Five Years of Burnout and Grief: A Synopsis
In less than a week, it will have been five years since California went into COVID lockdown - an anniversary that serves as a benchmark for people all around the world. Since then, we have all gone through our own journeys, each of which seems almost bizarrely unique for having gone through the same pandemic.
For myself, I have…
Worked over 120 hours a week every week for 2-2.5 years
Bought a house
Adopted a dog
Unexpectedly lost my dog to a ruptured tumor while out of the country
Adopted another dog
Spent more time, energy, and money on coaching, therapy, and psychedelic experiences than I had on college just trying to stay afloat (ironic, given that I can’t even tread water in a pool)
Become a coach myself
Had the privilege of working with the dying and their loved ones
And perhaps most importantly: unlearned as much as I have learned
In the beginning, I found myself deep in depression and anxiety. With work consuming so much of my time, burnout felt inevitable. From the outside, my life seemed great - I still had a stable job while businesses were shutting down and layoffs were everywhere. I could still see friends through group video calls or socially distanced walks in the neighborhood. Perhaps most impressively, I managed to buy a house in Silicon Valley.
And yet, beneath the surface, I was unraveling. Anxiety attacks became a regular occurrence, and I cried multiple times a day, overwhelmed by trying to do it all. It wasn’t my first struggle with mental health - I had been on antidepressants for half of college. While they helped stop the tears, they also left me feeling emotionally numb.
Eventually, I made the decision to stop taking Lexapro on my own, without consulting my psychiatrist. Since I had only been taking it sporadically at that point -maybe once a week - I assumed quitting wouldn’t be a big deal. I was wrong. The withdrawal was severe, something I hadn’t anticipated or prepared for.
To be clear, this is just my personal experience, not an argument against medication. I wholeheartedly believe that antidepressants can be life-changing for many people *and* that they’re most effective when paired with action-oriented therapy or coaching. If you ever consider stopping medication, please do so under the guidance of a doctor - it’s not something to navigate alone.
Back to 2020 - I spiraled hard. But this time, I wasn’t a broke college student and started to work with private pay coaches and therapists specializing in approaches beyond CBT. Although it took time, work, and patience, looking for someone who was the right fit for me and worked with somatics/psychedelics has been a profoundly transformative experience.
Below are 5 of my most important takeaways broken down into what I had to unlearn and what I had to learn in place.
Unlearning: Resting more = more energy
Learning: Burnout/exhaustion doesn’t just come from doing too much. It can also come from suppressing emotions/actions, ruminating, etc.
Unlearning: Feeling angry, sad, or guilty is bad
Learning: All emotions have a purpose; the ones we’ve deemed as “bad” are usually suppressed, eventually leading to unwanted experiences/situations
Unlearning: All mental health struggles are pathological
Learning: Many mental health issues/coping mechanisms are adaptations that become maladaptive
Unlearning: Grief is for those who lost a loved one to death
Learning: Grieving is an important process in all life transitions: moving to a different place, changing jobs, identity shifts, etc.
Unlearning: Spiritual means (organized) religious
Learning: Spiritual (for me) means introspection
Finding my own sense of balance in emotional well-being is still a work in progress, and likely always will be. But if there's one thing these past five years have taught me, it's that we’re not meant to navigate life’s ups and downs alone.
If any part of my journey resonates with you, I’d love to connect—whether to share stories, reflections, or simply hold space for the complexities of being human.
