Salman Ansari on Substack: "My first major experience with burnout came through founding a startup. I kept going and going way past the moment it was too late. I would justify it by saying that others depended on me, that I’ve already gone so far, and so on. It was only when my body just gave up entirely …"

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My first major experience with burnout came through founding a startup. I kept going and going way past the moment it was too late. I would justify it by saying that others depended on me, that I’ve already gone so far, and so on.

It was only when my body just gave up entirely that I stopped. I left. I hid. Suddenly it was okay to rest. I took a sabbatical. Because I was physically ill, all of it was justified. Otherwise it would have been “lazy.”

I’ve had to learn this time and time again. I’m getting better at seeing the signs.

But mostly, I’m just thankful. If I never tripped and fell off the treadmill, I would still be running on it, without knowing quite why.

The pain was important: It served a purpose of waking me up.

I do not regret my burnout. I owe it a lot—it was the burn that fueled my second life.

“I’ve been burnt out for a few months now, trying as hard as I could to ‘rest’ and go slowly. But, yet, it took something physical, a picture of my giant, chronically inflamed gallbladder for me to stop for 4 days. I’m sheepish that even as a psychiatrist, after writing a book called Real Self-Care, I’m still guilty of dismissing my needs, and only stopping when I physically CANNOT do more. ”

Anne Helen Petersen

The Right Kind of Busy

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