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Burning up, burning down, burning out

Published August 20, 2008
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English is such a weird language. We can burn something up, burn something down, burn it in, or even burn it out. The semantics of the burning are modified entirely by the preposition. Some prepositions invoke literal flame, others give us a more metaphorical image.

I'm interested in one of those prepositions in particular these days - that is, burning out. Dealing with burnout is never an easy thing, even for otherwise healthy and well-adjusted people. Throwing something like bipolar disorder into the mixture makes it an extremely tricky issue.

Originally, prior to treatment, my bipolar episodes cycled with abnormal rapidity - I could shift from being wildly manic to deeply depressed in literally a matter of a few hours. One of the easiest ways to recognize an episode was to sleep it off; if, after napping for a couple hours, I felt different, chances are it was a bipolar spike.

One of the biggest effects that treatment has had on my symptoms is to slow down the cycling drastically. I now take several days to fully swing through an episode, although thankfully I've been largely symptom free for several months now.

At least, I hope so.


In the past couple of weeks, I've been grinding to a halt. My energy levels have dropped through the floor. I don't want to work on anything. I don't care about much. Aside from vegetating in front of Battlestar Galactica or Starcraft, I barely do anything outside of work.

And even work has suffered tremendously. My output has slowed down to a trickle. I find it difficult to focus for long, and lack the motivation to tackle any nontrivial problems. The result is a lot of false starts, tiny and insignificant efforts to assault major challenges.

I'm not hacking in my free time like I used to. After the brief burst of interest in Epoch, I've almost completely neglected the language, to the point that I don't really clearly remember what I was last working on.


For most people, this would just be classic burnout. The symptoms and causes are easy to recognize. I feel stifled and cramped in my current apartment, which is a large part of why I've been looking into moving out into a bigger house. I feel unmotivated and drained, with minimal support from a team who is all caught up being ridiculously busy on other issues. Worst of all, I've questioned my desire to even work in the computer field - which is a drastic step for me; computers have been my passion since age six.

Usually, there are stock solutions to burnout: exchange projects if possible. Change the working environment as much as can be done. Take a serious break. Look for communication breakdowns with teammates and coworkers.

Exchanging projects isn't an option; we don't have any other projects to work on, at least for the time being. The downside of being a small studio is that all the eggs lie in a single basket.

Changing my work environment is difficult. In a single-bedroom apartment, there's not much that can be done to rearrange furniture or the like. And although I am working on getting a house, that takes a lot of time - and, problematically, introduces a host of stresses all its own.

Taking a break sounds deeply attractive at the moment, but I fear that I'd end up feeling guilty partway through, and return to work prematurely. I've always had problems disciplining myself to get away from work, which ironically overall lowers my quality of work because I cook my brain too quickly.

Communication and support are just going to be permanent problems; it goes with the territory of working remotely. I can't lean over to the next guy and have him pair-program with me to solve some difficult issue. I can't sit down with the art team and have them directly evaluate the results of the procedural content generation stuff I'm working on; I have to wait days for them to get a free minute to read through my emails and respond. The whole setup is just fraught with teamwork landmines.


But the difficulties in treating vanilla burnout are not my biggest worry. By far the thing that concerns me the most is that this may not just be burnout, but rather the doldrums of a particularly nasty depressive episode. The medication has slowed down my cycles to the point where I can't just sleep through the worst of the symptoms; so if this is truly born of the disorder, I'm stuck in it for the long haul.


I know, deep down, that working in such a high-pressure industry - and in particular in such an awkward working arrangement - poses a serious risk for me. I take the chance every day of aggravating a serious and powerful disease, merely by showing up to work. It's less physically obvious but no less real than watching your lungs slowly eaten alive by coal dust, day after day in the mines.

But regardless of that danger, I'm not yet ready to let go of the career that I love. It may be a brutal struggle indeed, but I'm here to stay.

I just have to figure out how to survive without destroying my health and sanity along the way.
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Comments

Daerax
My best friend had adhd, they gave him medicine when he was younger and although it controlled his symptoms he stopped because it made him feel like a robot.

One thing that might help is striking up a physical hobby. Micheal Atiyah I believed once said that if you have a mental job then relax with tennis and biking. If you have a physical job then relax with chess.

Perhaps taking up yoga, gymnastics or similar may help. You would be leaving your apartment, possibly meeting new people and releasing endorphins from the physical activity. All these count as a the proper type of change of environment that would allow you to attack problems with a fresh more motivated mind. I think.
August 20, 2008 08:42 PM
Telastyn
I'm not sure it's burnout really. I have cycles which arrive every 3 months or so and last 1-3 weeks depending on how well I handle them. Just as you describe; no motivation, even for normal fun things that only require thought. When I was younger they were lengthened and exacerbated by my situation (and failure to notice/handle them). And it doesn't seem to be caused by too much work, or my lifestyle. Every 3 months or so, everything just kinda seems to suck. Probably some chemical problem; probably could get corrected... who knows.

But, I have noticed them and they're (now) very manageable. Some recommendations that helped me.

- Don't fight it. If all you feel like doing is BSG and Starcraft, then do them. Doing something you can't effectively do is frustrating and not relaxing. Worse it's kinda depressing. Worrying about things, over analyzing things, getting depressed or frustrated will only lengthen the 'dip' and generally harm your life.

I personally try not to buy games during the rest of the year. When I feel the downswing come along, I go and get one that's been on my list. I can spend the 1-3 mindless weeks doing that; recharging the batteries and keeping my mind off of the depressing stuff.

- Diet helps. I don't have the best diet of all time, but adding more rice/pasta (carbs) and fruit juices (vitamins) helps my energy level a bit. Enough to do the vital work bits without too much impact, and shortening the dips.

- Exercise helps. I personally don't like non-competitive exercise, but some hockey or volleyball or something is good. It occupies the mind; away from 'oh I'm not getting anything done' or program design that you then can't implement (and get frustrated from). Plus physical fatigue aids in getting sufficient sleep. (And as mentioned, the endorphins do help).

- Write code smartly/consistently. This applies otherwise, but it becomes far more useful when you drop your project altogether for weeks at a time regularly. I do forget what I was working on. I take now to writing whole logical parts at a time, and in such a way that I can easily read and pickup the forgotten code. A useful habit to have just becomes more important when you have to do it.

- Manage the motivation. Kinda in-line with the first point, plan around the downswings. I take a 3 day weekend every 5-7 weeks now. When certain days are sucky, I'll go out to eat or pickup a sundae. Just stuff to make sure the upswing days are productive, and that the downswings don't strike when I'm already down. Sure, it costs a little in time and money, but if the downswing strikes when you're already down you'll spend way more digging yourself back out (or in some reactionary move like you fear).


I can only imagine the impact that you're feeling coming from rapid cycle MD, and it might be something completely different (or inapplicable due to the severity of yours). But there you are, maybe they can help; maybe not. Best of luck.
August 20, 2008 10:41 PM
jollyjeffers
Interesting posts/comments!

I've found cycling to be a great way to get around this. I don't get the chance as much as I'd like, but there have been a few days where I've felt a bazillion million times better for getting out and thrashing a quick 20mi on my bike before getting back to using my head.
August 21, 2008 08:18 AM
Gaiiden
Quote: Original post by Telastyn
Don't fight it. If all you feel like doing is BSG and Starcraft, then do them. Doing something you can't effectively do is frustrating and not relaxing. Worse it's kinda depressing. Worrying about things, over analyzing things, getting depressed or frustrated will only lengthen the 'dip' and generally harm your life.

I've learned as well to go with this one (the rest are good too, but I mainly relate to this one). At first I felt kinda bad shoving aside work I was supposed to be doing and just laying in bed and reading a book all day, or sleeping, or playing Guitar Hero - but to be honest after just "going with the flow" for several months now I can't say I've fallen behind on anything or missed deadlines or increased my stress in any areas. Feels good to just do whatever I feel like doing.

Also, I have many hobbies and activities to jump to when I need a change of pace. if I don't feel like proofing an article I can work on editing a video. Don't feel like staying on the computer I can play a game. Don't feel like staying in the house I can hit the beach and go kite flying. Don't feel like going to the beach I can head to the gym for a workout. so on and so forth.

Actually there's a danger in that too - sometimes I've had so many options in what to do I've sat around for a good long while trying to decide which activity to take part in :P
August 22, 2008 12:29 PM
evolutional
Physical exercise helps me too. I'd stopped exercising recently and hence put weight on, feel shit about work, don't have any motivation to do anything apart from chill out. I've picked up exercise again, hopefully the benefits of it will break the cycles for me...
August 23, 2008 11:32 AM
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