059. Am I Depressed or Burned Out?

Speaker A: Welcome to the therapist burnout podcast, episode 59. Hey, therapist, welcome back to the program. Today I’m talking with you about this question.

Am I depressed or am I burned out? So today we’re going to unpack all of that. Before I do that, I just wanted to let you know to jump on my pen pal list.

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So, hey, listen up.

I am just bubbling. I’m bubbling over with creativity, with joy.

I just had a shift recently.

I. I think, I don’t know if every podcast since the beginning of this year, I sounded depressed, probably because I was. And I think that’s the impetus for today’s topic because I felt like I was burned out again.

And I was like, but am I burned out? Am I? Am I? Yeah, I’ve taken on a little bit too much work. Yes, that’s true.

But was I really burned out or was I depressed again?

And I think I answered my own question that I was feeling depression.

And this is what we do. This is what we do, right? So I’m googling all the things I’m talking in my therapy sessions about, you know, why am I depressed?

Like it doesn’t make any sense. What are their reasons that I’m depressed?

And guess what? There don’t. There doesn’t have to be a reason. There can be a cause for depression. And so I saw that on some random website. It wasn’t even scientific and I can’t find it again.

But I like this thought that there are causes for mental health conditions and we know all those, right? The old nature nurture debate. So is it genetics, is it your environment, is it your upbringing, those experiences that you bring, possible adverse childhood experiences or ACEs?

You know, I think all of us probably know of the ACE study and so is it all of that stuff, those are causes.

We don’t have to have reasons. And I think what we do and I just saw a post recently about can really contextualizing like we have to kind of like earn our depression which is so, it’s so self punishing.

It is so self punishing. I think to get in this mind frame when we are experiencing pain to have to have a reason for it. You can just have pain if you don’t.

And it can, that can be the re. It’s just the world that right now the politics are a little bit of a dumpster fire, that it’s cold outside, that you work a really hard job.

Those are maybe some causes that might lead to depression or burnout. But we don’t have to search for like figuring out the reasons or where I think that gets us is that there’s something wrong with us.

There must be something wrong with me that I’m not handling this level of stress, that I’m feeling depression or I’m feeling burnout. And so I just want to first like have us have a mindset of compassion for ourselves.

If you are listening to this and you are burned out or you’re depressed or you’re both, that there are causes for that and it doesn’t have to be a reason that you’re seeking.

And I hope that makes sense. That difference really was helpful for me.

But I think to start this conversation I want to think of the differences between burnout and depression because I had both during my last phase of complete burnout slash awakening.

Burnout slash awakening slash panic attacks. All the things, right? So I always go to the world health definition of burnout. And I will Read that for you. Because even someone like myself, who wrote a dissertation on compassion fatigue, when I was burned out, I was up googling.

Is, is this, Is this it? Am I burned out, really?

So I think because for me, I somaticize everything. So I’m having panic attacks and I’m trying to figure out the reason why this is happening. Why is my body doing this?

And it’s. It was due to the work. It was due to all of the stress that I was putting myself under as a therapist in the pandemic.

So the World Health Organization defines burnout as defined in the ICD11 as burnout is a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. It is characterized by three dimensions.

Feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion, increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one’s job, and reduced professional efficacy.

Furthermore, burnout refers specifically to the phenomena in the occupational context and should not be applied to describe experiences in other areas of life.

So I find that sentence really interesting because, you know, I just feel like, especially for female identifying folks, I’m not saying male identifying folks don’t have that too, but I think there’s a lot of reasons why female identifying folks have difficulty with burning out or experiencing feelings of burnout in other contexts of their life.

Let’s say they’re mothering, you’re in the mothering years.

Perhaps that feeling of energy depletion or exhaustion, being distanced from the care or caring about the care of your children, reduced efficacy as a mother, for example, I think could be related to undue stress.

For me, in the pandemic, it was having young children without adequate childcare, and I still needed to work.

So I think I was experiencing a level of burnout from the work, but also I think feelings of kind of caregiving burnout from not having support. I mean, my partner tried his very best.

We were doing the best we could.

It’s really hard to be the only one who is on 247 when they need a lot from you, because that’s what parenting is.

So people are in other phases of their life. I think therapists tend to be the people who caretake for their families. We tend to be the ones who pick up those roles.

Right? For better and for worse. I love saying that for better and for worse, we are caretakers. We are the ones who hold space that go into these places of people’s lives.

And I think we do that in our families. We do that in our work. And I think for therapists especially, there becomes layers of the work of burnout because we are doing similar caring in other contexts that we’re life.

Right. So mothering, that is a lot. It’s a different energy depletion and exhaustion. But I don’t know about you, but as a mother, I mean, I, I’m. I have a.

A son who’s tweening right now, and just. No, I’m not doing that, you know, and just like dealing with little tantrums and the teenage years are coming for me, and they are great kiddos, don’t get me wrong.

But it’s normal. Right? They’re going to push boundaries, and they’re probably going to push boundaries more than anyone else in my life. That’s just the nature of children. That’s what they do.

So I. I think there can be lots of layers there for the burnout. I’ve already talked a lot about how therapist burnout is different. So if you haven’t listened to that episode, if you’re just finding me.

Hello, I’m Jen.

Dr. Jen Blanchette. Welcome to the podcast. So let’s look.

So episode 41, I talked about why therapist burnout is different, and I talked about all the different things. So we have a layer of compassion fatigue, which I feel like doubles down on these feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion that you don’t see in other types of work.

I think we have the same. The other things, like the distance from our job or negativism or cynicism related to our clients.

Resentment.

Kate Donovan, the great Kate Donovan on her Burnout podcast, she talks a lot about. About resentment being a superpower.

Yeah, I don’t know if it’s a superpower, but it’s. It is illuminating. And so I love to think of anger as.

It’s a great. It’s a great emotion. It gives us lots of energy.

And so I think having the energy with anger and resentment can be motivating in some way because it’s a signal. And a lot of therapists I talk to, when they start to feel that resentment towards clients are like, oh, no, like, I almost told my client off today, and that scares you.

And rightfully so. Like, we don’t want to be unprofessional. We don’t want to be unethical or inappropriate, But I think it is a consequence of chronic depletion and hallmark burnout symptoms.

That’s what I tell people. That’s burnout. That’s the burnout. That’s. It’s not you. So I think we have to separate ourselves from the burnout and the behaviors that are associated with that, especially clinically, what can come up.

And so if you’re there, number one, it’s common, and some of you are thinking those thoughts in your head all the time, but you don’t say them to clients. When you get to the point where you’re like, I have said something or I am about to blurt, I think that’s a good indication that you’re in burnout and you need some support with this.

Okay, so I think we’ve. We’ve talked about that. Check out 41 about the nuances of therapist burnout and how I think that looks differently from, you know, podcasting on therapist burnout for a year and a half.

I think it’s given me some insights there. I think that’s an episode I’m just going to redo every year, because as I talk to therapists and as I delve deeper into the research and experiences of therapists, my understanding changes, and it deepens and it grows, and that’s a great thing.

So I think updating that can be wonderful.

So I had this question from someone who wrote into me, and they had the question, and it’s related to this kind of. Because I’m talking about specifically about burnout today and not about practice closure, which is what I help people with.

And burnout, too. I help people with burnout.

And someone asked me, have you ever w. Have you wandered through? When does burnout become a safety issue?

So I’ll take the first part of that question. There’s more part of parts of that question.

I think we’ve all experienced someone who is deep in their burnout.

Like, I see that therapist. I see that professional who likely probably thought, there’s no other way. Right? There’s no other way here for me but to continue in this job.

And I can’t quit this job. This is the only way that I can make money. And I do believe 100% it’s on the professional to see, like, if. Like I was just talking about, if resentment is bubbling up in you and you are then taking that on your client.

You’re. That is coming up in the therapy, and your client is being affected by it because they are getting a therapist that is behaving inappropriately. Right? So I think it’s one thing when you’re burned out, you’re emotionally exhausted, and you maybe show up with not a lot of energy.

I think if you show up with a lot of not A lot of energy every day.

That’s going to be difficult for your client, potentially.

I just go back to looking at the system.

So if you’re in a system like an agency job or a government job, where they hand you a caseload and they tell you, okay, you have to manage this caseload of a hundred clients, and that means you have to take care of their mental health.

And so, you know this, you know you have to see this many clients, and in your mind somewhere, you’re telling yourself, I can’t do this.

This is not. I’m not going to provide the best care for this person. And yet the system asks us to do that.

So in one sense, you’re trying to do the best thing right by taking care of this person, yet you know you can’t do a good job taking care of that many clients.

So I feel like we put our, our therapists and healthcare workers in general in these situations, right? To basically, we’re setting them up to fail.

So I completely understand where someone might be if they feel like they can’t do that. And I think it’s on us, looking at our personal ethics, to say, the system is asking me to do this, but I can’t ethically deliver this service in this way.

And then we have to start asking ourselves really hard questions about, can I stay in this job? Can I continue to do this work?

And let me tell you from experience, it’s. It’s a hard place to be in. And I’ve been there many times in my career.

But on the other side of that, I can see that therapist, who I was then and what I needed and I needed to get out, I needed to get on the other side.

I wish I would have gotten there more quickly, but I understand the barriers and I’m excited.

I know, I’m so weird. So when I have a therapist I’m working with and they’re in this, like, depleted, I’m closing my practice, everything is awful phase, I am like, I am so happy for you because you’re.

You’ve decided to make this change now. Like, I’m almost about to cry just thinking about how much I want the change for the person that’s listening to this. So if you’re listening to this and you’re like, there is no freaking way that I can get out of this horrible job that I’m in.

I’m speaking right to you.

You can get out of it. You do not have to live this way. You deserve to feel alive. You deserve to feel human.

And I think Just like I say this all the time, but just like the care you give your clients, you deserve that care.

And especially if you have been chronically depleted and drained for so long, you have to get it, you have to access it.

And sometimes our bodies just make us do that before we’re ready. Right. I, that was me. My body started having panic attacks and told me, actually we’re going to stop now because we’re taking you out.

So sometimes I like to, I tell people, like, it’s not if it’s going to happen if you’re in these chronic stressful environments or systems, it’s when.

So looking down the road, where am I going to be in five years? What do I want for myself, my life, my family in five years?

Like, think of how things could change for the better. We often don’t even give that availability to ourselves.

Like, how, what would it be like if I had a job that didn’t take all of me every day where I came home and yeah, maybe I was tired from working all day, but I didn’t have that emotional drain like I do in therapy.

Anyway, let me go to the next part of the question.

You’re welcome. You’ve just attended my TED talk on why you need to Change by Dr. Jen Blanchett. All right, so is there a line where it actually degrades your performance so much that it you actually risk harming someone versus soldiering on?

Yeah, so I mean, I kind of alluded to that, some of that, but I do believe it is a systemic issue. Burnout is a systems issue, even if you’re in solo practice.

Right. Because then we’re bumping up against systems that pay therapists a low rate historically and currently.

Yeah, there, there definitely is that line. And I think likely it’s hard to see when you’re in it. So it’s hard to see am I affecting my clients negatively? And so that’s why I think being in some kind of community, some kind of container to be able to get that feedback is really important.

So whether that be you meet with a peer supervision or consultation group, I think once a month is not enough.

So if you’re burned out, really thinking about what is my container for healing, what is my like individual container for healing, whether that be therapy, whether that be some kind of other medical provider, acupuncture, something, what is my group container for healing?

So am I in some kind of group support that can see me and know me and that may not be a therapist specific group? Maybe that’s something like I have A therapist client who’s in this kind of like a wellness kind of container group that has sound healing and, and, and get togethers and things of that nature.

I had another person who was attending a spiritual group of. It wasn’t a church group, but it was a spiritual group where they were in a group container. And so thinking through that kind of collective and group healing that you need could be group therapy.

It could be lots of different things. I think the issue with group therapy, not that it’s not great, is that you are not supposed to know the people in the group.

So there’s that deep, intimate relationship in a therapeutic context. But I don’t.

I think you really need people to know you in your, in your actual life through burnout and through, you know, feeling depletion.

So I would say thinking through that. So being able to have someone see you, see your clinical work, have someone where you are talking about regularly how you’re feeling clinically.

Yeah. So those are the things I would think through. But I think we kind of get a sense right when for me, I just have this moment of myself pulling up to work in my car and my body literally did not want to get out of the car.

I was having reactions to clients coming in the door. Like they would come in the door and I would just be kind of unhinged a little bit about what are they going to bring up today?

Will I be able to hold what they’re bringing up today? And I don’t think I had that at any other time in my career where I was worried about my.

It wasn’t so much I felt like I was going to be angry with a client. It was like, would I detach more? So I felt more numb.

And it’s, it’s just interesting now that I have so many more emotions available to me now that I’m like, I hope I don’t get emotional in, in certain situations because I just find that they’re.

That’s more available. And I love that I have emotions again, by the way. I think we are socialized to numb our emotions so much that, you know, we don’t really realize what we’re doing until after the fact.

Yeah. So anyway, if you ever have a question like that, if you are kind of pondering that. Right. Send me an email. So if you’re on the pen pal list, then like I mentioned at the top of the show, then you can send me a question and I’ll answer it on the podcast.

It’s. It’s great. I think if people Want to ask questions? I’d love. I’d love to have therapists submit, like a audio message and then I’ll answer it on the podcast.

You can totally do that anonymously. So if you’d like to do that. I’m thinking through that. I have a couple other podcaster friends that do that. And it’s. It’s really nice just to hear someone’s voice, like another therapist, because you hear my voice all the time, and I hear people like it, but I get tired of it anyway.

All right, so I kind of want to contrast this, compare this to depression.

So again, I started by talking about this year. At the top of this year, I was thinking through, am I burned out or am I depressed?

And so for me, I didn’t struggle with depression my whole life. It happened for me more as I became a mother. So going through the postpartum period and. And then suddenly through a medical menopause was when I experienced a true depression, which included having some suicidal ideation, never in 10 or plan.

I’m good, but that was really scary to me to experience that and to experience physiological depression that I’ve never had before.

And just for anybody out there that’s in perimenopause, Lord. Hormonal changes can do a whole heck of a lot. And I think, I think there’s a lot of attention, rather not enough, like, not enough awareness, of course.

But there’s more attention now for new mothers, right, who are in the prenatal, perinatal, postnatal period, that, that might be an intense time of difficulties with their mental health. They might have new mental health symptoms they haven’t experienced, such as postpartum anxiety, postpartum depression, and largely due to all of the chemical changes that are happening in a woman’s body.

So I just feel like there’s not enough attention on menopause. And I think my personal experience of experiencing post, not postpartum, I did have postpartum depression and anxiety that both happened.

Also struggled with the postmenopausal depression and anxiety as well, which I think was a contributor in my burnout, but also a big part, like physiologically, what was happening in me.

And I think we don’t really think through physiological. The changes in menopause, especially if you go. Went through it like really suddenly and all of a sudden you’re in sudden menopause.

I digress.

But to talk about major depressive disorder, I pulled up the dsm. I have it here. I always have my DSM handy lately. Cause I do write PSYCH reports and just looking at the criteria versus burnout.

So the hallmark, depression, is being depressed most of the day, nearly every day, as indicated by subjective report, feeling sad, hopeless, empty, or observations made by others such as appears tearful or sad.

And I would add, I think we need to maybe ask the people in our lives, how are they seeing us? Are they seeing us as appearing depressed or sad? Because our own perspective might be different from that.

And then anhedonia, like the. The marked diminished interest in pleasure of most all activities.

And nearly every day, again either by subjective account or observation as well, significant weight, weight loss or weight gain, insomnia or hypersomnia, psychomotor agitation or retardation, fatigue, loss of energy nearly every day, feelings of worthlessness, excessive inappropriate guilt, diminished ability to think or concentrate or indecisiveness.

A lot of people report that in burnout. Just want to put a pin in that one. And then nine, recurrent thoughts of death, recurrent suicidal ideation without a specific plan or suicide attempt.

So, and of course, you know, with most major mental health diagnoses we’re going to look at, does that cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational or other areas of functioning?

So I was kind of thinking of the contrast of depression and burnout and the overlap. I think about this a lot in the context when I worked with folks with a brain injury.

So in the concussion world, there are a lot of symptoms related to PTSD and post concussion syndrome that overlap. So a lot of folks really struggled when I worked in private practice with folks after a brain injury, with people mistaking brain injury symptoms for trauma or trauma for brain injury symptoms, or discounting that potentially the effective changes that happen post brain injury were really part of the brain injury and we need to treat it together.

So I think when people came to me, they were very frustrated because they were giving very simple solutions to complex issues. And we’re in the context of a brain injury, it is a multiple body system eventually, right?

Yes, it might occur in the brain, but it affects multiple symptoms, multiple systems in the body. And so it really needs to have a holistic lens and typically would incorporate a lot of different modalities of care, different types of treatment providers.

And so I think if people weren’t looking at the person as a whole to say, like, oh, you’re your vision’s impaired, okay. Actually I do have a referral to a neuro optometrist that I often refer people to that and that was maybe the missing link in their recovery or perhaps they needed to work with someone like a and a, there was a vestibular pt.

Oftentimes it worked with folks related to the inner ear, and that’s why they were continuing to have headaches and depression and anxiety and all the things.

Why I say that is that I think sometimes you can have depression and burnout, or you can have one or the other.

I think because of the chronic fatigue and depletion, I think a lot of times just that effect compounds itself and can have a superimposed impression as well. So I don’t want people to kind of hear this and say like, oh, I’m depressed.

That’s the answer. You might be. You might have both, right? And you might need to look at solutions for both, because just changing your setting, thinking, okay, I’m an agency.

I’m going to start my own private practice. And that’s going to be the answer because I think a lot of therapists do that. They think if I’m in private practice, it will change and it will be a different experience for me and I won’t experience burnout.

I won’t experience these feelings. And that may or may not be true. I don’t know.

So I would just have people think about burnout. And I think, going back to that one sentence, that when they’re not in the context of work, they don’t feel those hallmark symptoms of burnout.

And so part of me is like, do you know what therapy work is like? Burnout, ICD definition. Because I don’t know any therapist who doesn’t think about the work a lot.

Because I think we’re. We’re always thinking and holding our clients in some ways psychically, right? If, if we’ve talked in session or worried about a client, we’re still holding them in our minds.

And so, and then I think in private practice, if you’re managing all of the communications that are coming from your client, like you’re not in a group practice or you’re not in an agency or not in some government kind of situation who manages communication with patients or clients, and you’re managing all that.

So if someone goes into crisis, they’re calling you on the weekend when you’re maybe on the field at your kid soccer game or whatever.

So I think it’s also the, the kind of clinical burden that I talk with a lot of therapists about a feeling like I’m always on and I always am caretaking for my clients, even when I’m not really with them.

So I, I think that the work kind of follows us more so than other types of work and other types of burnout. And that’s why perhaps.

And there’s not a lot of research on I couldn’t find much. So if someone knows of it, I will talk about on the podcast or come talk to me if you’re a burnout and depression researcher to look at the differentiation and the prevalence of depression and burnout.

If there’s been a study like that, I’d be really interested to learn. I’m thinking of like maybe I need to do a survey or a study because I have some questions.

Yeah.

So it’d be cool if I got connected with university and in some kind of research environment. Be very cool. I would get. I would nerd out so hard.

All right.

And why I read over criteria. It wasn’t to bore you. It’s because number one, like I said on my last podcast episode, I had a copy of the DSM on my desk in my therapy session last week and I held it up and was like, yep, God, here’s the dsm.

Always in the dsm. Now that I’m actually writing reports and diagnosing people again. And my therapist wasn’t aware there was a new DSM out because I think if we are in the therapy world, oftentimes we’re not seeing a lot of new intakes all the time, especially if you do longer term therapy.

So you may not be looking at it and you also may not be looking at it and applying that knowledge to yourself. And also we know that depression is treatable it.

So I want you to think, going back to reasons versus causes, there are causes likely that you could be depressed. There could be in my case, hormonal issues, environmental issues, huge stressors for therapists.

We’ve had a rough five years, okay. A pandemic, racial reckoning, political structures that have been upended.

The world has been a little crazy. And so there’s been a lot of stress on therapists that I think are unique, changing our work completely. So a lot of us trained before the time of telehealth and learning how to do that.

So I think also our field is under has undergone a lot of change as well. So no wonder we have experienced like what are we even doing? Like how do we do this?

I and I think I also want to offer support. So this is not, you know, I’m not offering, I’m not operating rather in the context of your therapist or your medical provider by this but wanting to give you this information so you could follow up on that and with your own provider so always have to say that.

That’s disclaimer here. But if you do, you know, need support, I would definitely encourage you guys to reach out to somebody I know that can feel daunting to find a therapist, period.

I went, I’m trying to think how many people I saw before I found my therapist. I think it took me a few years. I probably, I, I stopped and started with a few people.

So maybe I had a few months of treatment with a few people over the years and then have my longer term therapist now. I guess it’s long term. We’ve been together like nearly five years.

So that’s long term therapy, right?

Yeah. And, and if you don’t want longer term therapy, that’s fine too. So just think about what container you need and get the support you need. At times that looks like medication for me.

For me the biggest thing was actually adjusting my hormones. So I take HRT for postmenopause and I was surprised. Getting on the right hormone regimen really affected my anxiety and my depression huge.

And of course it makes so much sense. But I didn’t know, I didn’t know all that before I went on my own journey with this. So it could be perhaps, you know, if you are in perimenopause, especially talking to ladies or if you work with ladies and this is something new for them.

I think we’re aware again in the, in the postnatal period where women might experience this. But also I think for people that I work with, most of them have been women to date and are, you know, close ish to that 40 year mark.

Yeah. So I, I just have you think through.

Is that something that’s at play? So thinking about finding a provider that might know what they’re talking about related to hormone replacement therapy. Um, and then if you really acutely need support, you know, a lot of times in the U.S.

you know we have insurance and so through who my insurance there is, there are like people that you can talk to in the interim to get support.

I’ll include, you know, links to hotlines and I’m going to link some specific to mental health professionals.

There are some groups online. So the Therapy for Therapist collective might reach out to them and just see what they’re about.

They have some peer support groups there.

I’ve really found a lot of support on the NAMI website. So in my state it’s very active. So NAMI of Maine, so that’s a national alliance on mental illness and they have a ton of apps, tech support lines and more there and nationally, just the 988 lifeline.

So if you do need that support to call, get support. Get the support you need, if that’s you.

And I think just knowing the dark places I’ve been in that, knowing that I had support, and through that time, I did have a therapist, you know, consistently, and I.

I found that very helpful. But there were times where I considered calling a hotline, and it felt scary to think, even through that thought, right? I’m in the place. I’m a mental health provider, and I’m considering, like, calling this hotline.

That is such a weird place to be in and think through. And what does that mean about me? And I think now I can see it as, you know, there were causes.

Again, going back to causes versus reasons. There was causes of my depression and anxiety, and there is nothing to be ashamed of of that. And still I held shame about it.

Still I felt shame about it. And so I know that talking about it reduces shame. I go back to Bernee Brown and like having the courage to speak and tell you where I was.

I know likely someone listening to this may feel the same way.

So I hope you hearing me on the other side of it and that I still struggle, right? You know, I still had some of those dark moments at the beginning of this year, but they were shorter, they were briefer, and I knew more of what to do and knew that this is.

I’ve been here. I know kind of how to help myself through this. It wasn’t as long of a period of time that I felt that way.

And just to give you hope that you won’t always feel this way and that things can change, things will shift.

So I just want to offer you hope with that, that I want the very best for you. If you’re listening to this and you can find support, you can find safety, you can find that cocoon that you need to get on the other side.

Because often, I think, feel like that’s what we need. We need, like, some. Some safety. We need to feel some safety in the world that feels really unsafe right now.

And so finding those people that make you feel that way, finding the support that makes you feel that way, opening yourself up to friendships that might help you feel that way.

So my mind has just been blown lately, okay? It’s knowledge. I know, okay. Because there’s nothing new, right? There’s nothing inherently new to learn.

But perhaps, like, sometimes an idea coalesces and someone just says it in a way that hits you and you’re just like, pow. Oh, my Gosh, that was right in front of me.

But I actually did hear some new information just recently on friendships. So I’ve been doing a deep dive into, you know, friendships and isolation. So I’m going to talk a little bit.

I think we’re all likely familiar with the Holt Lunstead study on social isolation and risk and mortality.

So how deep social connections protect us from mortality. Right. So if you have strong relationships, it’s a protective factor, and even more so than folks that smoke like 20 cigarettes a day.

So we can all drink and smoke now if we have good friendships. That’s the good news.

I’m kidding.

But. But I think when I heard, you know, some of the research recently that came out on friendships about, like, you know, it takes.

Let me get the quote on here. Actually, a 2018 study by Jeffrey hall suggested it takes the average adult roughly 50 hours of time to move from a mere acquaintance to a casual friend.

And for more advanced levels of friendship, it could take more than 200 hours before you can consider someone close.

And when I hear that, When I heard that, whenever it first came out, I was just like, there’s no freaking hope for me.

I think this has been like a, A, a wounding of mine for my whole life that, yes, I’ve had close friends, but I haven’t been able to sustain those relationships over time.

I felt, especially during these last few years, that no one really knew me deeply besides my partner, who was wonderful and so thankful for him.

I consider him my best friend. And it’s such a gift that I’m seeing that more that I have had my partner here standing with me and beside me and cheering me on.

But I, and I know he couldn’t do all this work for me to get here to do this, to talk to you, but when I, when I would hear that, oh, my gosh, like 200 hours, how am I ever going to spend that much time with someone?

I’m not in school anymore. I was at the time, you know, before I closed my practice, I was in private practice. So I don’t see people for that amount of time.

So it felt kind of hopeless, right? That how was I going to make a close friend as an adult?

And I think recently hearing some more research on friendship. So some of that is the. The Book of Platonic and her name I will talk about more on the podcast.

I don’t have all that stuff in front of me. It’s actually right in front of me, so I will look at it.

So Dr. Marissa Franco, who is a assistant professor at the University of Maryland, talked about a book about making and keeping friends.

So I’m going to talk a little bit about that. I know, you know, we just got through Valentine’s Day, went through Valentine’s Day, and just seeing connections and friendships. I mean, I think we value romantic love in our society and devalue friendships, but we know research is telling us how important friendships are for our lives, for our health and for you.

Therapist. I think, myself, knowing how deeply unconnected and untethered to friendships I’ve been still am, for the past five years. I think because of the pandemic and the isolation and all the things that I experienced and really just the change in my life of the people that I saw every day.

I just stayed with my family. And so these. These patterns of disconnection that we’ve been in, I think affect a therapist a lot. Because when we’re done at the end of the.

We’re not like, oh, great, I’m gonna call Susie and we’re gonna go out and, you know, you know, go to dinner or have drinks when you have to go home to your family and cook dinner and do all those things, and then we grow more disconnected.

But I think looking at this, this research on friendships and the science of how to make friends is really hopeful, and it’s something I wanna bring to you. So I wanna talk a little bit more about disconnection and how that’s related to our mental health and also how to shift.

Like, how can we shift out of that? How can we feel more connected?

Because I think we connect so well as therapists to other people, yet there’s this paradox that as connected as we can be to another person, we don’t feel seen and known and loved in the ways we need.

So I want that for you. I want that for myself as well.

And I just feel really hopeful with this knowledge that I can start to put some of these things in practice for myself of deepening relationships, of reaching out to friends that I’ve had, of rekindling relationships that I’ve had, that I’ve wanted to connect with again.

Can start just by little simple actions. You know, I think we think, okay, yep, I’m gonna have friends, like next year when I close the practice and when I do, when I have a different job or when, oh.

But it’s these little micro moments of connection that really do stack and help us get closer to feeling seen and known and loved in the way that we need. So I just want to offer you that hope it’s coming.

So on the podcast in the next couple of weeks, I’m going to talk more about that.

And I have a guest coming on sharing her story of burnout and just where they are today, how that has changed from their perspective. If you want to be on the podcast, by the way, I welcome guests.

So if you’ve been through burnout and you’re on the other side, great. Come, come talk to me. I’d love to hear about that. If the podcast has been helpful getting you through it, even better, I’d love to hear your story about how you’re working through burnout.

So if you’re in the messy middle, I welcome that. If you still have questions about, like, what do I even do talk about in the podcast? I’ll give you free coaching if you’re willing to share.

You don’t even have to use your name. How about that?

Okay. Well, I hope this has been helpful today, talking about burnout versus depression. I. I hope that you feel the hope in my voice for you. Because when you’re in these places, I know how it feels.

It feels bleak. It feels dark.

It feels like nothing will change.

And what I can tell you is that it does.

And that you will find something brighter.

You can find something lighter.

And I. I desperately want that for whoever is listening to this to hear that and take that with them today.

I will leave you with that again. Another plug for the pen pal list in the practice closure guide. It will be in those show notes. I’m going to put it at the top so you know where it is.

So it should be right there. It says, like, pen pal list. That’s me. All the things I talked about. Hit me up. I’d love to hear from you. Okay, have a good one.

Bye.