A crisis is an end and a beginning

LL-UK: It was a drizzly November afternoon in 2009 when my siblings and I were admiring the Wembley Arena in London, the site of the infamous England v Germany football match in 1966. Even today, England still rejoices in this rare victory over Germany. I, too, should associate my own personal victory with this site.

Peak and painful descent

We were on our way to the award ceremony, an event organised by my university at the Wembley Conference Centre, where I was to receive my doctoral certificate. I had done it!

Graduation to receive the doctoral certificate

After six years of hard work, researching and writing my PhD thesis whilst working in my full-time job at the university, I must admit that I enjoyed being congratulated by my professors, my work colleagues and my family. One of my brothers and my sister had travelled all the way from Germany as they did not want to miss their little sister’s big moment.

The hard and difficult years of my doctoral programme were forgotten. I was full of energy and now officially a Doctor and more than ready to take on any new challenges.

I had many ideas on how to advance the Bachelor’s programme that I had led for the past 12 years at the university, and I was also aiming for a professorship in the not-too-distant future. However, I had no idea that this would not turn out as I had planned.

The new university leadership introduced rationalisation measures throughout the university to cope with the Tory government’s cutbacks, which severely affected all sections of society, including the education sector. These soon had an impact on my programme. As a result, instead of expanding and extending it as planned, I had to fight to maintain the status quo. My colleagues were frustrated and gradually lost their enthusiasm for our work and their fighting spirit. As a result, half of them accepted severance packages from the university and resigned. However, the students in the programme were still there, expecting courses to be taught and supported. This work now had to be shared with the remaining staff. I was determined not to give up and kept going, but it felt as if I was banging my head against a brick wall every day.

Conflicts, arguments and problems to be solved

Over the following months, I worked harder and longer just to keep the programme alive and support the students. I was at my desk at 7 a.m., and often my husband would call me at 8 p.m., saying enough was enough and that I should come home as dinner was ready. That was a white lie because he knew that I had a 45 minutes drive home. That was his way of getting me to down tools and come home.

Even though I worked weekends, the mountain of work was unsurmountable and the work felt harder by the day. In fact, I was getting slower and slower and became less effective. I could not sleep; my brain could not rest and would not switch off. I also noticed that my memory was not as good as it used to be. Faced with simple tasks, my mind would sometimes go blank, and I forgot what I was supposed to do. I realised that I could no longer rely on my sharp mind that I used to be so proud of. This greatly affected my self-confidence and increased my already high stress levels. I gazed into the abyss and kept going.

Insight, acceptance and a new beginning

In a much-needed holiday in Crete, during which David, my husband and I had many conversations, I gradually realised that I was on the verge of becoming seriously ill and that I had to leave the university to recover.

The recovery process was very slow. In fact, a psychologist and specialist in burnout warned me that the recovery process would take a long time. After three months, most people recover to 30%; the remaining 70% of recovery can take years or even decades. Now, after the passage of more than 10 years, I am much better, but I still get easily stressed, and I am no longer able to face challenges as I used to be able to. Although I am not sure if this is because of my burnout or simply a sign of me getting older.

Walking - a great remedy to reduce stress levels

I adopted a range of strategies to get through this tough time. I decided against prescribed medication as I suspected it would only dull my brain and not help my recovery. Instead, I took up reading ‘prescribed’ books, a new scheme the NHS prescribed. A local library stocked books about stress, mental health and burnout as a means of self-help. I read them all, and they certainly helped me to understand my situation a lot better. The intense pressure on my professional life had transformed into a feeling of personal failure that brought about my burnout. I walked a lot and enrolled at our local fitness centre and found that working out on the rowing machine and kicking the boxing punchbag helped me to beat stress. I also joined a workshop with a colour stylist to find out which colours best suited my skin type to increase my self-confidence. Afterwards, I proudly glided around town with my new hot-coloured lipstick and colourful clothes.

Finding a new identity - not easy to achieve

What was not so easy to achieve was finding a new identity for myself.

Throughout my professional life, work had always been important to me. It was almost like: Do I work to live, or do I live to work?

Now that the work had gone, what was left for me? I was 57 years old and far too young to retire. I had some ideas about what I could do, but the thought of working again in a hierarchical structure where bosses told me what to do would drive me crazy. I wanted to be free and independent.

I decided to start my own consultancy business. Over time I slowly developed a business strategy and built my website, both as a means of my development and recovery. I hired a friend as a coach and discovered where my strengths lay and that my purpose in life was to help others and support them in their personal and professional development – exactly what I had been doing for the past decades. It was reassuring and encouraging to know that I was on the right path and that I could build on the knowledge, skills and experience of my previous professional life.

Challenges kickstarting my new career

However, in the past, I had always worked within a team and had the backing of an institution to fall back on. Now I was on my own and independent. Without the backing of an institution which had a system of quality control, the value of my work was not known. So, who would hire me?

This was possibly the reason why the expensive adverts that I launched had not produced the results I wished for. I soon realised that to be successful, I needed to work together with other people who know me and my work. This would allow me to find work and develop further.

Trust in former colleagues

With this in mind, I started to go through my contact list of former colleagues and invited a selected few for lunch to talk my business ideas through with them. Picking their brains helped me to get ideas of what was possible and what was not. Some colleagues introduced me to other people who also had ideas, which also helped. Making contact with my former colleagues was a good strategy. Their advice helped set up and develop my own business concepts. They encouraged me to follow through with my ideas, which also helped me to regain my self-confidence and my new identity.

Through my conversations with my former colleagues, I also learned a great deal beyond setting up my business. When I talked about the experience of my burnout and work-related stress, their reaction was sympathetic throughout. Indeed, many admitted that either they or a partner or close friend had suffered similar issues. I found that talking about my burnout, which is still surrounded by stigma and shame, brought us closer together and brought our relationship to a different level.

(LL)