Burnout: The Exit Interview

"How six months of disconnection taught me what two decades of grinding couldn't"

Six months ago, I walked away from my job. Not because I was fired. Not because someone else recruited me. Not because I had a plan. But because I broke down completely.

I was experiencing panic attacks that kept me prisoner in my own home. I felt broken in every possible way – physically, mentally, emotionally depleted. Depression wasn't just visiting anymore; it had moved in permanently.

I share this personal journey knowing that many in our industry currently face different challenges - particularly finding work after months of unemployment. While I had the privilege to step away by choice, others don't have that option. It's telling that our industry simultaneously burns out some while others struggle to find work at all - a symptom of deeper structural issues. Still, I believe these reflections might offer value whenever you're employed again. Whatever your circumstance - overworked or seeking work - I hope we all find paths that value our wellbeing alongside our talents.

In my case, it took decades to learn this lesson.

For years, I wore my 14-16 hour workdays and 7-day workweeks as badges of honor. I actually felt proud of this. What an illusion. What a waste. After more than 20 years of this relentless pace, I constructed this bulletproof version of myself – Simone the Unstoppable. Simone who can do it all. Simone who handles everything. I became known as 'the fast guy' - the one who could implement in hours what would take others days. And everyone bought it.

Even me.

In the midst of this relentless pace, I lost both my sisters, one after the other. And I never even gave myself the time to properly grieve, to process the fact that I was now the last sibling left. Work became both escape and prison – keeping me from facing the pain while preventing any real healing.

When rare breaks came, they weren't actual rest. Instead of enjoying life, I frantically patched myself up just enough to keep going. I filled these moments with learning new technologies or skills—anything to feel 'productive' rather than truly recuperate. There was this persistent dread that if I genuinely slowed down, I might realize how depleted I was and lose the momentum to continue. So I kept pushing, never fully recharging. The tank was always empty. Always. I was running on fumes for years.

At night, despite having only a few hours for sleep and being completely drained, my mind refused to rest. I'd lie there, inventing little movies in my head of what happiness might look like – me, eating a meal without checking Slack; me, spending a weekend with family without my laptop; me, finally learning to play that guitar; me, actually present somewhere, anywhere. Then I'd finally fall asleep and dream about Jira tickets and looming deadlines. I couldn't escape even in sleep.

So I did something drastic: I disappeared. I sold most of my possessions, untethering myself from my former life. For six months, I traveled. I stayed away from screens, notifications, from the endless cycle of digital urgency. I hiked. I walked. I breathed. I remembered I had a body that wasn't just a vessel for carrying my brain between meetings.

The result? I lost 12 pounds. I got my abs back. But the real change is invisible – I don't wake up with that crushing weight on my chest anymore.

What amazed me was how quickly my body and mind began to heal once I gave them the chance.

Within two months, I noticed the constant anxiety starting to fade – that daily pressure in my chest finally easing up. By the four-month mark, I could board planes and buses without reaching for Xanax, something that had become impossible in my previous 4 years. And perhaps most surprising to me, after six months, I stopped smoking completely – a crutch I'd relied on for years to manage the stress I was constantly under. My body knew exactly how to heal itself; I just needed to get out of its way.

As I slowly reconnected with myself during those months away, clarity emerged through the stillness. Here's what that time taught me:

• The truth is, I can't completely blame the companies I worked at. I was the one pushing myself to these extremes. No one held a gun to my head – I chose this destructive path because giving 200% is all I've ever known. It wasn't about success – it was about how I believed work should be approached. And now, I'm having to repay that borrowed 100% with interest – my body and mind collecting a debt I never thought would come due.
  

• The only people who truly care about you are those in the trenches with you – your actual friends and coworkers who shared late nights and the same passion for the craft. Not the company and definitely not HR, but the humans doing the real work with you. Yet ironically, I was always too busy to nurture these relationships. I prioritized tasks over people, deadlines over connections. I wish I had made time to be closer to them, to build those meaningful bonds beyond just the work we shared.
  

• Working yourself to exhaustion has zero positive outcomes. None. All that time and energy I poured in? It left me empty, with nothing to show for it. No promotion, no sense of fulfillment, not even a simple "thank you." My extra effort became expected, the usual. "Don't worry, Simone will take care of it..." became the norm. A norm I had created myself through my own behavior.
  

• What I eventually realized is that while I was grinding away, others were playing a completely different game. People who balanced their actual work with making connections, being visible, and understanding office politics often advanced faster. They weren't wrong - they were smarter than I was. They understood something I didn't: that perception often matters more than pure output. This created a mix of frustration and, I'll admit, jealousy at times. This constant uphill battle drained me as much as the long hours did. But as the saying goes, it was what it was. And I noticed an interesting pattern - the larger the organization, the more this dynamic intensifies. In big companies, the actual work tends to concentrate among a smaller group of dedicated people, while advancement often - though certainly not always - goes to those who master the social ecosystem. It wasn't unfair; it was just a reality I refused to see or participate in.
  

• Another difficult truth emerged: my dedication to outcomes often exceeded that of some in leadership. When I'd express genuine concern about quality, care, or deadlines, my passion was reframed as being 'difficult' or 'emotional'—labels that, after years of frustration, became self-fulfilling prophecies. Being labeled 'emotional' was particularly telling—often just code for asking straightforward questions or challenging things others preferred not to address. Eventually, I began living up to these labels, becoming the difficult person they had claimed I was all along. The realization was humbling: Why was I caring so intensely for a company that wasn't my own? It wasn't commitment—it was a misalignment of priorities that now seems absurd.

• When health becomes secondary, everything eventually crumbles too.
  
  

Armed with these realizations, I finally understood what needed to change. It wasn't just about working less—it was about fundamentally redefining my relationship with work itself. These hard-earned insights became the foundation for rebuilding my life.

Today, I'm back. Do I have a precise plan for what's next? Not even close. I might return to that solo game I've been developing. Maybe I'll finally release the book that's been sitting on my hard drive for over a decade. Perhaps I'll return to some kind of work if I can find the right fit.

But I do have one non-negotiable commitment: my happiness and health come first. Always.

I still have work to do. Some nights, I still catch myself imagining what happiness might feel like, rather than actually experiencing it. Old habits are hard to break. Sometimes I feel this nagging guilt for not doing something "productive." But I'm learning to recognize when this voice speaks from old conditioning versus when there's a genuine need to apply myself. There's a profound difference between purposeful effort and mindless grinding.

I'm sharing this because maybe you need to hear it: Focus on yourself because no one else will. Your job, career, and professional achievements have no real value if they cost you everything else. The mask of invincibility we wear doesn't protect us – it isolates us from the very connections that could save us.

I expect some might dismiss this as complaining or point out the privilege of being able to step away. That's fair. But I hope others will see it as what it's intended to be: a personal reflection on a destructive pattern that affects many in our industry, shared in the hope that it might help someone else recognize these patterns before reaching their breaking point.

Perhaps some will see this as weakness. Maybe others can sustain this pace indefinitely without consequences. But after years of pushing beyond limits, I've come to see it differently - not as failure, but as a necessary recalibration. Our bodies and minds have boundaries that no amount of willpower can permanently override. There are simply more effective ways to work than grinding yourself down to nothing. This isn't about avoiding challenges; it's about finding sustainable approaches that don't require self-destruction.

The irony isn't lost on me – if I had read this message a year ago, I would have scoffed and thought "stop whining and get back to work." That's how deep the conditioning runs. We're trained to wear exhaustion as a badge of honor and to quietly question the commitment of those who set boundaries.

But if one person reads this and recognizes themselves – that person who's currently where I was – then sharing this was worth it.

The strangest part? I'm actually starting to feel genuinely happy now – and even a bit bored, for once. My creativity has never been this high or this clear. And the ultimate irony? I'm faster now than I ever was during my 'fast guy' days. My rested brain outperforms my former exhausted one in every measurable way.

So what can you do if this resonates with you?

• Start by honestly assessing your current pace and its sustainability

• Look for small ways to set boundaries, even if they feel uncomfortable to you at first

• Recognize that real rest isn't just absence of work—it's active recovery. Clear your mind, let it rest. You might even get a bonus and solve problems at a subconscious level while you sleep or take a walk

• Take care of your health seriously - a coffee with Red Bull and cigarette isn't a breakfast. And don't try to convince yourself it counts as lunch or dinner either. It's not a meal, period.

• Learn to say no - most of the time it's completely fine and your ego is just conditioning you to accept everything. That voice telling you you're the only one who can handle it or you have to do it now? It's lying.

• Understand that it's fine to take a full hour break at lunch without checking Slack - if your absence for 60 minutes breaks everything, the company has much bigger problems

• Consider what you'd tell a friend in your position—then follow that advice yourself

Lasty, stop postponing joy until some mythical future date. The retirement dream is a lie if you have to completely destroy yourself to get there. Your life is happening now.

Not next quarter.

Not after the next promotion.

NOW.

#WorkLifeBalance #BeyondTheGrind #RealTalk #EmbraceTheBoredom #MentalHealthUnfiltered #FromBurnoutToChillout