Episode 10: Burnout

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Alright, welcome to another episode of As the Dinoson's Turn. If you're watching the video, you could see Tracy with the cat. That's Leo.

SPEAKER_01 0:07

He's an awesome cat who actually is very mad at us from having been gone.

SPEAKER_00 0:12

He Leo was always an indoor cat, but since moving here to Portugal, we have the door open a lot, and he likes to go out and explore. So he he's an outdoor cat now. Well he's an indoor cat, but he likes to dabble in the outdoors.

SPEAKER_01 0:29

He fancies himself an hunter, actually. He likes to sit on top of the stone wall or sit underneath the bushes, or you know, and just kind of peruse and monitor the neighborhood. He does. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

So we've recorded this once already. I think we could do a better job, though, a second time. Maybe a little uh I think we went like 35 minutes the last time we tried to talk about it, so we're like, let's throw that out. Um, talking about our burnout.

SPEAKER_01 0:59

It's something we've touched on in other episodes, and I just think that this is a this is a big reason why we're here in Portugal, and I don't know who wants to go first talking about I guess it doesn't matter who goes first, but I think that the part that we're struggling with is and because we don't know ourselves, like we're still in it, and I think that's part of the reason why it's hard to talk about. Right. Um, and and it's hard to articulate some of the things of the ways that burnout manifested and how you're dealing with those things now and what that means. So I've learned that burnout has had a real physical effect on me, and of course, people are like, well, duh, burnout stress does that. Yeah, but it's one thing to intellectually know that, and it's another thing to come to the realization that it really has happened, and there's not a lot you can do about it. Like, I have always clenched my jaw a lot, and been to dentists and talked about it and said, What do I need to do? Do I have TMJ? No, you're fine, it's fine, you're just stressed, it's fine, it'll go away. Um, but moving here, have starting to have a little bit of tooth pain, going to a dentist and getting a dentist to sit down with me and say, This is your stress issue, and you should have had a mouth guard a long time ago, and you need to learn to be more Portuguese and less go, go, go, and less worry, worry, worry, and meditate more and do yoga and be in nature and just let things happen. Um, you know, I think that yes, that's my dentist. Um, but he's right, and and I knew that, but I didn't realize that he's like, I I have this mouth guard, but he's like, it's not a panacea. If you don't find ways to fix this in some ways, I'm going to have to replace all of the teeth in your head. Um, because you're going to grind them down into dust, because that's kind of what's going on in there. And it's ironic because I've only had like one cavity in my whole life, and it was when I was pregnant. Um, so it's not like I have, you know, had horrible teeth or anything my whole life. It's just that's part of the way stress is manifesting.

SPEAKER_00 3:28

So I think when we talk about burnout, I mean it's not the kind of burnout where it's just like take a day off or take a week off and it you'll come back with a clear head. That that's maybe that's what it was in the beginning, but by the the time, I don't even know what year we would say. Because, you know, it's like it's just a downhill slide, I think. So it's hard to say exactly a specific year when it changed or when it started or when it got worse or when it went from take a day off or take a week off to where, yeah, none of that matters anymore. But at some point that became the case where taking a day or a week off wasn't going to fix the burnout problems that we both had. And I think we could talk at length about the different in you know, higher education for you, the accounting industry for me. I mean, there's problems in both, just like there's problems in many industries. And I think that what both of us as go-getters, I guess, I think we got disillusioned with the fact that maybe there's not great solutions to some of the problems in our fields.

SPEAKER_01 4:55

Or there are solutions, but nobody's willing to put in the work to make those solutions real, too. I think it it's definitely disillusionment. Yeah. Um, uh and yes, I mean, everybody's like, well, that's just part of being an adult, and there is a joke that once you hit your 40s, I mean, everybody's like, oh, you work so hard, but for what? What are you working so hard for and what does that look like? And I think that um we got to a point where I think we were really working to pay bills, um, like our mortgage and health insurance, and not ever putting any of our passions or the things we wanted to do on the table. Um, and feeling guilty anytime we did anything that might be something else. Even just taking the time to play games with kids meant you couldn't do X, Y, and Z that had to get done, or um, you know, like and feeling guilty that, you know, well, now I have these other things to do, but of course it's well worth it, and because there are children, and and not ever just being able to be like I never felt like I could just sit and read or do any of the things that I really loved, and um, not knowing how to get back to that point, I think was really hard.

SPEAKER_00 6:10

Um how do you think your burnout manifested for you? I'll ask you that and then I'll answer it from my perspective for me, but for you, what do you think the burnout manifested itself?

SPEAKER_01 6:26

I mean, well, obviously I'm grinding my teeth into dust. Um fibromyalgia flares to where my body physically hurts so bad I wanted to cry, but I still go through my whole day and act like nothing was wrong. But that also meant short temper and making my world small because I couldn't actually deal with a lot of things or a lot of people or a lot of drama. Um I think that's that's definitely a large piece of it. Um, not sleeping or sleeping well at all. Like I just couldn't sleep. Um and always feeling like a failure. Even though I was succeeding at things and doing great things and and all of these things, I felt like a failure in absolutely everything all of the time. So that internal struggle too. So that of course then leads to me just basically living on Diet Coke and crap I can shove at my mouth quickly instead of taking care of myself because I don't deserve to be taken care of, but mainly because I have no energy to take care of myself because I can't sleep and I couldn't stop. It was like this whole vicious cycle. So I think that was a lot of it for me. Um even the things that I found pleasure in and I love doing weren't as I I don't know. It didn't ring the same, you know, and so I knew that. I I truly, truly believe that I am still dealing with some type of depression. Um and of course there are lots of deeper issues or things that are that go through all of that that I have to deal with that I have never dealt with surrounding all kinds of issues. Um but I really do think that college restructuring was that's where I trace all of my stuff to.

SPEAKER_00 8:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:21

I mean that that whole restructuring piece and being told one thing and then the reality being something completely different was horrific, and I've never got over that disillusionment, and so I've just been depressed and overwhelmed in some perspective myself and looking for something else since then.

SPEAKER_00 8:42

I remember days when you would come home when you were associate dean and you would go to the bedroom and just lay in bed and cry at the end of a day because of just everything that happened.

SPEAKER_01 8:55

Oh, absolutely. I mean, and uh there were days I'd come home after a 4 30, 5 o'clock meeting, and I'd just go to bed.

SPEAKER_00 9:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:02

That happened a lot. Um happened a lot because I just couldn't I couldn't cope. I didn't know how to cope or where to cope. And I wasn't sleeping, so that makes it even worse.

SPEAKER_00 9:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:13

So how about you?

SPEAKER_00 9:15

I think for me so grouchiness and irritability with everything, but also just not caring or coming across as not caring, when in fact the opposite was true and is true, caring too much, probably, to the point where it's like I don't know, you care so much, and then it's like you throw your hands up in the air and wonder what it's all for. Yeah, I guess is where I had reached. Um, I think for both of us, relationships have been harmed, our world has gotten smaller. I think people that we should have kept in touch with or done things with or communicated with more, it didn't happen, and it's just I don't know, you just reach a point where it's just like you just can't take anymore.

SPEAKER_01 10:17

We couldn't. I mean, we had all these plans. We were gonna have these dinner parties and we were so excited, and it was gonna be great, and the dinner party not once happened.

SPEAKER_00 10:24

Um I remember in 2017 the the particular people that you had said, I didn't even know who they were at that time, but you wanted them to come over for a dinner party in 2017. And we never did it. And it never happened. We we even talked about it earlier this year before we moved, gotta have them over. And and it still didn't has some of that as life, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 10:52

Some of it is, and it's not it's not making room for those things in some respects, but it's also because I didn't we didn't know what to move or how to make the room, right? Um, and I think that that's a large piece of it. I think that perfectionism, overachiever, um, dreamer, um, also looking for approval and recognition in some respects to make us feel like what we were doing is worth enough. That's a lot of what we have in common, both of us.

SPEAKER_00 11:25

Yeah, we're both like that. We're both perfectionists, and we see what could be, and then when it's not, um we get frustrated. And and instead of accepting that, okay, well, let's see what we could do within this framework, I think that we we just get frustrated.

SPEAKER_01 11:49

Well, I think we'd work within the framework, but also see that there was another way to do it, and nobody would listen, or nobody was willing to put forth, even though the long term would be better, and so that makes it harder. But I'd also say that ironically, throughout all of this, the one person that I never felt like was judging me or any of that is like people automatically are gonna think, Oh, you had so many marital problems, you're probably fighting all the time. That's actually never been true for us. Um, we might, you know, just do a spat of like, you know, I get frustrated with him when he waits too long to eat, and then he's like doing this gasping, hangry kind of thing. And I'm like, why the hell did you let yourself get this far? What is the big deal? Or, you know, those types of things. Um, and he gets frustrated with me about like, oh, you know, I'm like, I'm doing the goddamn dishes again because I hate doing dishes. Um, but it's never been anything more than a random occurrence in our relationship, and so we were both going through these exact same things and could see it in each other, and we're trying to help each other, but couldn't help ourselves.

SPEAKER_00 12:59

So that's why I mean this has been building for years. It's why it's one of the big reasons why I pushed to move to Spain, um and that fell through. But it's one of the reasons why then I picked it back up after that fell through, is well, what are our other options? And the why I didn't give up on it is because I think that a lot of people going through burnout or people tired of the American consumer lifestyle or whatever, I think you can make changes without doing what we did. But I think for us and knowing our personalities, I felt like we had to do something that was completely outside the box, that wasn't just take a day off, take a week off, or I we we dabbled, you know, maybe you should quit your job and go work at the bakery or something. Or I looked at buying a I actually looked at buying a coffee shop in the area, but I knew that that wasn't going to actually solve our problems for two reasons. One, financial realities of the way we were living would have been much harder if we did either of those things, but two I felt like just being in that situation that it would have it wouldn't have solved the problem. I felt like we needed a drastic change where basically we were kicking the ladder out from underneath us and forcing us to be in a different situation and a different frame of mind. And that's how we ended up in Portugal.

SPEAKER_01 14:50

Well, and and I think that there's also the um we are definitely, I mean, we've believe it or not, can be can be pretty spontaneous people.

SPEAKER_00 15:00

We can't we're more spontaneous than people think.

SPEAKER_01 15:03

We are very decisive, so like you know, I we can make up our minds pretty quickly when something happens, but I think more than that, um we needed to find a way to make the space for us to do the recovery piece of burnout, which we're still going through. And without having like living in a place that costs more money or having to have a job, a certain kind of job, in order to have your health benefits or any of those things, made it very stifling. And in large part because I think my recovery is gonna take me a long time.

SPEAKER_00 15:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:52

And I was the one who was carrying our benefits, and so while yes, I could have gone to work at the bakery, but it wasn't the same kind of benefits or health insurance that we would have had.

SPEAKER_00 16:06

The pay would have been much less and the benefits wouldn't have been as good. And those are things you have to think about in America is how are we going to get our health insurance?

SPEAKER_01 16:15

Whereas now what we're doing is we're paying a lot more in taxes to have the insurance, but that's still way less than what we were paying in the US for that, and that gives us then the freedom to do other things and find another way in a way that we really needed. I knew that there were cultures where it was work to live, not live to work. Um and I I knew that particularly, I know, I know that for me this was probably the best thing because I am a work, work, work person. And we'd always said that if we didn't randomly have, if we didn't have children, like if we hadn't gotten pregnant, that we would have worked ourselves to death like easily because we're that type of workaholics and we we like a lot of the things that we do. It's just that it's gonna take me a while to work through a lot of the issues that I need to make space for, and also work through that burnout piece to figure out what's next. And we had to make space for that, and for you too, I think.

SPEAKER_00 17:28

I think that n ironically, being this far away will help us rebuild some of the relationships family-wise and professional-wise, and I don't know, just for me, like dealing with clients and at the vibe that I gave off for several years of I don't even care. Why do I care? Now that's not how I really felt, it's just how I came across because of the situation I was in, and now I don't feel that way anymore. Or not nearly as often. I think it's easier to rebuild bridges and also get things done. I'm more efficient when I do work. I'm much more efficient now than I was in the US. It's it's like the the mindset, it's it's not perfect yet. Uh I'm on vacation this week as we're recording this, and it's been hard not to crack open the laptop and do some work, or you know, I've responded to a few emails, but it's been hard not to do work because that's just how it always was in the US. You can't take a day off, got to work even if you're out of the office.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

Well, and also having a list that never gets done, and the joke of always like if I ever get to the bottom of my list, I know that that's when it's all over, um, really felt real um in a lot of cases. And so I think that that was a that was a piece of it. Um, you know, and and I think you're right, like we made our world smaller because that's all we could cope with. Um and now getting to the point where I'm not overwhelmed by just the day-to-day um has been really good. But I've you know, the it's taken me three months now to get to the point where I'm not overwhelmed with just the day-to-day, to the point where I can start thinking about what that might be and find ways to take care of myself and my soul in ways that I haven't done a very long time.

SPEAKER_00 19:38

I know for me it's like everything was just what fires have to be put out today. Well, and some of it's just again, that's just life in some ways, but like I think that it was life taken to like the extreme where it's just like what do I have to do to survive today? And that became just the day-to-day reality from probably 2018 or so for me onward, to the point where it just I think it came across poorly it uh to a lot of people, where it's like, Well, what's even going on here?

SPEAKER_01 20:14

Well, and I got to the point where I literally had the conversation with you, you might have to hospitalize me because I don't know that there's a point in doing another day.

SPEAKER_00 20:24

That was not said as a joke, by the way, like, oh, gonna have to institutionalize bad.

SPEAKER_01 20:29

No, I I literally had this conversation that I don't see the point in doing another day. Um, because it was too much overwhelming, and that that was a reality for me. I got I got to that point where I'm like, I just don't know that it's worth it or that I can. Um and I thought that and felt that for a very long time before I vocalized it. So it's a lot, it was a lot, and so I'm still not there. And I think that's why this is never gonna be an one and done kind of talk.

SPEAKER_00 21:07

Yeah, I was gonna say we probably need to wrap this episode up, but I think that it's like there'll have to be more to come on this because we're not really over our burnout. We're we're better than we were when we moved here, but it's not I don't think either one of us are really over it yet, and so maybe every few months we'll talk about about where we're at now, and we'll see how long it takes to work through everything.

SPEAKER_01 21:36

Yeah. Welcome to the ride.

SPEAKER_00 21:39

Alright, catch us again next time on another episode of As the Dinosons Turn.