We get asked this all the time and it’s a really good question.  Many of the experiences and feelings of burnout can easily be mistaken or misdiagnosed as depression.  But when it comes to burnout and depression, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, don’t assume it’s a duck! 

Although burnout is not the same as depression it is pretty depressing to feel burned-out!  By the time most of us admit to being fried, we are miserable.  There is nothing fun about feeling exhausted, spent, drained, uninspired and unenthusiastic about life.  Big problem, however, when you visit your doctor and describe your symptoms of burnout it is pretty easy to mistake them for depression unless your medical professional is really conversant with the complete clinical picture of burnout.  Far too often, especially for women, a visit to a health care professional ends up with a diagnosis of ‘depression’ or ‘just stress’ and a costly prescription for anti-depressants.  Neither of which are helpful.  In fact, diagnosing ‘just stress’ is downright dangerous and  although anti-depressants may temporarily make you feel less ‘down’ they will not in any way, shape or form, rescue you from burnout.

When you are burned out, you are disillusioned, disheartened, disappointed and depleted.  You are not ‘sick’.  You don’t need drugs.  We have to repeat this because it is soooo important for highly sensitive and creative women to understand…anti-depressants will not ‘cure’ burnout.   And, if you are an HSP you may experience more side effects than benefits from the medication.  Let’s be clear, we don’t believe burnout needs to be ‘cured’ at all.  Burnout is a gift, an opportunity we can learn from if we listen.  What a wake-up call!   If you are burned out it means one thing…life isn’t going as you planned or wanted it to, what better time to re-dream it all.

(Now before anyone out there gets all bent out of shape, of course, there is a completely appropriate place for medication in the treatment of severe forms of depression and some women get great benefits from anti-depressants.  We know this from over 30 years of clinical experience as psychotherapists for women!  However, we also know that in many situations they are not called for.  Anti-depressants are over-prescribed in our current culture and burnout by and large does not warrant them.  Moving on…)  

After treating women for everything from anxiety to eating disorders to burnout we know how to distinguish burnout from depression.  It can be complicated but simply put, with true clinical depression nothing relieves the feelings of loss, sadness, and hopelessness.  Everything is viewed with the same gloom and nothing gives you a lift.  There is barely a view of the future let alone a rosy one.  When depressed it feels like there is a thick black blanket lying over everything and it is suffocating you.  Nothing relieves this.

In distinct contrast, when you are burned out you look forward to the future and to regaining your usual dynamic self.  If you know where to look you will still find pockets of interest, enthusiasm, motivation and hope existing, hidden but still there, you just have to know where and how to look.

When women talk about life beyond burnout, they light-up with excitement, anticipation and desire for the future.  With the right guidance they begin to change the present and re-dream and recreate their future.

Burnout means that you are properly fried and frazzled!  You have taken care of everyone else’s needs without tending to your own.  You have been in overdrive for far too long trying to be and do your best.  Pressures and challenges have piled up on you.   Maybe you have experienced an accumulation of life shifts and life shocks with the same result as when you plug too many hairdryers into one outlet!  Now feeling like that IS depressing, but it doesn’t mean you are depressed.

So here is the answer once and for all.  Feeling depressed because you are burned-out is completely different than clinical depression.   

To overcome burnout, and to go on to live a burnout-free lifestyle (yes Virginia it is absolutely possible) you have to understand your highly sensitive and burnout prone personality, embrace your gifts, strengths, and personal power and establish a few new pro-active coping skills.

Et Voila!  Bye-bye Burnout…Hello high potential living!    

Here’s one great tip:

If you are feeling pretty overwhelmed or discouraged about life these days, take a couple of days away from what you do.  ( Sure phone in sick, just don’t tell them it was our idea.)  Then buy a beautiful new notebook (we all love new notebooks they scream optimism) and take yourself out for the day.

Start dreaming and writing a big Wish List for the future.  Dream wide and wild.  If you seriously can’t find anything to dream about or to look forward to, absolutely nothing, then maybe it is time to talk to someone knowledgeable.  Dare we suggest?  (Of course we dare!)  Go to our website and sign up for a Burnout Crisis Call.  One call and we can help you determine what is going on, maybe even set a few strategies in place so you can get ‘out of stuck’.  Don’t be shy.  Better to know than to wonder.

Until next time, grab life by the crown!  

Dr Toby & Dr Bev,

THE BURNOUT QUEENS!