Diabetes Burnout (Part 1 of 2)
Burnout. If you are human you have probably experienced some form of burnout. Burnout is when the very act of caring for a chronic illness, another person, or a job feels completely overwhelming. This feeling of overwhelm trickles into all aspects of “the job” and every small part of the task feels like climbing Mount Everest. I think people intuitively know what burnout is, but let's start off with operationalizing it a bit.
burn out: Exhaustion of physical or emotional strength or motivation usually as a result of prolonged stress or frustration. (thank you, Merriam Webster)
One distinction I would like to make is the difference between burnout and depression. Burnout can definitely lead to depression and they are deeply interconnected, but in the literature they are two distinct concepts. Burnout is like a specific depression that is usually centered around a specific area of life – whether that is caregiving, managing a chronic illness, or a job. Depression affects all areas of life and makes you feel like every aspect of what you do is like walking through thick mud. Burnout starts off as pretty specific – but can often lead to a more general depression. The difference between these two is very nuanced and usually requires a professional, like a psychologist, to help tease the two apart. There is a lot of overlap between depression and burnout, and you can definitely experience both at the same time.
Personally, from my clinical experiences, I strongly feel there is an aspect of learned helplessness in burnout. Upon further research, lo and behold, there are other researchers that have examined the proposed link between these two constructs! We’ll get into the learned helplessness part a bit later in the post in the context of preventing burnout. For starters, there are various ways that the ugly face of burnout can turn up. Today in the context of this post I will be focusing on diabetes burnout (which can also relate to other medical illnesses) and I will expand on the series of burnout with future blogposts. But for today, we will be focusing on diabetes burnout.
11 SIGNS OF DIABETES BURNOUT
1.) Feeling like every aspect of your life is in some way related to (and not in a good way) your diabetes.
2.) You begin “opting out” of certain aspects related to your diabetes care. This can look like rescheduling (and rescheduling, and rescheduling) your endo/doctor’s appointments. Sometimes this is in the hope that if you could use just another few weeks you can buckle down and get some more in range numbers. Sometimes it’s simply just because you don’t feel like going.
3.) You start to “not notice” or try to ignore when your numbers are not in range and you begin to skip out on the usual steps you take to care for the more daily aspects of diabetes (skipping bolusing or injections, “guesstimating” blood sugars more than you’d like.
4.) Just thinking of the word A1c makes you cringe. You generally feel less competent in taking care of your diabetes.
5.) You have become increasingly disengaged with your social world - you avoid social functions or fun activities because of diabetes.
6.) You just look at all of those stupid, smiley, unaware “idiots” around you who have no friggin’ clue how easy they have it because they don’t even have to think about how many carbs a banana has. Or how they will be “paying” for that Chinese food well into the next day…and they don’t have to worry about kinked tubing, sites, nighttime lows, insulin to carb ratios….I could go on…
7.) Being your own pancreas is hard – and you feel very alone in doing this “taking care of diabetes thing” day in and day out.
8.) Diabetes doesn’t rest – so you feel that neither can you, like ever. It’s hard to remember the last time you slept peacefully.
9.) The thought of even talking to someone about how you feel makes you feel exhausted because you don’t want to go through all of that educating of others thing and talking about the mechanics of diabetes in hopes that this will lead them to “get it”, because you think usually people can’t or won’t. After all, just talking about your diabetes makes you feel drained.
10.) You feel that major life choices (and countless minor ones) have become impacted by your diabetes in a negative way. You often fantasize about life without diabetes and how much better your life could be without it. You start feeling fatalistic about your future and how diabetes has prevented you from reaching your goals and being who you want to (or were meant to) be.
11.) You feel like you can add about 20 more to this list….
Ok, so these are some of the major signs of diabetes burnout, and it’s important to be aware that these signs can be very personal. Some people can have burnout and really only experience a handful of these, while others feel that this list is only the tip of the iceberg. So, how do you go about preventing diabetes burnout? Of course, talking to a therapist would be a great first step. And speaking to a therapist that specializes in helping others with health issues, or even one like myself that specializes in helping individuals with diabetes would be ideal. You can find a therapist near you that specializes in diabetes via the ADA mental health directory. These are therapists and psychologists that have undergone special training to help others with diabetes. Finding a therapist that specializes in helping people who have been affected by diabetes is helpful because you won’t feel like you have to provide basic diabetes education so that they can understand the context of your emotions. Now I’m not saying you won’t have to do any education. Personally, I like to say that I know a heck of a lot of more than your average psychologist about diabetes, but that guarantees me very little knowledge about your specific experience with diabetes. Everybody's experience is different and I don’t take that for granted. Additionally, there are specific aspects of diabetes that affect behavior and emotion in very unique ways. Without specific training, your average mental health professional won't know to look out for this. So in addition to finding a professional that “gets it” - read on to "Part 2" of this blog post to learn more about ways to address diabetes burnout.
-Andrea
Hi! I’m Andrea Pihlaskari, Ph.D., and I’m a licensed psychologist who specializes in treating young people with anxiety and health issues. Because I have worked with people with diabetes for over ten years, I know more than your average psychologist about diabetes. That being said, I recognize that everyone's diabetes is unique and one person's experience doesn't necessarily generalize to everyone. If you or someone you love is ready to start living life as a person who happens to have diabetes as opposed to diabetes being front and center, email me or give me a call to schedule a free phone consultation. Together we can find a way to get you moving beyond your burnout!