Childhood Roots of Burnout in High-Achieving Adults In Caring Professions in NYC
You’re already putting your needs aside to care for others. You came into one of these professions because you were already care taking. Some of the childhood signs you would go into a high-achieving healthcare profession – and potentially also that increase your risk of burning out:
- You were meticulous in caring for your baby dolls, lovies, pets, or siblings when you were younger
- You were “wise beyond your years” and “so mature” as a child
- You learned not to take up space, that everyone else’s feelings or needs in the home came before yours
- You received praise for good grades and behavior (read: being quiet, reserved)
The simmering discomfort underneath your good behavior went unnoticed. As a child, you didn’t know how to ask what you needed. Instead, you received praise for being “easy” and “helpful” – basically, having no needs at all. In your most formative years, you learned that love was dependent on being compliant, “not in the way,” not having needs, and being independent.
As an adolescent, you earned praise for being a good listener, but didn’t know how to deepen friendships with your own vulnerability. Who didn’t know you could need or expect safety in romantic relationships, much less how to ask for it.
You became an adult who cares for others for a living. Who truly loves the meaningful work you get to do every day. But who still doesn’t know that you deserve the same care.
Now, you know you’re supposed to care of yourself. But the phrase, “You can’t pour from an empty cup,” perpetuates the cycle of burnout in high-achieving women. Self care becomes another benchmark to pass. You pay attention to bedtime, watch what you eat, and exercise.
But all the while, you find your cup is never full because you keep pouring into others.
High-Achievers Often Believe Their Only Value Is In Their Output
You derive great meaning from your work and offering emotional support to your loved ones. You even love what you do on a bad day. And you know you’re good at your job. You are a high achiever with a strong success rate.
The childhood root of burnout here is expectation of and praise for good grades and behavior. So that feeling you get when you do well at work? It’s tied to praise for being quiet, keeping your head down, and doing well at school.
This is not to say that parents should not praise their kids for doing well, but the American Psychological Association now recommends praising effort over output to increase resilience in kids and adolescents. When we praise the outcome, children and adolescents learn they’re good/talented and are more likely to give up on things that don’t come naturally. However, but when we praise effort, children learn to keep trying.
Of course, this is recent research (those APA guidelines were last updated in 2015). Most of the high-achieving adults seeking therapy in NYC now are Gen Z and millenials, born between the 1981 – 2012 and raised with different standards). This makes sense, as these high-achievers were raised with praise for grades and athletic talent over how hard they try. (If the phrase “Your best isn’t good enough” is triggering, this might be you).
So when you’re told you can’t pour from an empty cup? It resonates because you were taught you’re only as good as your academic and professional success. Sure, as a helping professional, you are also rewarded for your kindness and empathy gets rewarded.
But only because it makes you stand out professionally.
High-Achievers in NYC Compartmentalize Until They Burnout
Sometimes being good at your job and being able to continue in your meaningful work means detaching from your life. Compartmentalizing is also associated with the high rates of burnout in healthcare professionals. Boundaries and having a separation between your “work” and “personal” lives reduces burnout, sometimes compartmentalizing becomes dissociation. One of the biggest signs of burnout we measure is “depersonalization,” or that feeling of disconnection between you and others, reduction in hopefulness, and feeling disconnected from the meaningfulness of your work. Other ways high-achievers, parents, and healthcare professionals often start to dissociate is through substance use.
Common Defense Mechanisms in High-Achieving Women in NYC
Defense mechanisms develop to protect our nervous systems and our psychological states. You may have developed some of these in childhood. Sometimes, defenses become over-pronounced and turn into childhood roots that contribute to developing burnout as a high-achieving adult woman in NYC.
Some common coping mechanisms among high-achievers (these are particularly studied in nurses) that ultimately lead to further burnout and worsening psychological symptoms. These include:
- Denial: You continue working pretending everything is alright, refusing to feel or cry. Oh, you know you aren’t well. You just don’t have the time to do anything about it, so you choose not to and hope it will pass. It’s not that bad, right?
- Compartmentalization: You’re a boss at “leaving work at work.” But when burnout hits, compartmentalization turns into feeling mentally and emotionally split and unable to keep up.
- Social isolation: You’re drained and craving rest. You don’t have the energy to socialize, so you withdraw further into yourself. In the depth of burnout, though, you start feeling lonely and isolated and it’s hard to re-engage when you don’t have the energy.
- Substance use: The “wine mom” trope exists for a reason: We tell moms it’s normal to burnout in motherhood and the “need” for a glass of wine to get through it and relax at the end of the day is OK. Happy hour gatherings after work that quickly turn into the group complaining about the job over another round. You wake up feeling worse and shame-spiraling the next day, but it’s also the only socialization you have the energy for these days.
Psychological Presentations of Burnout in High-Achievers in NYC
The defense mechanisms you built up have been over-working and you find yourself completely taxed. Burnout can present as anxiety, depression, and OCD symptoms in healthcare workers. You’re anxious, crying unexpectedly, feeling disconnected, exhausted, sleeping badly and feeling hopeless about your job (Costa & Moss, 2018).
What Happens When You Tell A Burned-Out High-Achiever in NYC “You Can’t Pour From An Empty Cup”
This phrase puts further onus on you to fix what you’re feeling. The truth is, your burnout built up from coping with impossible situations. And “you can’t pour from an empty cup” expects that you fix yourself so that you can keep performing at a high level.
The idiom perpetuates the belief you’re broken and alone, even if it’s not said out loud. Even though some professions will acknowledge that these are systemic issues, they still tout “self care” as the answer. And if you don’t pull yourself out of it? You’re a failure.
The truth is, we we fail high-achieving professionals, moms, social workers, and healthcare professionals with this idiom.
See me for therapy that lasts
This space is for you. In therapy with me, we will focus on what your nervous system needs purely because you’re ready to feel better. Full stop, it’s about you.
I get that you want to keep showing up for everyone else – and you’ll be able to. But in this space, I want to know what brought you into a job that requires you give yourself to others. What do you find fulfilling about this work? Tell me about your best days at work. Tell me about the days that left you crashing on the floor or crying in your car or on the subway.
My goal is to help you reconnect to your dreams, the meaning you find in your work, and the people you love spending time with.
Let’s help your nervous system find safety with rest because you deserve to slow down sometimes.