Burnout, Depression, or a Mental Breakdown?

As you can see from the timeline, I went through a few stressful life events (SLEs) over the span of a few MONTHS back towards the end of 2019-early 2020. You would think I would’ve lost my mind. In life we go through different types of SLEs, but there are five main ones:

• Death of a loved one.

• Major illness or injury.

• Divorce.

• Moving.

• Job Loss.

At the same time, I went throught 4 stressful life events, no make it 5 if you coun t the death of my best friend, Agapi, my companion who had been with me on this earth for 13 years and 11 months.

A lot to process right?

Or I did, drowning my sorrows in alcohol for around 3 months. Many use alcohol as a coping mechanism to numb their pain when going through a stressful life event. In addition to heavily drinking, I pretty much didn’t eat for 2 months. After some time I would force myself to eat something small, just so I could make it through the day, but definitely nowhere near the normal 2000 calorie intake for an adult..

But I moved on, got therapy, took antidepressants (naturally was diagnosed with a major depressive episode). What helped, I was in a new relationship, eventhough its begninning wasn’t one of those Hallmak romcoms. Infact, quite the oposite. I was the awful women, who left her husband, and “family” so to say to be with someone else. Ofcourse I didn’t leave my children, but I was responsible for breaking up our lovely family. So there was that as well. Moving on.

Either way, I didn’t process any of the stressful life events I had just gone through, rather just plowed on through.

2019

2022-2023

I wanted to share a timeline of events, so that you can understand where it all started from and how I got to where I am today. In between the period 2019-2023 I went through a lot mentally and physically.

Last time I mentioned I would be sharing some of my most recent pain, dealing with thinking you’ve bounced back, gone back to work, only to realize something is deeply wrong, but can’t put your finger on it. Took me longer to compile this post, as it brought up a lot of emotions, and from researching I came to a realization that all that I went through was much worse than I had imagined prior to starting this specific blog post.

I knew there were practicalities that I had to break down for you, since not everyone is familiar with mental disorders, their diagnosis, impact and so forth. Especially if you haven’t had to deal with them before, be it personally or through a loved one. Spotting the signs isnt’t always so easy. Even for myself, having been diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2009, I’ve always been very adept to my mental state, my newest self-diagnosis took me by surprise.

To get to my most recent pain, we have to go backwards in time, so you can understand why I found myself in the situation I was in spring of 2023.

2021

2024

But I didn’t really at the time. Classic clase of avoidance coping.

Avoidance coping is a form of coping where a person will change their behavior so they can avoid thinking about, feeling or doing painful things.

Late 2021 I started working at my former partner’s 10-month-old startup part-time, shifting to full-time a year later.  For a while, all was okay, but as with I would say 99% of startups, the struggle is real. So much to do, and not enough time or capital. It wasn’t even 4 years since my last burnout, thus, the last thing I had wanted was to burn out AGAIN.

 I ran into Karl Hughes’s site when googling figures for startup struggles. Hughes had found that most of those working at a startup pull 50-to-60-hour workweeks with founders putting in 60 to 100 hours.  (Props to Hughs for showing up first page google organic results (1834 word post 👏🏼 ). 

Overworked founders, and their mental health is something I will be exploring in April, so look out for that. I will address their relationship with their investors, as it’s a power play, with many investors not giving a crap about their founders. I’m sure it is not the sole reason, but I bet there is a link to entrepreneurs mental health problems. In 2019 a report showed that 72% of entrepreneurs had some type of mental health issues, a number that most likely has risen. 

 I found myself working like a mad dog, even though I wasn’t a founder. There was talk to make me a co-founder, but that never saw the light of day due to me being in the debt adjustment and we never explored my options for what it meant to have shares in a company while in the debt adjustment program. I will explore this topic later this spring, when I discuss my options of forming a new company while in this program, as it's something on my agenda.

When I look back now, I wish I would’ve kept a journal of my emotions and documented the day-to-day. Lesson learnt. This time going forward, I will be documenting my journey. I do remember it coming as a surprise to me at the start. In hindsight, it all made perfect sense. Going back to spring last year, and even before that I was angry all the time.

AT EVERYONE. 

What a pleasure I was to be around. It became all too much. I had been tired for a LONG time, day in, day out.  If I wasn’t working, or be it my week with the kids, keeping my eyes open till 21.00 was impossible some nights. You could find me in the bedroom, dubbed my “favorite room,” my haven. My partner at the time did not understand, nor did most of my friends. They would ask, why are you tired all the time? I felt so alone. It’s as if those closest to me thought I was making up these symptoms, so I could just laze around in bed and binge my everlasting list of series.

There were literally days I could just sleep all day.  Erin Engle who is an assistant professor of medical psychology in psychiatry at the Columbia University Medical Center, said,

"Sleep becomes an escape.”

I would wake up in the morning tired, somehow manage to get through the day, and come 6 p.pm. my body would just shut down and I would make my way under my blanket and outsource the rest of the evening to my partner, as I just couldn’t keep my eyes open a minute longer.

On top of being constantly tired, I was sick all the time. I was continuously ill with some type of flu much throughout 2020-2023. And while we were smack in the middle of the pandemic for most of that time, I was vigilant about getting tested the moment I was a tad bit sick, and each time the results came back negative. While I did have Covid twice, first in January of 2022, and second time was either end of 2022, or early 2023, since they didn’t test anymore for it in Finland, I don’t blame 3 years of illness on the pandemic.

Icons from: https://icons8.com

Kick an anxious, stressed-out person when they’re down. Someone on the verge of getting over a MAJOR depressive episode. This is what I experienced from a bureaucrat who misused their position of trust before I was meant to go in for ankle surgery that I had already been nervous about for weeks. Threatened to cut my benefits. 

Cortisol is a stress hormone, released into our blood stream when we are stressed, or for example in response to a perceived threat.

The release of cortisol into my system, that sent me into an overdrive, resulting in a prolonged anxiety attack, lasting many hours, less than 48 from my surgery.

NEXT ON BEYOND BANKRUPTCY

It was writing this blog post, that I had this epiphany onto the logic behind everything, and I found my answer in Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. I understood why I was such a mess.

A refresher for those, Abraham Maslow was a humanistic psychologist. This school of psychology surfaced in the 1950’s, focusing on the conditioning methods that produce behavior. It offers a perspective where we examine the whole individual, focusing on ideas of free will, self-efficacy and self-actualization. “Rather than concentrating on dysfunction, humanistic psychology strives to help people fulfill their potential and maximize their well-being.”

A few weeks ago I had my AHA Moment, feeling I finally reached the third level, and can now move onto level four, concentrating on whats important to me, and that is rebuilding my career. I hope this blog to be a pathway where I can help people like me. The pain I have gone through, the alienation, I wouldn’t want anyone else to experience this.

But then it’s like, come on, life just keeps on throwing curveballs at me. It’s like can’t I get a break? We all know adulting is hard, but wait for my next post!

So that my next post isn’t just my sob story, I want to describe the social welfare system in Finland, and what opportunities you have say when you are wanting to start out on your next venture, or what happens when you are in between jobs.

Tired and sick all the time. Sound familiar?

The moment you walk into an occupational healthcare doctor’s appointment in Finland, with the above symptoms, with the mention of stress from work, it’s a no brainer you’ll deceive a depression diagnosis followed with a prescription of anti-depressants and a few weeks sick leave.

Thus someone, like me, maybe you, went in with symptoms of burnout, but got misdiagnosed with depression. The study questioned as to what degree burnout is differentiated from depression and anxiety, or do they just go together? Something I will also be exploring in the post in conjunction with founder mental health problems.

My sick leave turned into a few months sick leave, which then transitioned to my employer laying me off work without pay. To break this down, I wasn’t fired, but in Finland we have this thing called the Unemployment Fund, that is funded by the Finnish Government. From there you receive a related daily allowance, kind like salary, but it’s a benefit. In my case I was entitled to 400 days. In Finland there are many Unemployment Funds, but for example I belong to the largest one in Finland, which is YTK Unemployment Fund.

 I thought to myself, I finally have the time to sort out what is going on in my mind. To find some peace and calm and regain my health, since I felt I was losing my mind when I first went on sick leave in March 2023.

Now looking back, even though I was diagnosed with a major depressive episode, and once again put on antidepressants, now I can see a year later it was much more than that.

It was a complete nervous breakdown.

 The term nervous breakdown is outdated, and clinically incorrect. What we have is a mental breakdown. Whichever term you use, this is what I was going through. The floodgates had opened, and everything I hadn’t processed came to me at once. With the addition of life just not giving me a break. I had gone through hell applying to, and being accepted into the debt adjustment.

Now I was living it, and it wasn’t a pretty story. I mean I knew it would be tough, but let me tell you, it makes life impossible. Especially if you have a family and children. The Ministry of Justice have  their calculations, but their calculation method for these figures remains questionable.This I will address in detail this spring. And it this financial state I found myself in, that contributed to this chronic stress I was experiencing. I didn’t have any issue with making my monthly payment, moreover the program made life unbearable. I was able to provide for my children, as I previously had been able to, and that was what hurt the most.     

Then on top of my constant financial woes, I had been looking for a new place to live for most of 2023, but with no luck, as who wants to rent to someone with bad credit rating? Nobody is the answer, which stressed me out every day more and more as we neared the end of 2023. I was literally a basket case. This resulted in increased stress and anxiety, and I started to feel helpless, as if nothing was giving. Even someone I knew wouldn’t rent to me. It made me feel like I was the scum of the earth. I thought to myself what, soon I’ll be on the streets? Finnish social welfare, KELA, that is praised around the world, no help at all. It’s not all glorious as it appears in the worldwide media. Those who need help the most, don’t get it, and people who bum off society reap all the benefits with no inclining to get a job, better their life and contribute to our economy and society as a whole.

I'm looking forward to hearing from you!

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Stay tuned for this tell-all. No one should be treated this way, especially by someone who is meant to be there to help them. The fact that these people can change your life, for the worse by abusing their power is WRONG on all fronts, and this issue needs to be brought to light. I've always been one to stick up for the underdog, thus it's something I can't leave unsaid.

Not only was my first and most primitive need not being met, neither was the second or third tier. My dignity was being taken away from me, and there was nothing I could do about it. I’ve always been very career oriented, driven, and focused when working, much to my fault, as it helped contribute to the past few burnouts mentioned earlier.