The Burnout and Balance Mental Health Conversation

If we don’t talk about burnout, we won’t know how to overcome it.

I recently wrote an article about the importance of sharing unsuccessful attempts at improving and/ or maintaining mental health and wellness. That way, those searching for guidance wouldn’t get discouraged if a certain method didn’t work for them. It’s equally important to discuss the struggle itself, the stories and events that gave rise to seeking advice about mental health in the first place. Accordingly, I want to tell my story about how I allowed work to monopolize my last two weeks and what I need to change next time to remain mentally and physically healthy. I want to tell this story even though it doesn’t fit in with “typical attorney behavior” to share such information. If people don’t circulate information, it hinders improvement and growth. Burnout is detrimental to mental and physical health and therefore very important to openly discuss. That way professionals will know how to deal with it if it happens to them.

Mental health events are NOT embarrassing and it’s time for attorneys to recognize this. It’s easy for something to seem embarrassing and inappropriate when nobody talks about it. Normalizing the conversation will allow more people to seek answers to questions they ask themselves secretly. I’ll start by exposing the lessons I’ve learned about burnout and proper time management these past few weeks, and I’m proud to share this story even if demonstrates improvements I need to make. It’s necessary to discuss stress, anxiety and burnout with an “in medias res” / in the middle of the action point of view. There are plenty of very helpful articles on these topic that take the past tense approach; there’s nothing wrong with this, but it does open up the potential for readers to feel as though they should already have a handle on burnout and shouldn’t need further help. That’s not true, and many authors who write in this style still experience burnout even though they’ve learned to recognize that it’s happening and take steps to alleviate it. I want to make sure that nobody feels inferior for seeking advice, even if they believe their bosses may not approve.   So let’s discuss burnout and how work-life balance can directly impact mental and physical health. Attorneys can still advocate the rule of law while breaking the societal norms that encourage silence and stigmas. 

I recently began working on a temporary legal document review project. The project was meant to be capped at 40 hours per week. It’s a remote review, but that means that I use the company computer, complete with video surveillance unless I press the “break” or “end” button. I have a separate room to use as an office and planned to make sure anything not related to work took place outside of that room, to create a separation between work and home. Then, the Friday the project was meant to end, instead they approved overtime for the weekend and entire following week. 

The Friday they approved overtime was my husband’s birthday. I refused to work overtime that day; my husband’s birthday was an obvious priority for me and I was proud of myself for not letting work take over. The following week though, my thoughts began to shift. Negative beliefs started gathering in my mind, manifesting into guilt and stress. I told myself to make up for the time I didn’t work on my husbands birthday. These projects are temporary, this may be the only time overtime is permitted, and with the way my job search has gone, we really need the money. Without working extra hours on the Friday the overtime was first permitted, by the end of the weekend I had managed a 59 hour work week. Since we didn’t know about the overtime in advance, that meant I spent most of the weekend working.

I thought about all the ostentatious conversations I had heard at law firms where attorneys would brag about all their unused paid time off and how they came in despite their fevers and illnesses. Countless times I would hear boastful comments like,

But I didn’t feel proud at all. I was glad I would get a halfway decent check, but aside from that I felt sad and disappointed. I hadn’t made time to write an article for my blog, I had just barely made time for exercise, but not the amount I usually do, and I felt overly drained and exhausted. My sleep had suffered. I let that happen all for a temporary assignment that feels like a major step backwards in terms of my career goals. The positive part of this is that I noticed this happening immediately. I noticed that I was letting burnout win, and I knew I needed to make a change. It is crucial to pay attention to signs and signals from your body that suggest something is not right.

The next week, overtime was approved as well. I spoke to my husband about it and we decided that if I wanted, I would work some additional hours, but not the maximum allowed, and not it it interfered with the other important parts of my life. I already felt the fatigue of skipping the weekend in favor of work. Our four year wedding anniversary was this last Thursday and I stopped working exactly on time. I didn’t work for too long the next day either, because I feel better and healthier when I don’t overwork myself and give up important aspects of my life. That’s not beneficial for mental health and it’s the opposite of self care. I’m writing this on a Saturday when I could be in the other room working under video surveillance. My advocacy for mental health means a lot to me, so writing this was a top priority for me. I learned a lesson about burnout these past few weeks and now I remember the importance of maintaining balance and control of my life, even when society dictates that working the extra hours is the “right thing.” For me the right thing is maintaining mental wellness, which actually has a positive impact on my work performance. I was warned against sharing this article but I didn’t listen. If everyone abided by those types of directives, the stigma around mental health would outlive all of us, burnout would be the norm, and no one would talk about how to overcome it. Let’s not let that happen.

By: Alyson Pi
August 22, 2020