I work in community economic development, and you explained my experience too. I'm Audhd and on week 2 of leave from work for autistic burnout. I've worked 12 years at the same org pushing and nudging and begging for systemic change, accountability to the root cause (colonialism, racism, etc.). The cognitive dissonance between wanting to do the work in a transformational way and working somewhere that only supports it with lip service has destroyed me. That feels dramatic to say but it's true.
This paragraph hit me so hard in the feels:
Burnout wasn’t just about the hours, lights, or water cooler conversations. It was about existing in environments that demanded my emotional labor. It was that labor being invisible. It was the requirement to adapt to patriarchal structures. It was the requirement to conform through unspoken rules and microaggressions. It was the pressure to dismiss race and gender bias as normal while navigating violent social dynamics. It was the way my soul became droopy from lack of expression.
Thank you for putting it so clearly. I needed this 💓
This is one of the most validating things I’ve read that finally explains the experience I’ve had my whole career. A career that has included work in the juvenile justice system, crisis response, outpatient mental health, public schools, and university.
Primary care provider here just asked by my boss, himself a primary care provider as well, why I keep asking not to do my job (as my requests for legally protected reasonable accommodations kept being denied). When I tell you I needed this post, it doesn’t even express it.
Thank you for this. I hope you’ve been able to perk up your soul again with tender care. I hope to for mine.
Finding this article just finally affirmed everything I have been feeling over the past nine months or so. Let's all keep speaking up about this! This is an important topic!
What I think I've realized is that I'm not even being undervalued. I'm being studied. I'm being placed in invented positions and feel like a spectacle as I try to just do what needs to be done to push projects forward. I understand the problems in their structure and just want to move toward actual progress and I'm about to just go back to being a barista because it's almost easier to make societal change at a cafe than it is in these institutions where people are fighting more for letters next to their name than for actual impact.
If anyone who has experienced this type of burnout is reading this right now and still fighting for what's right, I just want you to know I see you and I am so beyond happy you exist.
Good God yiu hit a nerve. Despite all the truths you depict, I LOvED being a public school teacher for 34 years, fueled by the reward of measurable growth in my students not just in skill and JOY in reading, writing, community-building but in joy of work, working together, BEING together. And then I ran into a pack of administrators so absorbed by their performative concerns, I could no longer breathe or function. Happy now on my off-ramp as an in a much healthier context but still bitter about their effect on the world.
Following you now because your voice is needed. If you feel aligned, I’d love a follow back too. Let’s keep showing up real, raw, and rooted in truth. Girl YES.
I’ve been a nurse for over a decade and navigated my way through burnout a couple of times (it’s an ongoing mission). This is extremely relatable and acknowledging how disabling it is having to conform to neurotypical standards at work is very validating. Thank you for writing this
25 plus years as an educator teaching urban, suburban, rural, private, public and international school systems- at the ripe old age of 52, I was not invited to return to a 4th year teaching multilingual learners, I was told that I didn’t hit my numbers of exiting my multilingual learners quick enough. I was never given numbers. Truth: I had the highest scores for a teacher in the Danielson Framework, I had participated and said yes to all invitations to help and join without extra pay in addition to all the extra roles of being a teacher for students who had more than transition shock- they scored the highest on ACES . However, that last year I said “no” and that I was concentrating on creating pilot program to help my students possibilities of college with our local community college. I had become a problem to the system: Not only did I say “no”, I was “over advocating” for our multilingual learners. I had given them the keys 🔑 to empower themselves to have a voice.
Grieving the identity of being a teacher - and so many other losses- made me realize that I had never “gotten complete” with any of the lifetime of losses (including loss of safety, loss of trust and lost of confidence) which kept me in the abusive system of education. Getting “fired”was the best thing to happen to me: I became a Grief Recovery Method Specialist for ANY Loss and now use this certification to support teachers in connecting the dots of their childhood trauma and “parentifying” to their addiction to the cycle of abuse . I also educate staff and administrators.
Thank you for creating this post. You put into words what I have been saying to others about the truth of teacher vs administrators.
Your line stating, I'm not lazy or weak but navigating a world not built for me, spoke volumes. It allowed me to release a breath I didn't realize I was holding. Thank you.
I work in community economic development, and you explained my experience too. I'm Audhd and on week 2 of leave from work for autistic burnout. I've worked 12 years at the same org pushing and nudging and begging for systemic change, accountability to the root cause (colonialism, racism, etc.). The cognitive dissonance between wanting to do the work in a transformational way and working somewhere that only supports it with lip service has destroyed me. That feels dramatic to say but it's true.
This paragraph hit me so hard in the feels:
Burnout wasn’t just about the hours, lights, or water cooler conversations. It was about existing in environments that demanded my emotional labor. It was that labor being invisible. It was the requirement to adapt to patriarchal structures. It was the requirement to conform through unspoken rules and microaggressions. It was the pressure to dismiss race and gender bias as normal while navigating violent social dynamics. It was the way my soul became droopy from lack of expression.
Thank you for putting it so clearly. I needed this 💓
This is one of the most validating things I’ve read that finally explains the experience I’ve had my whole career. A career that has included work in the juvenile justice system, crisis response, outpatient mental health, public schools, and university.
Primary care provider here just asked by my boss, himself a primary care provider as well, why I keep asking not to do my job (as my requests for legally protected reasonable accommodations kept being denied). When I tell you I needed this post, it doesn’t even express it.
Thank you for this. I hope you’ve been able to perk up your soul again with tender care. I hope to for mine.
Finding this article just finally affirmed everything I have been feeling over the past nine months or so. Let's all keep speaking up about this! This is an important topic!
What I think I've realized is that I'm not even being undervalued. I'm being studied. I'm being placed in invented positions and feel like a spectacle as I try to just do what needs to be done to push projects forward. I understand the problems in their structure and just want to move toward actual progress and I'm about to just go back to being a barista because it's almost easier to make societal change at a cafe than it is in these institutions where people are fighting more for letters next to their name than for actual impact.
If anyone who has experienced this type of burnout is reading this right now and still fighting for what's right, I just want you to know I see you and I am so beyond happy you exist.
I just left teaching after eight and a half years and this rings so true. Thank you
Good God yiu hit a nerve. Despite all the truths you depict, I LOvED being a public school teacher for 34 years, fueled by the reward of measurable growth in my students not just in skill and JOY in reading, writing, community-building but in joy of work, working together, BEING together. And then I ran into a pack of administrators so absorbed by their performative concerns, I could no longer breathe or function. Happy now on my off-ramp as an in a much healthier context but still bitter about their effect on the world.
Following you now because your voice is needed. If you feel aligned, I’d love a follow back too. Let’s keep showing up real, raw, and rooted in truth. Girl YES.
l
https://open.substack.com/pub/msmaine/p/recession-ready-when-the-struggle?r=1t2agi&utm_medium=ios
Story of my life!
I’ve been a nurse for over a decade and navigated my way through burnout a couple of times (it’s an ongoing mission). This is extremely relatable and acknowledging how disabling it is having to conform to neurotypical standards at work is very validating. Thank you for writing this
I’m in higher ed and your words here resonate with me so much. It’s a very hard time to be any sort of educator, on top of the usual. 💕
What a great title
I didn't give up on the tyranny of full time employment because I became disabled. Nope. I gave up on it 8 years before, because of this:
"The decision-making spaces weren’t designed for us.
They were built for people who could sustain performative efforts while outsourcing the emotional and mental toll to others."
Never. Going. Back.
25 plus years as an educator teaching urban, suburban, rural, private, public and international school systems- at the ripe old age of 52, I was not invited to return to a 4th year teaching multilingual learners, I was told that I didn’t hit my numbers of exiting my multilingual learners quick enough. I was never given numbers. Truth: I had the highest scores for a teacher in the Danielson Framework, I had participated and said yes to all invitations to help and join without extra pay in addition to all the extra roles of being a teacher for students who had more than transition shock- they scored the highest on ACES . However, that last year I said “no” and that I was concentrating on creating pilot program to help my students possibilities of college with our local community college. I had become a problem to the system: Not only did I say “no”, I was “over advocating” for our multilingual learners. I had given them the keys 🔑 to empower themselves to have a voice.
Grieving the identity of being a teacher - and so many other losses- made me realize that I had never “gotten complete” with any of the lifetime of losses (including loss of safety, loss of trust and lost of confidence) which kept me in the abusive system of education. Getting “fired”was the best thing to happen to me: I became a Grief Recovery Method Specialist for ANY Loss and now use this certification to support teachers in connecting the dots of their childhood trauma and “parentifying” to their addiction to the cycle of abuse . I also educate staff and administrators.
Thank you for creating this post. You put into words what I have been saying to others about the truth of teacher vs administrators.
Bingo
so many truths here. well said.
Your line stating, I'm not lazy or weak but navigating a world not built for me, spoke volumes. It allowed me to release a breath I didn't realize I was holding. Thank you.