You still do what needs doing. Mostly.
But everything takes more effort. You dread opening your messages. Small requests irritate you. When someone suggests something enjoyable, you think about how much energy it would require.
Perhaps you call it burnout. Perhaps you worry that you are depressed.
You may also wonder whether the distinction matters. Either way, you want your life to feel more livable.
It matters because understanding the pattern helps you choose care. But you do not have to identify the correct label before asking for help.
In everyday conversation, people use burnout to describe exhaustion from work, caregiving, parenting, or prolonged demands.
The World Health Organization’s definition of burnout is narrower. It describes an occupational phenomenon resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. Its three dimensions are exhaustion, increased distance or cynicism toward work, and reduced professional efficacy. It is not classified as a medical condition.
That definition helps clarify what someone means. It does not make exhaustion outside paid employment less important.
If work is central to the problem, consider what has changed. Are demands consistently greater than your resources? Do you have little control over your work? Are you being asked to do things that conflict with your values?
Those questions deserve attention alongside your symptoms.
Depression can affect how you feel, think, sleep, eat, and function. It may involve persistent low mood, loss of interest or pleasure, fatigue, difficulty concentrating, or feelings of worthlessness.
The National Institute of Mental Health’s overview of depression describes major depression as involving depressed mood or loss of interest, most of the time for at least two weeks, with interference in daily life. Diagnosis requires a fuller assessment than recognizing a few symptoms on a list.
You might notice that you no longer enjoy people or activities that have nothing to do with work. Perhaps time off brings little change. Perhaps hopelessness has become more prominent than frustration.
These are reasons to seek assessment. They are not a home test that reliably separates depression from burnout.
Work-related exhaustion and depression can occur together. A clinician can explore both without requiring you to choose which explanation you prefer.
Feeling better away from work provides useful information. It does not rule out depression. Feeling exhausted everywhere does not establish it.
Assessment also includes sleep, medications, alcohol or other substances, and physical health. Some medical conditions can produce symptoms that resemble depression. Persistent fatigue deserves more than an instruction to become better at self-care.
You can bring concrete observations: when the difficulty began, what makes it worse, what still feels pleasurable, and what you are struggling to do.
Therapy can help examine the conditions you are living under and how you respond to them.
Virginia Satir’s concept of congruence includes honoring yourself, other people, and the context. Applied here, that means considering your needs alongside your responsibilities and the actual demands of your environment.
Perhaps you have become accustomed to treating every request as an obligation. Perhaps saying no threatens your sense of being dependable. Those patterns can be explored without pretending that an unreasonable workload is merely a problem in your thinking.
If earlier traumatic experiences are also contributing to your distress, trauma treatment may belong in the plan. A randomized controlled trial of Deep Brain Reorienting for PTSD found reductions in PTSD symptoms compared with a waitlist. That study did not establish DBR as a treatment for occupational burnout or depression generally.
A therapist should be able to explain what they propose to address and why.
Continuing to work does not establish that you are well. Nor do you need to prove that things are unbearable before seeking care.
You can begin by saying: “I’m still managing, but the way I’m managing is becoming difficult to sustain.”
That is enough to start a conversation about what is happening, what needs to change, and what support would fit.
If you are experiencing depression, schedule an appointment with your primary care provider or a mental health professional, and tell someone you trust how you are feeling. You can also review this resource. This practice does not provide on-call services or crisis response. If you are in emotional crisis or having thoughts of suicide, call or text 988 in the United States for support at any time. If you are in immediate danger, call 911 or go to the nearest hospital emergency department.
Anne Lindyberg, LMHC (Iowa), LCPC (Illinois), integrates the experiential therapy of Virginia Satir with Deep Brain Reorienting (DBR) and the Alexander Technique. She specializes in helping adults with complex and developmental trauma create lasting emotional change through therapy.
This article and other informational content on this website are provided for educational purposes only. They are not a substitute for individualized professional care, do not constitute advice specific to your circumstances, and do not establish a therapist-client relationship.
This work is created on the traditional and unceded lands of Indigenous peoples; a fuller acknowledgment of the land, its history, and its peoples is available on this website.
These blog posts are drafted with the support of ChatGPT. All posts are reviewed and edited by the author for accuracy, and consistency with the values of the author and this practice.
World Health Organization. “Burn-out an Occupational Phenomenon.” https://www.who.int/standards/classifications/frequently-asked-questions/burn-out-an-occupational-phenomenon
National Institute of Mental Health. “Depression.” https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/depression
Satir, V., Banmen, J., Gerber, J., & Gomori, M. (1991). The Satir Model: Family Therapy and Beyond. Science & Behavior Books. Chapter 4, “Congruence,” pp. 66, 68. https://bit.ly/SatirModel1stEd
“A Randomized Controlled Trial of Deep Brain Reorienting: A Neuroscientifically Guided Treatment for Post-traumatic Stress Disorder.” 2023. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37581275/
Midwest Center for Transformational Change PLC