Cornering a bend on a country lane, I was a minute from home when I thought, staring at the tree ahead of me: 'I could just not turn the wheel. I could just not feel like this any longer.'
It was just a moment. More a distant, detached observation of an exhausted mind than any actual suicidal intent. I carried on home, cried on the sofa and told my boyfriend that I thought I might have to resign. He nodded, and said, yes, he thought that too.
I was 33 and a soon-to-be-ex-editor of one of the most successful women’s magazines in the country. Even now I’m proud of that success – for each of the three years I was editor, the magazine won almost every prestigious award in the industry.
I was earning myself bonuses and a growing public profile. Through the lens of social media, it all looked so rosy. But it was also 10.45pm that night when I finally got home. Not an unusual time for me. And I’d been into the office for 19 days straight, working two weekends in a row.
My boyfriend knew I had to resign because it had been more than five months since I’d gone a full day without doing any kind of work at all. He knew it because that one glorious day when I’d turned off my phone was his birthday, and we were in Italy on a supposed holiday at the time.
In hindsight, I had a classic case of burnout.
The acute stress of stepping up and the self-imposed pressure to prove myself (to others, to myself, to the young woman who grew up in Northumberland dreaming of becoming a magazine editor) had turned into something chronic.
I’d started on the back foot and, handicapped by my own perfectionism, I don’t think I’d ever got on top of things. I was living in a state of wired exhaustion. Constantly anxious. Waking up gasping in the night, hours spent wide-eyed, my mind racing. Already drained when my alarm went off. A life fuelled by cortisol and caffeine.
But my team of 14 didn’t see that side of it all. Because no boss can share that; part of being the leader is the willingness to carry the load. Instead they saw – suffered, I suppose – the effects it had on me as a person. And I knew that person wasn’t good, wasn’t likeable. In fact, I hated her so much that escaping her was the most tempting thing about that tree in the headlights.
It had been a swift transition from the person I’d been before.
I’d worked in media for more than 12 years and had been a deputy editor for 18 months – a position people can spend decades in – when my boss was promoted. With only days’ notice, I was told to step up. The job was going to be advertised so, if I wanted it permanently, I had three months to prove myself.
It was sink or swim. I paddled like hell and got it. Dream realised, I thought. Perhaps the fact that all I could manage for a celebration was a glass of prosecco and a curry on my living room floor was a warning sign.
Let me be clear – it’s not like I’ve ever been a paragon of calm; a nurturing mother figure to my team.
I have insecurities, low tolerance and a terrible tendency towards perfectionism. I take my job more seriously than most. It can cause friction with colleagues. But I am also fair and pretty good fun and care for other people deeply enough that I frequently cry at the news and would be utterly horrified at upsetting anyone who a jury wouldn’t say deserved it.
But burnout robs you of all that positive stuff. It neuters your emotional intelligence, as everything but professional survival becomes second place. Most of all, it’s napalm for your empathy. I now know this is a common symptom, but I began to assume the worst of people – not a great trait for a boss of a young team who were, on the whole, intent on pleasing me.
I saw a missed deadline as defiance, simple errors as laziness. My first thought wasn’t that the person might be struggling, too scared of their unpredictable boss to ask for help. And, as I began to crumble from the inside out, I became unable to support others.
I am still haunted by the talented, sweet, slightly neurotic new starter who resigned after less than three months. Yes, she made mistakes and my workload was probably temporarily heavier because of her inexperience, but there’s no doubt I failed her as a manager. Instead of helping her overcome those early wobbles, I saw her behaviour as some form of cavalier insubordination. I could only see how she let me down, how much more I had to do because of her shortcomings.
I was furious with her. And, besides, why should I give her an easy ride? I was working my arse off to prove to everyone I was capable of doing this job; didn’t she have the work ethic to do the same? So, instead of being warm and encouraging, I shut her out. No wonder she left to return to the company she’d come from.
Becoming increasingly isolated is another classic symptom of burnout.
When I had better days, I loved being surrounded by my team – they were bright and funny and genuinely inspiring. In the months leading up to my resignation, I became distant and aloof, frequently closing my office door for hours on end. I had little to give them, especially when their tentative knocks were followed up with requests for pay rises and promotions. Everyone, it felt, wanted something I couldn’t give them.
It wasn’t like I didn’t have moments of self reflection where I wanted to be better. I’d spend my two-hour morning commute planning ways to be nicer to the team, to make them feel motivated and valued, only to walk into the office to find a minor issue awaiting my attention. Rather than taking it in my stride, I’d snap.
Someone has since explained the concept of a stress bucket – that when our metaphorical bucket is full, it only takes a couple of drops to push us over edge. Mine was sloshing all over the place.
In fact, the day I walked into my boss’s office to resign, he’d wanted to talk to me anyway – a colleague had made a complaint against me because I’d made one of her team cry.
I broke down, told him through hysterical sobs not to worry because I was planning to leave anyway. He was shocked, apologetic. We were close, yet he’d never assumed I was seriously struggling. Nor had that complaining colleague thought to come in and speak to me to find out if my frayed temper stemmed from anything deeper. (Although, granted, I hadn’t made it easy for her to do this.)
I do think there is an assumption that, the higher up the career ladder, the more immune to stress you should be. It’s a lonely position to be in.
Google ‘burnout’ and ‘boss’ and every article that comes up is about how to tell your boss you’re struggling. Not a thought is spared for the other side. Female bosses in particular have a huge amount of pressure on them to not just do the job well, but to be a role model in the process; to nurture and mentor, to be a shining example of the sisterhood in action.
It’s tricky to master that when you’re a strung-out insomniac.
When I finally walked away, there was no satisfaction, just the sadness of handing everything I’d ever worked for to someone else. I wasn’t leaving a job I hated. I just couldn’t find a way to do it and like myself. It was complicated and, for a long time, I felt like a failure.
A few years have passed and I sometimes still feel like that. It’s akin to the bad break-up that forever leaves a scar on your heart. But, as with any life experience, you try to learn from it. Ironically, perhaps, I am probably more empathetic now than even before the burnout.
I look back on previous bosses in a different light. I no longer think the boss who only spoke to heads of department and ceased to acknowledge my existence entirely from the point I resigned was on an insane power trip. I think she was overwhelmed, desperately trying to put in boundaries to make it manageable.
I don’t think the boss who returned from maternity leave was deliberately cruel or distant because her cover had hired me. I think it was probably a time fraught with stress and insecurity for her and she naturally wanted to surround herself with the people she saw as her own.
No one teaches you how to be a boss. Of course, you may be naturally adept at it, but for those of us whose innate strengths don’t fit, it’s a learning-on-the-job situation. I’ve managed people in two different positions since and can honestly say, although I still don’t love it, I’ve worked hard on not repeating the same mistakes.
Strangely, it’s been a mixture of actively trying to be more compassionate, of suspending judgement, of stepping back to consider explanations other than my own perception, and putting in far firmer boundaries for myself.
I, gently, professionally tolerate much less. I’ve learned, as best a stress-prone perfectionist can, where to put my energies. And sometimes you just have to accept you can’t be excellent at everything. I’m a good person, and a potentially great editor. I’m just a really bad boss.
This article appears in the July 2020 edition of ELLE UK. You can buy single issues of the magazine online here.
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