’t want to work tomorrow.”
I realised how much I couldn’t stand my job and all the demands of it. I felt so weak, so empty and dead inside. Any sort of task would be too much to cope with at that moment.
At the time I had been living with my parents while I was going through my divorce. Even my lovely mum simply asking me what I would like to eat overwhelmed me.
Yet still, somehow, my autopilot kept me going.
But then the following day on Monday, 6th August at 7:10 am when I opened my work laptop after drinking my fourth coffee to try and help me function I opened the first email. And while reading it, tears began running down my cheeks. I was sobbing and crying uncontrollably. The breakdown had arrived. I felt helpless and unable to cope any longer.
The email was harmless: it had just been an inquiry about a product from a colleague, but I couldn’t answer. I felt like I didn’t know anything anymore.
My brain had gone blank and I struggled even understanding the lines in front of my eyes. I was terrified and I couldn’t understand what was happening to me.
Then for the first time, I paused.
I gave up this constant pushing myself over the max. I had been doing this for too many years. Even though I was working on a freelance basis as a certified coach helping to support people with limiting beliefs and stresses, I had all the tools at my disposal, yet I had not been able to see my own crisis coming.
Eventually, I realised I needed help. I was no longer able to push on or able to help myself.
So I went to the doctor who diagnosed me with a severe stress disorder, which is more commonly known as burnout. I got a sick note for six weeks off work. No further help, no further information. I tried to get a psychotherapist spot, but the waiting list was up to one year.
After two weeks I found a psychotherapist who only was able to provide me three hours of therapy, but I gladly took them. She helped me understand what was going on in my life.
I came to understand and learn the following:
- Burnout is a slow process and there are various stages to it
- Burnout needs time to heal and will not disappear after six weeks
- Burnout is not depression, although you might feel like it is
- Burnout does not only occur in the workplace it can also happen at home
- Burnout can severely damage your brain. Chronic stress can reduce the size of your prefrontal cortex which is the area of your brain responsible for memory and learning
- Many people don’t understand burnout
- The healing journey is work
- Our health system does not have the capacity to provide the support and awareness people with burnout need
As much as my parents loved me and were supportive they just couldn’t understand why their daughter who had always been such a powerhouse, was now utterly powerless.
At work, people tried to be sensitive however, after six weeks back to work I was not ready to cope with more than a few hours a day. But this was not always possible due to the nature of the business and within three weeks of my return I had a recurrence of burnout.
It was then that I decided I had to leave my job and take time off to heal and recharge my life batteries.
I began reading and researching and came to understand what burnout is and what I needed to recover holistically and sustainably.
The World Health Organization defines burnout as “a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. It is characterized by three dimensions:
- feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion;
- increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one’s job; and
- reduced professional efficacy.”
It continues: “Burnout refers specifically to phenomena in the occupational context and should not be applied to describe experiences in other areas of life.”
This is the official definition; however, I see it differently. Burnout can also happen in other aspects of our life.
My journey to my inner self and to healing incorporated a lot of wisdom from ancient traditions like yoga, qigong, energy healing, psychotherapy, and introspection.
I could tell I was getting better as I began to enjoy being in nature again. I could laugh again. After yoga practice, I was also able to feel inner peace again.
For the first time in months I slept for a straight six hours and I knew this was a turning point on my road back to health.
As the weeks went by I felt more energized and I was able to focus and concentrate enough to read books once again.
With my gradual recovery I learned more about burnout. I realized the huge need for education on the signs of burnout and sustainable stress management.
Once I felt I was getting back on track I decided to leave Germany and move to London in October 2020 to start over.
In London I encountered so many people who were also suffering from burnout.
After I opened up about my own vulnerability, people, in turn, opened up to me revealing they were going through the same things.
But it was when I wrote a blog post on burnout that I realized this was an issue far more widespread than I had first thought.
So many people messaged me to say how much they could relate to what I had written and that they too were going through the same issues.
I became passionate about helping others from my experience and wanted to provide healing support and the tools to help with extreme stress and burnout prevention.
Being a certified life coach, energy healer and yoga teacher was great, but I wanted to be able to help people even more effectively so I decided to continue to train in yoga therapy, yin yoga, qigong, and hypnotherapy.
This then led me to set up Passion Rebellion Health Coaching with my business partner, to assist people in healing and transforming holistically.
Now one year on, I cannot believe how unwell I was and how I did not spot the signs sooner.
Too many of us believe life is a treadmill and something to ‘get through’ and I was one of those.
It was only when I reached rock bottom that I began to see how ill I was.
I can safely say that 2020 was both my year of crisis and true transformation.
The thought of leaving my marriage, my job, and my home country in the space of just a year would have terrified the Claudia of 2020.
But I now see that it was what I needed to kickstart my healing to learn to live life on my terms.
