To think some “burnout” is just people realising they hate their jobs?

Searched up burnout and came across this thread - hoping there’s a few still following.

Lots of the comments are around jobs where you’re working with people, be it social work etc. I’m in management of social care with (very) young and (extremely) traumatised children and families. I’m struggling.

I have a youngish family with no support, physically or financially, from their dad for the last 5-6 years. I rely solely on my own parents for any form of social life and every minute of childcare. My own grandparents are now older and unwell, although they did provide a large amount of childcare when they were able to. My parents are now in caring roles for their own parents whilst also supporting my children. Paternal family are somewhat helpful.

I am close to burnout and genuinely do not know what to do. I hate my once very much loved role. I earn very well and so cannot leave as I am a 1 parent household.

I feel stuck and resentful.

Are these feelings synonymous with social care? Is it my role? Is it shift work? Is it missing important (to my myself and my kids, not my management) parts of my own kids lives? I’ve missed too many parents evenings and birthday parties/days out to count at this point.

I have some holidays scheduled in for next month, is this enough or is it time for a trip to the doctor?

Just noticed the teaching and trauma comment. Burnout causes hypervigilance of the nervous system which can lead to PTSD like symptoms or PTSD itself if the scenario is bad enough. In teaching if you face violence in the classroom or a need for frequent hyper vigilance of threats (verbal or physical) or ongoing bullying day to say by mgmt then yes teachers (or any profession facing similar scenarios) can experience trauma. It's not an insult to anyone in any other profession to say that, it's just how the nervous system works. There's lots of research on this.

Burnout is emotional exhaustion, a loss of enjoyment or meaning in your work, and depersonalisation of those you work with/cynicism. Part of hating your job may well be associated with those factors but if you have them you're burnt out or on the way to it.

You can love your job and be protected in part by that sense of accomplishment even if you show high emotional exhaustion and some cynicism/depersonalisation. But you'll still be feeling on the road to burnout (I've met teachers who can still find huge meaning and a great personal satisfaction from their job, but ultimately burnout because the emotional strain is just too overbearing).

I work in this area because I started in menopause coaching and as it turns out there's a massive crossover between menopause and burnout risk, so I need to know about it. It's definitely more than just not liking your job.

Cna you quote the person who stated that teaching is a traumatic job please (as opposed to the fact that there is sometimes trauma involved)? Thank you 😊

I have been close to what I think was likely burnout and it wasn’t that I hated my job, but the workload was too high. It got the the point where I was unable to switch off and couldn’t sleep, eat or relax. It’s my inability to compartmentalise that caused it.

Teaching isn't just about teaching. They build realtionships with children living in the most horrendous circumstances and feel responsible for helping them. There are far more of those in an average class than you'd expect. It takes tremendous emotional toll.

Sorry, I absolutely can't get on board with the notion that teaching is considered a traumatic job. Stressful, yes. Traumatic, no.

Do some teachers occasionally witness traumatic events? Yes, of course, as do many others in professions which aren't considered traumatic as standard.

As above, calling teaching a traumatic job is insulting to firemen, surgeons, those in the armed forces etc

Not agreeing that teaching is a traumatic job does not make someone goady (to the PP who is insistent that it does).

This is starting to detail the thread so I'll leave it here.

I always loved my job and would have probably agreed with you, then a combination of things, at work and elsewhere, have led to burnout to the extent that it's very hard to motivate myself anywhere, not just at work.

You're absolutely right; of course there is. The poster is just being goady.

I went through it, I had a job that I had once enjoyed but a steady increase of workload plus being treated badly built up stress, due to staff shortages i was given responsibility way beyond my experience or knowledge. In the end I hated my job and even now thinking about that whole industry makes my stomach tighten. Whether stress made me go from liking by job to hating it, or whether dislike of my job led to the stress I don't know.

Surely you only have to watch the news occasionally to know that there is ?

No I don't. I was doing the same job for 20 years and genuinely enjoyed it but the pressure became more and more noticeable until I couldn't do it any more but it was the impact of that over time rather than just a year of being busy.

I hope you're a little more thoughtful in your responses to pupils and colleagues who might ask you a fairly innocuous question. Perhaps then you'll have to expend less of that emotional labour.

But still... "Not trying to be goady". Mumsnet cracks me up sometimes 🙈

I hope you're a little more thoughtful in your responses to pupils and colleagues who might ask you a fairly innocuous question. Perhaps then you'll have to expend less of that emotional labour.

I think it was a fair assumption to make that you were drawing an affinity between trauma and teaching, considering that trauma was the crux of PP's comment. I was of course intrigued to learn how the two were linked. Thank you for the clarification 🙂

"Not trying to be goady" 😅

I was actually referring to the emotional labour bit ... I'm sure many teachers do have traumatic experiences. Thankfully, I don't feel I have experienced trauma from teaching. Thanks for asking 🙈

We'll agree to disagree on the frequency of pupils destroying their classrooms.

Re the teacher mentioning trauma; if you look at the quote history, you'll see her comment was a direct reply to a poster speaking of those who have traumatic jobs and how they need time to recharge.

I also don't think burnout is related to trauma. Again, my comment was very specific to the chain of comments you'll find if you collapse the quote history.

I think you're naive if you don't think it can happen weekly and at times more than that. The teacher upthread didn't actually mention the word traumatic and I don't think anyone would class teaching as such. I didn't know burnout was specifically related to trauma - I asked if it was the same as work related stress.

I'm not doubting that things like that happen. I do doubt it's a daily, or even weekly occurrence, though.

In any case, absent any exceptional circumstances, I don't think teaching can be described as traumatic work. I think describing it as such is almost an insult to those who truly have traumatic jobs; think paediatric surgeons who see children critically ill and dying, or social workers who witness neglect day in day out, or those in the armed forces.

Not to say that we can't all experience stress in our jobs. But let's not erode the meaning of the word traumatic. We've already eroded the meaning of so many others.

Yes, stress is the stage before burnout. Stress can be lived with.

Children destroying a room at school (either a classroom or a dedicated safe space type room) is not all that unusual now. I can see dealing with that every day could really affect someone. It's the unpredictability and volatility.

It is a term I hear much more now. Is it different to work-related stress?

Yes, but I don’t think this is earth shattering. Surely, it’s obvious you’d be burnt out if you were miserable with what you were doing every day.

I went out on sick leave at my previous job due to stress and burnout (2 months into sick leave I also got diagnosed with an aggressive stage 3 cancer, so that was that, my contract ran out 6 months later without me ever returning to work). My burnout was actually probably partly exhaustion because my body was trying to deal with metastatic cancer. But it definitely wasn’t because of my workload. I wasn’t overworked. It was because the awful job and my bonkers gaslighting line manager had sucked the life out of me.

That didn’t mean I didn’t love the type of work I did. But it did mean I hated my life every day because of my job.

Is there a lot of vicarious trauma in teaching? Honestly not trying to be goady at all. I understand the poster who spoke of working in a psychiatric ward and other similar stories - I really didn't expect teaching to be considered 'traumatic work' (to use the language of the poster you're replying to).

This. I love my job. But it is very intense and the workload is too much. If it wasn't for thr holidays, I'd have burnt out years ago (I'm a teacher).

NOPE. I worked on an acute psychiatric ward for about a decade and was totally burnt out by the end. Its not because I didnt like it, I LOVED my job and even now I look back and miss it at times but its an intense and emotionally draining job that personally I dont think anyone should do for more than 10 years without a career break. I have many very fond memories of patients I helped and wonderful conversations I had with them but the emotional toll it took on me was immense after that length of time and I simply couldn't do it any longer.