My Burnout Story - Short “Teaser” Version
From Stressed-Out High Achiever – To A Complete Crash And 4 Years Long Burnout – To Start Living A Wonderful Life in Balance
Picture of me enjoying my life in balance and harmony an evening in my neighborhood in Sweden.
Michael Gungor once said: “Burnout happens when you avoid being human for too long”. I couldn’t agree more. I have spent the past four years of my life (Yes, you read it correctly, four YEARS (!)) on full-time sick leave from my lawyer work due to not just one, but two burnouts, followed by two years of slowly increasing my workload to now be able to successfully work 100 % again. Two horrible, massive, stress-related burnouts. 175 doctor and therapy visits in total. This is only a short summary and a teaser of the longer text, “My Burnout Story”, which you can find here.
I have hesitated many times to post this since I have felt so much shame over how this could happen to me, but have now decided that I have to break the stigma around mental illness and stress. I have to, we have to, speak about it until there is no stigma left. We have to talk about the uncomfortable until it becomes comfortable. Some of us are or have been burned out, many of us know someone who is or has been burned out, and ALL of us know what stress feels like. All of us. If you, just like the great majority of people in this world, are living a modern life with expectations, responsibilities, and daily challenges – usually without complete inner awareness, a crystal clear life purpose, and conscious balance — burnout can happen to you. No one is immune to this, no one.
Burnout seems to be the epidemic of our lifetime with, in my home country, tiny Sweden alone, almost 40 000 people at this very second being on sick leave from work due to stress-related burnout! This equals to 4 % of the population or almost every 25th person you meet. And if we add to this everyone who has been on sick leave and still suffers from the long-term effects that can last up to 8 years, or everybody who is having all the burnout symptoms now, but is still able to work somewhat well and therefore fall outside these statistics, this number is much – much – higher!
Burnout is clearly a serious health problem and unfortunately not isolated to Sweden alone. Across the Atlantic, a study made in the U.S. showed that 44 % of the workforce reported feeling burned out sometimes. We normally burn out from life in general, but usually, our work situation can be a large contribution to the stress. Work-related burnouts contribute to healthcare spending of around USD 150 billion per year in the U.S. alone and it’s connected to type 2 diabetes, chronic heart disease, gastrointestinal issues, high cholesterol, and death. Statistics show that in Sweden with a population of merely 10 million people, on average 2 persons die from stress-related illnesses every day, so one can only imagine what the equivalent number would be in the USA with a much larger population – and in the rest of the world!
I am now ready to share my journey from being a high achiever with top grades, awards, scholarships, international law firms, Harvard Law School, Google, adidas, and IKEA on my CV along with a semi-professional handball career (I was going full-time professional abroad when a back injury stopped me!) and international fashion model jobs — to one day waking up with no ability to read or write a single sentence (a pretty tricky situation for a lawyer whose job is to process large and complex texts all day long!) or remember what someone told me one minute ago. Even the names of my closest friends I could not remember! Research has shown that the symptoms experienced in burnout are similar to the ones experienced when having a stroke! In addition to memory loss and severe cognitive difficulties, my anxiety was so severe that I also had difficulty making even the smallest of insignificant decisions, such as what color toothbrush to buy in the supermarket, or what to wear when taking the trash out. Paralyzing perfectionism at its core! I also developed an extreme sensitivity to stimuli (lights and sounds), which forced me to stay in bed in a dark, silent room with no disturbances.. for days, which turned into weeks, months, and eventually…years! Isolated, clinically depressed, and with no ability to watch even two minutes of TV or to read the quick news on my phone since it was too much stimuli for my brain to handle; things I had never before even thought about would require brain power! I couldn’t even fully construct a thought of my own without getting lost in worry, anxiety, or losing my train of thought. Taking a five-minute walk around the block would require at least two hours of mental preparation and result in me having to rest due to exhaustion for hours when returning home to my bed. I stopped working, stopped working out, stopped smiling, stopped seeing my friends, and stopped eating. I had become everything I usually wasn’t – and this created an enormous existential crisis, to put it mildly. Who am I now that I can’t perform? What will other people think of me when I’m not the happy, always helpful, and overly ambitious Sanna? Simply put, my brain and body completely shut down, and I couldn’t do anything but cry and sleep at least 17 hours per day — and still feel exhausted when waking up! I hit the wall. I burned out – completely. Not just once, but twice.
Did it come as a surprise one may wonder? Retrospectively, I now realize that my head had kept telling me to continue pushing for more success and more sensational achievements, even if my body was desperately screaming to stop. All bodily warnings of a massive stress-related burnout were there long before my crash (most likely for at least 7 years), but since my mind and body at that time were not aligned to communicate with each other (I was constantly in my head, in thinking-mode and had not learned to meditate or be present in the present moment to feel my body – the being-mode), I wasn’t able to interpret the bodily signals until my entire body, mind, and existence one day just shut down.
Stress and performance had become the default in my life. I didn’t feel stressed, it was just my life. It wasn’t like I was running too fast and suddenly hit a wall, but more like I had lived my whole life not knowing that there even potentially could be a wall. This was a painful result of what long-term stress and pressure without any rest (and especially, awareness of the vital function of rest!) could do to the brain, and many medical researchers have described the symptoms experienced in burnout as similar to the ones in a stroke.
Throughout my life, I have heard people in my surroundings describing me as “WonderWoman” and asking me how I was always able to perform on top and have the ability to do everything in life successfully. Everything. With perfection. My past couple of years of dealing with and recovering from my burnouts, have truly forced me to rethink where I feel purpose and what kind of life I am striving to come back to. I am not aiming to come back to that same kind of “WonderWoman” (a nickname, that has been given to me multiple times over the years), which is what I call “Sanna 1.0” — Sanna before the burnouts. Instead, I have built myself from the ground up, an upgrade to “Sanna 2.0” — who knows that my worth as a person is not dependent on WHAT I do, but rather WHO I am. A redefinition of success knowing that a true “WonderWoman” is not the one who does everything perfectly and pushes herself to the extreme, but the one who knows when to push and when to pause. A person in balance, mental and physical balance. In WonderBalance. Someone who dares to be imperfect, genuine, and vulnerable – and who realizes that she is the only one, who deep inside, is capable of creating her own real and long-lasting happiness.
“It is health that is real wealth”
– GHANDI –
Gandhi once said that “It is health that is real wealth”. I completely agree, and I have had to learn this the hard way in my conscious transformation from Stressed to Blessed. My stressed life was shaped by what I choose to call “The 3 P:s” –– Performance – Prestige – Perfection. They have now been exchanged for a blessed life following “The 3 B:s” — Balance — Beauty — Be. When we live a life in Balance we are able to see all the Beauty around us, that we could easily just miss and run by when being too stressed. This also allows us to just Be — to be truly present in the present moment. Not stuck in the past or dreaming about the future, but to be right here — right now.
Although I’m never going to stop performing or being ambitious, I’m going to be aware, purpose-filled, and balanced when doing so. My mind and body are going to be aligned and in harmony, and for this I have meditation to thank. And to be frank, the alternative, I have come to understand, could be lethal.
Facing change is a part of the inevitable impermanence of life. I have learned to embrace it by constantly challenging myself and throwing myself into the beautiful unknown. I’m a true believer in the fact that expanded horizons equal individual growth, increased tolerance for all human beings, and appreciation for what you have right in the present moment. Life begins at the end of your comfort zone, so if you want something you have never had, then you’ve got to do something you have never done. So that’s what I’m doing now.
By setting my ego aside and fear about what people will think of me, and opening up with vulnerability and honesty, perhaps I could help someone in need – before it is too late and before they enter the burning hell of living with a burned-out brain. Trust me when I say that stress is not cool. Being “so busy” is not cool. However, being in balance is something to aim for, and my mission is to help you do just that. I have therefore created this website and blog, where I will share my thoughts and tips on mental health, stress management, and how to live a sustainable and purposeful life in balance, in WonderBalance. Through my coaching service, you will also be able to get help with stress-and-burnout management, how to find balance and purpose in life, and how to deal with perfectionism and performance anxiety.
I strongly believe that in order to create mental wellness we have to shed light on mental illness. We have to dig deep and dare to be honest with ourselves – even if it’s hard. Real growth happens in discomfort where we dare to challenge the status quo. Then, and only then, we will be able to live a life in gratitude for all our experiences – both the wonderful ones and the challenging ones – that have led us to be exactly where we are supposed to be right at this very moment.
After having survived several incredibly challenging years, with long-term sick leave from my lawyer job, participating in stress courses, sleep courses, a pain management rehab, a 10 days Vipassana silent meditation retreat, medication and so much therapy, introspection, and self-development, I have truly learned from my experience, which has brought an immense amount of gratitude to my everyday life. And love. So much love. I love the core strength and confidence I have built up, and the feeling that no matter how much the wind blows outside I have an untouchable strength inside of me keeping me stable and balanced. I love how I can prioritize myself first in order to be fully there for my loved ones when they need me. I love that I have recently given birth to a baby girl, a small person I will love unconditionally and happily share all my wisdom with – especially the importance of how to live a genuinely happy life in balance, to dare to trust your intuition, and to be unapologetically yourself. I love that I genuinely feel strong and proud for being able to openly and unfiltered share my story with you and no longer feel ashamed of what happened to me.
Like Michael Gungor once said: “Burnout happens when you avoid being human for too long”. I feel like I have now returned to being human, and it feels wonderful. I truly love how I have gone from stressed to blessed and I can proudly say that “WonderWoman” has now become “WonderBalanced”!
