Bring Back the Nervous Breakdown
February 15, 2021 11:40 AM Subscribe
It used to be okay to admit that the world had simply become too much. "John D. Rockefeller Jr., Jane Addams, and Max Weber all had acknowledged “breakdowns,” and reemerged to do their best work. Provided you had the means—a rather big proviso—announcing a nervous breakdown gave you license to withdraw, claiming an excess of industry or sensitivity or some other virtue. And crucially, it focused the cause of distress on the outside world and its unmeetable demands. You weren’t crazy; the world was."
Was the rest of the word as forgiving, though, when someone said they'd had a nervous breakdown? I feel like it was the kind of thing spoken about in hushed, sad tones, and it turns up as the catalyst for the Sudden Reversal Of Fortune in a lot of pulp books.
I'm not so sure that the rea$on people overlooked Rockefeller's breakdown was because of a more enlightened attitude towards mental illness, is what I'm thinking.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:42 PM on February 15, 2021 [27 favorites]
I'm not so sure that the rea$on people overlooked Rockefeller's breakdown was because of a more enlightened attitude towards mental illness, is what I'm thinking.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:42 PM on February 15, 2021 [27 favorites]
I think people are now using "burnout" to mean what "nervous breakdown" used to mean. And I certainly know people who've taken a few months out of the workforce to deal with it, by taking medical leave, or by quitting their jobs entirely. Just like in the good old days though, you've got to have enough money that you can make a career break work.
posted by potrzebie at 12:48 PM on February 15, 2021 [46 favorites]
posted by potrzebie at 12:48 PM on February 15, 2021 [46 favorites]
The writer mentions how prohibitively expensive the retreats were, but he doesn't add that nervous breakdowns were only seen as possible for those who had either good money or good genes. The working class, where not considered a eugenic swamp and source of "morons," was believed to have no "nerves" to break down. People who worked a healthy job with their hands and came from plain stock were incapable of nervous breakdowns. Women of the working class were even believed to be better at childbirth for this reason -- capable of having a baby in the field and getting straight back to work.
We know, of course, why this sort of thing was said, and we also know what happened when "salt of the earth" people had mental illness. More than once I have read an account of 19th or early 20th century life that mentions a poor or middle-class mother who just went to bed for six months and could not be gotten up, even by her small children.
posted by Countess Elena at 1:11 PM on February 15, 2021 [49 favorites]
We know, of course, why this sort of thing was said, and we also know what happened when "salt of the earth" people had mental illness. More than once I have read an account of 19th or early 20th century life that mentions a poor or middle-class mother who just went to bed for six months and could not be gotten up, even by her small children.
posted by Countess Elena at 1:11 PM on February 15, 2021 [49 favorites]
Wow, this seems incredibly relevant to a conversation I was just having with a relatively who probably would benefit from a "breakdown". Well, an acknowledged breakdown, because I'm pretty sure he's already having it, it's just that declaring responsibility bankruptcy and going off to the seaside for the summer is probably healthier than just suffering in silence for years?
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 1:25 PM on February 15, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 1:25 PM on February 15, 2021 [4 favorites]
bring back brain fever and we'll talk
posted by thelonius at 1:30 PM on February 15, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by thelonius at 1:30 PM on February 15, 2021 [6 favorites]
I was having a straight up nervous breakdown from March-July 2020, but guess what, I still had to get up and "go" to work every single day even though I was crying a lot. Taking a break from all your worries sure would help a lot, but isn't financially viable for most of us. I looked into taking a mental health leave, but that would have cut my pay by a third, so.....
posted by jenfullmoon at 1:31 PM on February 15, 2021 [32 favorites]
posted by jenfullmoon at 1:31 PM on February 15, 2021 [32 favorites]
i'm on my 19th...
posted by The_Auditor at 1:34 PM on February 15, 2021 [15 favorites]
posted by The_Auditor at 1:34 PM on February 15, 2021 [15 favorites]
What would the modern version of a culturally accepted, nervous-breakdown-precipitated time-out look like?
Having just finished Katherine May's Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times, I've been thinking about what she has to say about her withdrawal from the world (a period of medical leave) and the lessons she's taken from it. One, that grief, depression, loss, etc. are inevitable, despite our urge to cover them up in front of others. When we are in a distressed period, we fall out of sync with the world around us (and feel shame, and sometimes are shamed). Two, that should be free of judgment; wintering happens to everybody at some point. Three, it's periodic, and will happen more than once over a lifetime. And four, experimenting with strategies for coping (participating in ritual, pampering the body, a change of scene, cleaning house, preparing for hunkering down, learning to enjoy the outdoors even when it's chilly) is essential to getting through. But it starts with admitting to the sadness and not cramming it down internally.
posted by MonkeyToes at 1:53 PM on February 15, 2021 [33 favorites]
Having just finished Katherine May's Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times, I've been thinking about what she has to say about her withdrawal from the world (a period of medical leave) and the lessons she's taken from it. One, that grief, depression, loss, etc. are inevitable, despite our urge to cover them up in front of others. When we are in a distressed period, we fall out of sync with the world around us (and feel shame, and sometimes are shamed). Two, that should be free of judgment; wintering happens to everybody at some point. Three, it's periodic, and will happen more than once over a lifetime. And four, experimenting with strategies for coping (participating in ritual, pampering the body, a change of scene, cleaning house, preparing for hunkering down, learning to enjoy the outdoors even when it's chilly) is essential to getting through. But it starts with admitting to the sadness and not cramming it down internally.
posted by MonkeyToes at 1:53 PM on February 15, 2021 [33 favorites]
Was the rest of the word as forgiving, though, when someone said they'd had a nervous breakdown?I've mostly looked at primary sources from the 1910s and 20s, and I don't think that people used the word breakdown. But I think people did talk about nervous collapse, and yeah, people would just announce that they were going to take time off for their nerves, in a way that suggested that they didn't think it was shameful or really that notable. In general, I noticed that people took time off and/or cancelled things because they were sick a whole lot, way more than comparable people would have a hundred years later. I think that, in the pre-antibiotics era, there wasn't really any good treatment for sickness other than rest, and it was more accepted that if you had a headache or whatever you would stay the fuck home so you could get better (and also not infect everyone else). It's funny, because I think that modern people would believe that our hundred-years-ago ancestors were less whiny and more rugged than we are, but I don't think that's true, unless they couldn't afford to take time off because of poverty.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 2:44 PM on February 15, 2021 [19 favorites]
I really wish you could take off for reasons of a breakdown. I kinda need that right now (and have needed it off and on for the past few years), but instead I just have to keep going because there isn't any alternative. My workplace is better than many and I was able to take off a few weeks, but I can't manage more. And the inability to fully take off for as long as I actually need is part of why I keep continuing to need it. Nice Catch-22 there, really.
posted by forza at 2:59 PM on February 15, 2021 [10 favorites]
posted by forza at 2:59 PM on February 15, 2021 [10 favorites]
Does a massive panic attack combined with depression count? Asking for a friend.
posted by Splunge at 3:17 PM on February 15, 2021 [12 favorites]
posted by Splunge at 3:17 PM on February 15, 2021 [12 favorites]
Rich people have nervous breakdowns.
Everyone else just burns out and keeps working because what choice do they have?
posted by tommasz at 3:35 PM on February 15, 2021 [29 favorites]
Everyone else just burns out and keeps working because what choice do they have?
posted by tommasz at 3:35 PM on February 15, 2021 [29 favorites]
Wouldn't it be great though if work was something we only needed to do when we felt like it so we didn't even need to break down at all.
posted by bleep at 4:01 PM on February 15, 2021 [17 favorites]
posted by bleep at 4:01 PM on February 15, 2021 [17 favorites]
Surprised that no one's mentioned the long litany of "Mother's Little Helpers" that have allowed generations of folks to keep keep at the grindstone because to step away was not an option whether for financial and/or societal concerns. My own mother got up, got degreed and taught school for two decades on Valium (of which, I'll admit, I allowed myself a recreational pinch here and there) because my father was down the bottle, she had become bread winner and there was simply no alternative to keeping the family fed and afloat.
posted by thecincinnatikid at 4:36 PM on February 15, 2021 [15 favorites]
posted by thecincinnatikid at 4:36 PM on February 15, 2021 [15 favorites]
Walt Disney had two big ones. Recovering from the second one was when he became obsessed with model trains, which led to the building of Disneyland.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 4:52 PM on February 15, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by The Underpants Monster at 4:52 PM on February 15, 2021 [6 favorites]
I think people are now using "burnout" to mean what "nervous breakdown" used to mean.
I don't think that's true. "Burnout" is a loss of passion for X, caused by doing X too much. A nervous breakdown is an inability to continue to go about your day-to-day because X stressed you out too much.
I've burned out hard on hobbies before. It didn't really impact the rest of my life at all.
When people are burned out on their jobs, they're still able to do them, they're just best off finding a new role quickly, because it's become a slog. A nervous breakdown, on the other hand, is when you find yourself barely able to leave bed because the thought of another day in that office is just too daunting.
posted by explosion at 5:08 PM on February 15, 2021 [5 favorites]
I don't think that's true. "Burnout" is a loss of passion for X, caused by doing X too much. A nervous breakdown is an inability to continue to go about your day-to-day because X stressed you out too much.
I've burned out hard on hobbies before. It didn't really impact the rest of my life at all.
When people are burned out on their jobs, they're still able to do them, they're just best off finding a new role quickly, because it's become a slog. A nervous breakdown, on the other hand, is when you find yourself barely able to leave bed because the thought of another day in that office is just too daunting.
posted by explosion at 5:08 PM on February 15, 2021 [5 favorites]
Prefacing this by stipulating that I live in New Zealand, am a senior person in my company, and have considerable clout therein...
I had a very bad year last year. My dad declined and died. Pandemic lockdown made my job next to impossible. I broke my leg in a way that needed serious surgery to resolve. My mother-in-law started going the way my father did.
I went to my doctor, who I have known for some years, and explained I was having trouble coping, big mood swings, and was feeling fragile. He listened carefully for half an hour. Then he said "I don't think you need medicating. I think you need two weeks off. Would you like me to write a letter to that effect for you?"
I got my two weeks off. That is how it *should* work, for everyone.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 5:19 PM on February 15, 2021 [44 favorites]
I had a very bad year last year. My dad declined and died. Pandemic lockdown made my job next to impossible. I broke my leg in a way that needed serious surgery to resolve. My mother-in-law started going the way my father did.
I went to my doctor, who I have known for some years, and explained I was having trouble coping, big mood swings, and was feeling fragile. He listened carefully for half an hour. Then he said "I don't think you need medicating. I think you need two weeks off. Would you like me to write a letter to that effect for you?"
I got my two weeks off. That is how it *should* work, for everyone.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 5:19 PM on February 15, 2021 [44 favorites]
(Also, the week before, I'd said to my partner "I wish I could just have a nervous breakdown like in the old days". See this post was kind of spooky.)
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 5:19 PM on February 15, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 5:19 PM on February 15, 2021 [4 favorites]
I quit my job 3 weeks ago due to stress. I really just couldn't take it anymore, let management know I was leaving to take care of my mental health, and now enjoy more time with my family, doing basic stuff like cleaning and cooking every day, and despite the cold weather, getting outside and moving around. After 15 years in the tech world, I have little desire to re-enter that ring, and yet I have a very finite window of time to figure out what my next move is or how to make ends meet. I've been on the phone with the Medicaid office a lot. I'm budgeting like crazy. I should be scared.
This feels like a modern sort of nervous breakdown. And even though my bank account is quickly depleting, I feel this is a totally necessary process. I have not served anyone particularly well by being good at my job, except my bosses. Sometimes in life you need to take the other path. You need to follow your bliss, whatever it is. And life can be pretty good at telling you what your bliss is *not*.
The article sums up the situation nicely in that I don't really want a psychiatric evaluation, I just want to get away. And that's totally valid for anyone in the modern world. To quote Slacker: "Withdrawing in disgust is not the same as apathy."
And the weird thing is that day-to-day life seems more normal in a way, now that I don't have a full-time job. Maybe I actually had my nervous breakdown already, only it happened in slow motion, on the clock, grinding away week-by-week, year after year, until it had to stop.
Anyway, thanks for posting this. I'm sure it resonates with a lot of people in these interesting times.
posted by swift at 5:24 PM on February 15, 2021 [30 favorites]
This feels like a modern sort of nervous breakdown. And even though my bank account is quickly depleting, I feel this is a totally necessary process. I have not served anyone particularly well by being good at my job, except my bosses. Sometimes in life you need to take the other path. You need to follow your bliss, whatever it is. And life can be pretty good at telling you what your bliss is *not*.
The article sums up the situation nicely in that I don't really want a psychiatric evaluation, I just want to get away. And that's totally valid for anyone in the modern world. To quote Slacker: "Withdrawing in disgust is not the same as apathy."
And the weird thing is that day-to-day life seems more normal in a way, now that I don't have a full-time job. Maybe I actually had my nervous breakdown already, only it happened in slow motion, on the clock, grinding away week-by-week, year after year, until it had to stop.
Anyway, thanks for posting this. I'm sure it resonates with a lot of people in these interesting times.
posted by swift at 5:24 PM on February 15, 2021 [30 favorites]
Prefacing this by stipulating that I live in New Zealand
...which has a Wellbeing Budget:
Based on the idea that gauging the long-term impact of policies on the quality of people’s lives is better than focusing on short-term output measures, the initiative has five priorities for 2019: aiding the transition to a sustainable and low-emissions economy, supporting a thriving nation in the digital age, lifting Māori and Pacific incomes, skills and opportunities, reducing child poverty, and supporting mental health for all New Zealanders.
“We're embedding that notion of making decisions that aren't just about growth for growth's sake, but how are our people faring?” Ardern said. “How is their overall well-being and their mental health? How is our environment doing? These are the measures that will give us a true measure of our success.”
posted by UbuRoivas at 6:00 PM on February 15, 2021 [3 favorites]
...which has a Wellbeing Budget:
Based on the idea that gauging the long-term impact of policies on the quality of people’s lives is better than focusing on short-term output measures, the initiative has five priorities for 2019: aiding the transition to a sustainable and low-emissions economy, supporting a thriving nation in the digital age, lifting Māori and Pacific incomes, skills and opportunities, reducing child poverty, and supporting mental health for all New Zealanders.
“We're embedding that notion of making decisions that aren't just about growth for growth's sake, but how are our people faring?” Ardern said. “How is their overall well-being and their mental health? How is our environment doing? These are the measures that will give us a true measure of our success.”
posted by UbuRoivas at 6:00 PM on February 15, 2021 [3 favorites]
I wish we could brag about the wellbeing budget, but it's largely hollow words at this point. But taking that further would be a derail here.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 6:41 PM on February 15, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 6:41 PM on February 15, 2021 [3 favorites]
I was just saying the other day I wish they still prescribed travel cures.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 6:49 PM on February 15, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by The Underpants Monster at 6:49 PM on February 15, 2021 [3 favorites]
I just want to get away
I was recently feeling "burned out", maybe to a higher degree than those words imply. My thought was, get away as far as possible from this whole miasma milieu that I had more than enough of... I impulse bailed to China, from Beijing taking a bus to the outermost point on the line, and hunkering down wherever that landed me, in a $1 a day room, and being a flaneur wandering about the village, for five weeks.
There was a bit of blowback from bailing, because of the great wall that I hadn't planned for, no gmail, no google, etc, and it took a week or so to overcome that. Some planning would have helped.
But the restorative effect fit the bill as hoped. Admittedly, there are barriers to doing what I did, but overcoming those barriers was part of the "therapy".
posted by StickyCarpet at 6:56 PM on February 15, 2021 [7 favorites]
I was recently feeling "burned out", maybe to a higher degree than those words imply. My thought was, get away as far as possible from this whole miasma milieu that I had more than enough of... I impulse bailed to China, from Beijing taking a bus to the outermost point on the line, and hunkering down wherever that landed me, in a $1 a day room, and being a flaneur wandering about the village, for five weeks.
There was a bit of blowback from bailing, because of the great wall that I hadn't planned for, no gmail, no google, etc, and it took a week or so to overcome that. Some planning would have helped.
But the restorative effect fit the bill as hoped. Admittedly, there are barriers to doing what I did, but overcoming those barriers was part of the "therapy".
posted by StickyCarpet at 6:56 PM on February 15, 2021 [7 favorites]
This conversation reminds me also of General Patton's famous public assaults (more than one!) of soldiers hospitalized for combat-related mental illnesses. Says here he considered them "an invention of the Jews."
Possibly WWII reflects the turning point when it was no longer considered permissible for a healthy person, let alone a healthy man, to seek treatment for mental issues. That's just a guess. All I know is that the slapping was the first thing I learned about Patton, together with the implication that it reflected some kind of greatness in his character.
posted by Countess Elena at 8:22 PM on February 15, 2021 [6 favorites]
Possibly WWII reflects the turning point when it was no longer considered permissible for a healthy person, let alone a healthy man, to seek treatment for mental issues. That's just a guess. All I know is that the slapping was the first thing I learned about Patton, together with the implication that it reflected some kind of greatness in his character.
posted by Countess Elena at 8:22 PM on February 15, 2021 [6 favorites]
illnesses. Says here he considered them "an invention of the Jews.
This is interesting. No doubt to Patton's anti semitism either blatant or some intellectual effete prejudice common for the era. The wiki pages gives 4 citations for the comment being noted by a reporter, call it true, Pulling your pistol to prove a point in front of doctors is the height of a drama persona that is dangerous, esp if popular, fairly good at killing Nazis and the ego the size of a Tiger. Ike wanted to cover it up/clean it up. A general who saw it thought nothing much of it but the Men and women knew and Patton went through one of the most humiliated path given him. Can't change a prima Donna like Patton's prejudices but you can certainly rain them in. Slapping two solders was intolerable for that time from a leader. But what came from it. Not sure, another bookmark in warfare's insidious incidents.
"Possibly WWII reflects the turning point when it was no longer considered permissible for a healthy person, let alone a healthy man, to seek treatment for mental issue..."
The short answer is No. It is a good guess if one has living memory of family, neighbors who served but even the witnesses of that wars are getting old. An example of Mental health awareness can be generalized by solders who generally view solders alive from a previous war as coming from a rougher experience all around, generally. Ex. Vietnam vets respected the hell out of WW II guys. My uncle was a POW in WW2.One generally got no parade, no thanks, shunning, ignored, pity, put on boat home and when you arrive a lone dog barks, you go home in the dark to a mother who says " get your ration cards tomorrow", cries and cannot bear it.
Ii is not the comments people make because you became a prisoner but omitting your experience, one reason POWs did not receive a medal until the Bush administration. To further distill, the American prisoners from the Europe always acknowledged the prisoners from the Pacifist war as going through worse, a vauge inner tug of conditional graditude.
More was done for the solder after the war then before though these programs are sparse. Alcoholism was common and years of shame and guilt. One reason my uncle became a local media guy. Being a DJ in 1947 was a open field then, it saved his life.
of course back then you played LesPaul and Les Paul would write you. Like him tweeting a thanks.
So, I can attest to programs that transitioned the solder back to civilan work. Programs that even dealt with a solders mental health but mainly occupational therapy and reorientation into civilan life from the war and its effects. The VFW culture is under studied as at one point almost 40-50% of the adult population was a member in the U .S. These organizations helped include families, not unlike G.O.P. reunions post civil war. A pioneer in industrial psychology was Orlo Crissey. Wrote my Under grad thesis on his work post ww2. The correspondence between huge corporate HR folks asking his advice etc. is pretty big. This shows capitalized wealth intrigrating the injured solder back into the work force.
posted by clavdivs at 9:43 PM on February 15, 2021 [5 favorites]
This is interesting. No doubt to Patton's anti semitism either blatant or some intellectual effete prejudice common for the era. The wiki pages gives 4 citations for the comment being noted by a reporter, call it true, Pulling your pistol to prove a point in front of doctors is the height of a drama persona that is dangerous, esp if popular, fairly good at killing Nazis and the ego the size of a Tiger. Ike wanted to cover it up/clean it up. A general who saw it thought nothing much of it but the Men and women knew and Patton went through one of the most humiliated path given him. Can't change a prima Donna like Patton's prejudices but you can certainly rain them in. Slapping two solders was intolerable for that time from a leader. But what came from it. Not sure, another bookmark in warfare's insidious incidents.
"Possibly WWII reflects the turning point when it was no longer considered permissible for a healthy person, let alone a healthy man, to seek treatment for mental issue..."
The short answer is No. It is a good guess if one has living memory of family, neighbors who served but even the witnesses of that wars are getting old. An example of Mental health awareness can be generalized by solders who generally view solders alive from a previous war as coming from a rougher experience all around, generally. Ex. Vietnam vets respected the hell out of WW II guys. My uncle was a POW in WW2.One generally got no parade, no thanks, shunning, ignored, pity, put on boat home and when you arrive a lone dog barks, you go home in the dark to a mother who says " get your ration cards tomorrow", cries and cannot bear it.
Ii is not the comments people make because you became a prisoner but omitting your experience, one reason POWs did not receive a medal until the Bush administration. To further distill, the American prisoners from the Europe always acknowledged the prisoners from the Pacifist war as going through worse, a vauge inner tug of conditional graditude.
More was done for the solder after the war then before though these programs are sparse. Alcoholism was common and years of shame and guilt. One reason my uncle became a local media guy. Being a DJ in 1947 was a open field then, it saved his life.
of course back then you played LesPaul and Les Paul would write you. Like him tweeting a thanks.
So, I can attest to programs that transitioned the solder back to civilan work. Programs that even dealt with a solders mental health but mainly occupational therapy and reorientation into civilan life from the war and its effects. The VFW culture is under studied as at one point almost 40-50% of the adult population was a member in the U .S. These organizations helped include families, not unlike G.O.P. reunions post civil war. A pioneer in industrial psychology was Orlo Crissey. Wrote my Under grad thesis on his work post ww2. The correspondence between huge corporate HR folks asking his advice etc. is pretty big. This shows capitalized wealth intrigrating the injured solder back into the work force.
posted by clavdivs at 9:43 PM on February 15, 2021 [5 favorites]
I once walked into my supervisor’s office and announced “I need to take 12 weeks off as per the FMLA” (Family Medical Leave Act). I had had enough of the world and particularly work.
“Why?”
“Frankly, that’s my business and it’s not legal for you to ask that question. Here’s my doctor’s email, please ask HR to send the paperwork there.”
“When are you leaving?”
“Right now.”
“But what about all the scheduled work you’re in the middle of?”
“Personal emergency. Not my problem.”
This happened without any planning or foresight. I of course exhausted the minuscule paid leave this company offered. Then I depleted my savings, cut my expenses, and withdrew from a retirement account at massive penalty. Thankfully I possess enough privilege in the US this was actually possible. The decision and ability to completely withdraw at a moment’s notice was incredibly liberating at a moment when I was hopelessly shackled. Yeah, I got a bunch of those diagnoses and take all the pills. But that’s not what I needed. I needed a reset. This particular company eventually asked me to resign, because I continued to insist that my humanity be respected. But at that point I was already scoping out alternatives where being a vulnerable human was an asset not a liability.*
A great many (nearly all?) social ills are rooted in the denial of our emotional needs. We can continue to fight politically for all of us to be able to step back and consider thoughtfully how we are going to engage with the modern world, and I think we should, without fear of financial ruin. It’s a fundamental failure of this country, and unchecked capitalism specifically, that grinds people down and offers no escape except the temporary relief of drugs and diversions. But I also think those of us lucky enough to demand this should do so and normalize it and take our nervous breakdowns, or “exhaustion “ and ask why more people aren’t or can’t. This is really the biggest health crisis.
* And I’m happier and more productive and more financially successful now, but that wasn’t the goal, just a predictable result of staying human.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 10:08 PM on February 15, 2021 [32 favorites]
“Why?”
“Frankly, that’s my business and it’s not legal for you to ask that question. Here’s my doctor’s email, please ask HR to send the paperwork there.”
“When are you leaving?”
“Right now.”
“But what about all the scheduled work you’re in the middle of?”
“Personal emergency. Not my problem.”
This happened without any planning or foresight. I of course exhausted the minuscule paid leave this company offered. Then I depleted my savings, cut my expenses, and withdrew from a retirement account at massive penalty. Thankfully I possess enough privilege in the US this was actually possible. The decision and ability to completely withdraw at a moment’s notice was incredibly liberating at a moment when I was hopelessly shackled. Yeah, I got a bunch of those diagnoses and take all the pills. But that’s not what I needed. I needed a reset. This particular company eventually asked me to resign, because I continued to insist that my humanity be respected. But at that point I was already scoping out alternatives where being a vulnerable human was an asset not a liability.*
A great many (nearly all?) social ills are rooted in the denial of our emotional needs. We can continue to fight politically for all of us to be able to step back and consider thoughtfully how we are going to engage with the modern world, and I think we should, without fear of financial ruin. It’s a fundamental failure of this country, and unchecked capitalism specifically, that grinds people down and offers no escape except the temporary relief of drugs and diversions. But I also think those of us lucky enough to demand this should do so and normalize it and take our nervous breakdowns, or “exhaustion “ and ask why more people aren’t or can’t. This is really the biggest health crisis.
* And I’m happier and more productive and more financially successful now, but that wasn’t the goal, just a predictable result of staying human.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 10:08 PM on February 15, 2021 [32 favorites]
Upthread, explosion's definition of burnout is totally wrong. Burnout has a recognised international definition via the WHO:
"Burn-out 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.
Burn-out refers specifically to phenomena in the occupational context and should not be applied to describe experiences in other areas of life."
Within that there's obviously a lot of room for differences in severity, but it can end up as not being able to do your job. And you can see that there is some crossover with the older concept of a nervous breakdown.
posted by Vortisaur at 12:00 AM on February 16, 2021 [11 favorites]
"Burn-out 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.
Burn-out refers specifically to phenomena in the occupational context and should not be applied to describe experiences in other areas of life."
Within that there's obviously a lot of room for differences in severity, but it can end up as not being able to do your job. And you can see that there is some crossover with the older concept of a nervous breakdown.
posted by Vortisaur at 12:00 AM on February 16, 2021 [11 favorites]
The other part of this article addresses the restorative power of getting away to a new environment where your only job is getting better, like StickyCarpet's China jaunt. Poland still has a big sanatorium system where places with particularly nice natural resources have big hotel/spa/physiotherapy/medical treatment complexes and the purpose of your trip is treating whatever condition you have. They usually have specialties, and a friend of mine loved her stay in a neurology/psychiatry focussed one after work mobbing left her with panic attacks and dissociative symptoms. It's hard not to feel better after three weeks in a mountain castle with good food and medical support!
The best thing? They're part of the national health insurance system too, so if you have spine trouble or nervous trouble or persistent respiratory infections, your GP picks the right kind of sanatorium and you get three weeks off (80% salary medical leave), either free or discounted hotel stay and food, and free medical treatment. You can of course go private in any extent you want, and the bureaucracy involves queues and lack of choice, but the existence and widespread use of the sanatorium system means ingrained awareness of it as an option. And most people around you in a sanatorium have similar problems and focus on getting better, so you get a built in support group.
The early-20th century doctors had much fewer pharmaceutical options, and some of their ideas on how to get people healthy are worth bringing back.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 12:14 AM on February 16, 2021 [22 favorites]
The best thing? They're part of the national health insurance system too, so if you have spine trouble or nervous trouble or persistent respiratory infections, your GP picks the right kind of sanatorium and you get three weeks off (80% salary medical leave), either free or discounted hotel stay and food, and free medical treatment. You can of course go private in any extent you want, and the bureaucracy involves queues and lack of choice, but the existence and widespread use of the sanatorium system means ingrained awareness of it as an option. And most people around you in a sanatorium have similar problems and focus on getting better, so you get a built in support group.
The early-20th century doctors had much fewer pharmaceutical options, and some of their ideas on how to get people healthy are worth bringing back.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 12:14 AM on February 16, 2021 [22 favorites]
A colleague of mine has always said "sabbaticals save lives." He once quit his job and took 6 months off, damn the financial consequences. He came back fully recharged, was more productive than ever and his attitude improved dramatically. Alas, he's also in Canada where quitting doesn't mean months of super-expensive COBRA health insurance payments. Yet another failing of our system that expects you to work until you keel over.
posted by drstrangelove at 5:10 AM on February 16, 2021 [8 favorites]
posted by drstrangelove at 5:10 AM on February 16, 2021 [8 favorites]
Countess Elena: Possibly WWII reflects the turning point when it was no longer considered permissible for a healthy person, let alone a healthy man, to seek treatment for mental issues. That's just a guess. All I know is that the slapping was the first thing I learned about Patton, together with the implication that it reflected some kind of greatness in his character.
I wonder about that. I found out about it from reading a MAD magazine parody of the movie Patton, which was a highly-regarded film biography that won several Oscars. But it was co-written by Francis Ford Coppola, who of course went on to make Apocalypse Now, and was released in 1970, basically in the middle of the Vietnam War. It could be seen as a nostalgic celebration of one of the leaders of a war that was generally regarded as less morally problematic... or a critique of trying to apply the mindset of that war to the then-current circumstances. Although the concept of post-traumatic stress disorder as it applied to veterans had been around for a while--"shell shock" in WWI and "combat fatigue" in the Deuce--it got a lot more traction during and after the Vietnam War.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:10 AM on February 16, 2021
I wonder about that. I found out about it from reading a MAD magazine parody of the movie Patton, which was a highly-regarded film biography that won several Oscars. But it was co-written by Francis Ford Coppola, who of course went on to make Apocalypse Now, and was released in 1970, basically in the middle of the Vietnam War. It could be seen as a nostalgic celebration of one of the leaders of a war that was generally regarded as less morally problematic... or a critique of trying to apply the mindset of that war to the then-current circumstances. Although the concept of post-traumatic stress disorder as it applied to veterans had been around for a while--"shell shock" in WWI and "combat fatigue" in the Deuce--it got a lot more traction during and after the Vietnam War.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:10 AM on February 16, 2021
I have often ruefully reflected of late on how pleasant it would be to go somewhere for a while where I had no responsibilities, all domestic needs were handled by someone else, and everyone had to be nice to me. But then I realized I'd just get TB, be hassled by would-be philosophers, and die in WWI anyway.
posted by praemunire at 8:24 AM on February 16, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by praemunire at 8:24 AM on February 16, 2021 [4 favorites]
I was having a straight up nervous breakdown from March-July 2020, but guess what, I still had to get up and "go" to work every single day even though I was crying a lot.
Right the weird thing about people being shut away in our homes* and working remotely is that you can kind of go ahead and have your breakdown unnoticed? I mean it doesn't feel good and it probably isn't very healthy long-term but you can kind of just fall right on apart without the greater world being the wiser. Whereas in "normal" times if I were stressed out enough to be crying all day at the office and showing up unshowered, someone would be scheduling a meeting with me and maybe even suggesting FMLA or time off, because a person who's in the room with you is a person, and even my ridiculous bosses are actually decent people who don't want someone to suffer.
The other problem is that everyone's having the nervous breakdown at once which makes it somehow feel normal and like we should all just live/work around it, like holiday stress writ large.
*Obviously many people are not and cannot be working from home; obviously some proportion of people are refusing to abide by restrictions
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 9:31 AM on February 16, 2021 [18 favorites]
Right the weird thing about people being shut away in our homes* and working remotely is that you can kind of go ahead and have your breakdown unnoticed? I mean it doesn't feel good and it probably isn't very healthy long-term but you can kind of just fall right on apart without the greater world being the wiser. Whereas in "normal" times if I were stressed out enough to be crying all day at the office and showing up unshowered, someone would be scheduling a meeting with me and maybe even suggesting FMLA or time off, because a person who's in the room with you is a person, and even my ridiculous bosses are actually decent people who don't want someone to suffer.
The other problem is that everyone's having the nervous breakdown at once which makes it somehow feel normal and like we should all just live/work around it, like holiday stress writ large.
*Obviously many people are not and cannot be working from home; obviously some proportion of people are refusing to abide by restrictions
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 9:31 AM on February 16, 2021 [18 favorites]
Just the other day I was thinking that I'd spent so much time outside in the cold this winter that I felt like a character in Der Zauberberg.
posted by a Rrose by any other name at 10:14 AM on February 16, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by a Rrose by any other name at 10:14 AM on February 16, 2021 [2 favorites]
Whether “burnout” and “nervous breakdown” refer to the same thing is something of a semantic derail. They’re clearly closely related concepts, but as has been mentioned already, there’s a clear gap in class, means and agency between who gets to suffer one rather than the other, and what they have the luxury of doing about it, and those differences are more important than the terminology.
I’ve experienced burnout. I’ve experienced what could be termed a “breakdown.” If you’re not already rich enough to dictate the terms of your own life, you get the fuck up, go back to work and try to hide it from your peers.
The former mostly comes from a systemic expectation that we are all supposed to be consistently working right up to the edge of our physical and mental capacity, but (and this is the fun framing), if you go over that line, as is inevitable when riding that line, that’s your fault for not practicing responsible “self care.” Cool, cool, cool, “anybody still experiencing stress at the end of the day WILL BE FIRED!”
The latter, in my experience, has mostly come from going through the former while under the control of a toxic, abusive supervisor. But as many people have learned, being under the control of a toxic, abusive supervisor is usually also your fault, because the sorts of organizations that hire and retain toxic supervisors also consistently side with them.
In short, there’s no such thing as a no-fault breakdown. The somewhat gauzy view of “nervous breakdown” in this article misses that, in addition to always having been a luxury for the rich, there was, as a consequence, always a salacious, tabloid quality to the idea of society’s titans going temporarily crazy. The story that comes through to the working classes is not that the wealthy get the luxury of taking a few months away from it all, but that the desperation that prevents workers from doing the same is actually a folksy sort of mental fortitude. Your everyday Joe was never able to weather the scandal of a stress-driven mental health crisis and just go back to his day job refreshed and renewed like nothing happened.
They still can’t. When you’re younger you don’t have the cash to take a substantial break. These days I technically have enough money I could take a year off to do things I want to do independent of concerns about money, and I think it would do wonders for my mental health, but I don’t have enough money to do it for the rest of my life, and choosing to take a gap year would make that a real risk. I would have to account for the gap on my resume when trying to rejoin the workforce at an age where employers are already not-so-subtly looking for excuses to hire somebody younger.
For the overwhelming majority of people a mental health crisis is an existential threat and always has been. Despite token changes in terminology and process, there is no indication this will ever substantively change.
posted by gelfin at 10:41 AM on February 16, 2021 [6 favorites]
I’ve experienced burnout. I’ve experienced what could be termed a “breakdown.” If you’re not already rich enough to dictate the terms of your own life, you get the fuck up, go back to work and try to hide it from your peers.
The former mostly comes from a systemic expectation that we are all supposed to be consistently working right up to the edge of our physical and mental capacity, but (and this is the fun framing), if you go over that line, as is inevitable when riding that line, that’s your fault for not practicing responsible “self care.” Cool, cool, cool, “anybody still experiencing stress at the end of the day WILL BE FIRED!”
The latter, in my experience, has mostly come from going through the former while under the control of a toxic, abusive supervisor. But as many people have learned, being under the control of a toxic, abusive supervisor is usually also your fault, because the sorts of organizations that hire and retain toxic supervisors also consistently side with them.
In short, there’s no such thing as a no-fault breakdown. The somewhat gauzy view of “nervous breakdown” in this article misses that, in addition to always having been a luxury for the rich, there was, as a consequence, always a salacious, tabloid quality to the idea of society’s titans going temporarily crazy. The story that comes through to the working classes is not that the wealthy get the luxury of taking a few months away from it all, but that the desperation that prevents workers from doing the same is actually a folksy sort of mental fortitude. Your everyday Joe was never able to weather the scandal of a stress-driven mental health crisis and just go back to his day job refreshed and renewed like nothing happened.
They still can’t. When you’re younger you don’t have the cash to take a substantial break. These days I technically have enough money I could take a year off to do things I want to do independent of concerns about money, and I think it would do wonders for my mental health, but I don’t have enough money to do it for the rest of my life, and choosing to take a gap year would make that a real risk. I would have to account for the gap on my resume when trying to rejoin the workforce at an age where employers are already not-so-subtly looking for excuses to hire somebody younger.
For the overwhelming majority of people a mental health crisis is an existential threat and always has been. Despite token changes in terminology and process, there is no indication this will ever substantively change.
posted by gelfin at 10:41 AM on February 16, 2021 [6 favorites]
Right the weird thing about people being shut away in our homes* and working remotely is that you can kind of go ahead and have your breakdown unnoticed? I mean it doesn't feel good and it probably isn't very healthy long-term but you can kind of just fall right on apart without the greater world being the wiser. Whereas in "normal" times if I were stressed out enough to be crying all day at the office and showing up unshowered, someone would be scheduling a meeting with me and maybe even suggesting FMLA or time off,
I probably would have been written up even more than I already got written up for if I was conspicuously crying daily in office. But I did like that not everyone had to know every time I felt THAT bad. But then again, if we'd been in the office, we wouldn't have had the issues that were causing me to have the breakdown in the first place.
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:58 AM on February 16, 2021 [1 favorite]
I probably would have been written up even more than I already got written up for if I was conspicuously crying daily in office. But I did like that not everyone had to know every time I felt THAT bad. But then again, if we'd been in the office, we wouldn't have had the issues that were causing me to have the breakdown in the first place.
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:58 AM on February 16, 2021 [1 favorite]
I'd really appreciate if we could please let up on the "I didn't have the privilege for a breakdown so I just got up and made it work because I had to"/"poor people make it work" angles.
I've known too many people who simply COULDN'T power through and lost their income, future, families, or lives to nervous breakdowns.
posted by mkuhnell at 11:56 AM on February 16, 2021 [16 favorites]
I've known too many people who simply COULDN'T power through and lost their income, future, families, or lives to nervous breakdowns.
posted by mkuhnell at 11:56 AM on February 16, 2021 [16 favorites]
But then again, if we'd been in the office, we wouldn't have had the issues that were causing me to have the breakdown in the first place.
Hahahaha that's right, I forgot that some peoples' jobs were not endless nightmares ALWAYS
I'm not saying that the response in my workplace to daily crying and lack of grooming would be entirely non-punitive but it would be a response, rather than absolutely no response or acknowledgment whatsoever. But with everyone being in the midst of constant crisis, out of direct sight is out of mind, and the slipped deadlines and disaster projects just don't seem to be registering, so somehow I'm both employed and unreprimanded despite being completely non-functional since like November at least
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 12:03 PM on February 16, 2021 [3 favorites]
Hahahaha that's right, I forgot that some peoples' jobs were not endless nightmares ALWAYS
I'm not saying that the response in my workplace to daily crying and lack of grooming would be entirely non-punitive but it would be a response, rather than absolutely no response or acknowledgment whatsoever. But with everyone being in the midst of constant crisis, out of direct sight is out of mind, and the slipped deadlines and disaster projects just don't seem to be registering, so somehow I'm both employed and unreprimanded despite being completely non-functional since like November at least
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 12:03 PM on February 16, 2021 [3 favorites]
I'd really appreciate if we could please let up on the "I didn't have the privilege for a breakdown so I just got up and made it work because I had to"/"poor people make it work" angles.
I've known too many people who simply COULDN'T power through and lost their income, future, families, or lives to nervous breakdowns.
OK but there are a lot of us who are doing this every day and it's yet to be seen if any of us will ultimately be successful. I'm powering through today, that doesn't mean tomorrow I'll still be able to power through. I don't see how some people sharing their experiences means that other peoples' experiences didn't happen.
posted by bleep at 12:20 PM on February 16, 2021 [5 favorites]
2 years ago I needed to take some time off work to help my hubby with a medical thing and the reams and reams of paperwork my job's 3rd party provider needed to confirm that actually yes he was experiencing an organ failure and yes I was needed to assist him while we figured this out made me pretty hopeless that I would ever be approved for time off just for feeling not up to it. The amount of energy I had to spend just to prove that I didn't have enough energy to both help him stay alive and continue spending energy to earn enough money to stay housed at the same time. How am I going to prove I don't have enough energy for that in the future. I don't know.
posted by bleep at 12:23 PM on February 16, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by bleep at 12:23 PM on February 16, 2021 [6 favorites]
It isn't so much a problem for me that individuals are saying they are powering through as best they can; it's more that people are making blanket statements as if it's a choice. It feels like it's invalidating the less privileged people who do have these breakdowns and can't power through.
I may not be making much sense here. Sorry. It just struck a nerve.
posted by mkuhnell at 12:27 PM on February 16, 2021 [9 favorites]
I may not be making much sense here. Sorry. It just struck a nerve.
posted by mkuhnell at 12:27 PM on February 16, 2021 [9 favorites]
Yeah I really hope people understand that being successful or unsuccessful is never a choice.
posted by bleep at 12:28 PM on February 16, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by bleep at 12:28 PM on February 16, 2021 [6 favorites]
I'd really appreciate if we could please let up on the "I didn't have the privilege for a breakdown so I just got up and made it work because I had to"/"poor people make it work" angles.Point taken, but to be clear my own intention was not to frame that as a brag, but instead to express that the alleged virtue of “sucking it up” is a really significant part of the poisonous mythos at work here. I didn’t get the sense other commenters were bragging either.
“Work harder with less support” has always been Mr. Moneybags’ silver bullet solution for his minions, including for the people that bullet kills outright. Now it’s “work harder with less support plus you have an obligation to provide sufficient support for yourself that you don’t experience any impact to your productivity.” The corporate “self-care” line is the psychological version of responding to complaints about low pay by providing budgeting classes.
For workers, “just make it work” has always been the prescribed solution, and still is. I’m not proud of that. In fact I’m damned salty about it. I’ve been a lot closer to not making it work than I care to ponder, and I think the expectation deserves mention as a part of the narrative that tricks people into throwing themselves headlong into the capitalist meat grinder.
posted by gelfin at 12:42 PM on February 16, 2021 [4 favorites]
The hell of this is - companies could cut down on a whole hell of a lot of this kind of burnout/breakdown/what have you, simply by giving us all good vacation benefits, and establishing a work culture where you don't give people shit for using those benefits.
The US has an absolutely abysmal vacation benefit policy for its workers on average, and we have a puritanical culture of not letting ourselves use the time we do have granted to us. We hoard our precious two weeks' time, if we have that - maybe some of it gets eaten up by going to see the parents for Thanksgiving, and a couple more days here and there go to having to take a day to let the plumber in the house or something - and that leaves us maybe four or five days for a vacation, which is nothing - three days in is when you finally start feeling like you're catching your breath from the work grind and it's only one day left before you have to go back.
If we had a better federal vacation policy, where people actually had time to themselves to rest up, it would take care of so much. This is what vacations are for - they are pre-emptive breaks so that you don't exhaust yourself.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:00 PM on February 16, 2021 [17 favorites]
The US has an absolutely abysmal vacation benefit policy for its workers on average, and we have a puritanical culture of not letting ourselves use the time we do have granted to us. We hoard our precious two weeks' time, if we have that - maybe some of it gets eaten up by going to see the parents for Thanksgiving, and a couple more days here and there go to having to take a day to let the plumber in the house or something - and that leaves us maybe four or five days for a vacation, which is nothing - three days in is when you finally start feeling like you're catching your breath from the work grind and it's only one day left before you have to go back.
If we had a better federal vacation policy, where people actually had time to themselves to rest up, it would take care of so much. This is what vacations are for - they are pre-emptive breaks so that you don't exhaust yourself.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:00 PM on February 16, 2021 [17 favorites]
Vacations, weekends, a forty hour week.
posted by clew at 6:00 PM on February 16, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by clew at 6:00 PM on February 16, 2021 [3 favorites]
Don't forget that even if you have a lot of vacation, odds are nobody else but you can do your job and you will have TONS of makeup work to do for double the amount of time that you were out of the office.
I usually take Christmas time off because that's the one "dead" time of year in my line of work. Hoo boy, not this year. Even with my other teammates being forced to work part of the break time because they are too new to have that much vacation time, I still had a week's worth of avalanche to deal with because people would still not stop sending their problems in. There's no REST.
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:06 PM on February 16, 2021 [4 favorites]
I usually take Christmas time off because that's the one "dead" time of year in my line of work. Hoo boy, not this year. Even with my other teammates being forced to work part of the break time because they are too new to have that much vacation time, I still had a week's worth of avalanche to deal with because people would still not stop sending their problems in. There's no REST.
posted by jenfullmoon at 8:06 PM on February 16, 2021 [4 favorites]
I just read about a ?Danish? company whose vacation email setting deletes all incoming mail and responds with an auto-message that that’s what happened.
posted by clew at 9:17 PM on February 16, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by clew at 9:17 PM on February 16, 2021 [4 favorites]
I read about that too Clew but can’t find the article, it was in Germany. It’s an opt in choice linked to Europe’s right to disconnect (which every tech company I know/have worked for in France has opted out of).
posted by ellieBOA at 9:38 PM on February 16, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by ellieBOA at 9:38 PM on February 16, 2021 [1 favorite]
The hell of this is - companies could cut down on a whole hell of a lot of this kind of burnout/breakdown/what have you, simply by giving us all good vacation benefits, and establishing a work culture where you don't give people shit for using those benefits.
Exactly this.
The company I work for boasts about their "generous" paid time off; in job listings they will say "up to 5 weeks." As always, the devil is in the details. Firstly, 5 weeks are for those with 11 years of service. Those just starting out will get half of that. Secondly, you might earn 5 weeks per year but using them is another story. You have to find people who will cover your shifts in order to take time off, and in a place that is perpetually understaffed that is nearly impossible. Thirdly, paid time off covers sick leave as well. So keeping a week or two in reserve only makes good sense in case you have some major health crisis. But it goes on--- they only allow 40 hours of rollover per year. That means most will elect to take 50 cents on the dollar for their surplus time; it's either that or it vanishes into a long-term sick leave bank.
So, while definitely "generous" it's nothing like France where taking a solid block of 5 weeks off per year is possible. It's designed to look generous while making it difficult to actually use it.
posted by drstrangelove at 4:25 AM on February 17, 2021 [2 favorites]
Exactly this.
The company I work for boasts about their "generous" paid time off; in job listings they will say "up to 5 weeks." As always, the devil is in the details. Firstly, 5 weeks are for those with 11 years of service. Those just starting out will get half of that. Secondly, you might earn 5 weeks per year but using them is another story. You have to find people who will cover your shifts in order to take time off, and in a place that is perpetually understaffed that is nearly impossible. Thirdly, paid time off covers sick leave as well. So keeping a week or two in reserve only makes good sense in case you have some major health crisis. But it goes on--- they only allow 40 hours of rollover per year. That means most will elect to take 50 cents on the dollar for their surplus time; it's either that or it vanishes into a long-term sick leave bank.
So, while definitely "generous" it's nothing like France where taking a solid block of 5 weeks off per year is possible. It's designed to look generous while making it difficult to actually use it.
posted by drstrangelove at 4:25 AM on February 17, 2021 [2 favorites]
I know a fellow at another company whose company provides 4 weeks of paid time off per year and he's one of the only people I know who uses it all at once every summer. He usually spends that month in Europe on a bicycle tour. But he tells me that it's really dicey the rest of the year because he then has zero time off for any other contingency. But he also says the month away from work is so restorative that he thinks it benefits his health/mental health in such beneficial ways that he is rarely ever sick during the rest of the year. He has spent an extensive amount of time in Europe (and plans to retire in Italy) so he knows what Europeans who get a month off each summer already know--- sabbaticals save lives.
posted by drstrangelove at 4:28 AM on February 17, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by drstrangelove at 4:28 AM on February 17, 2021 [1 favorite]
We hoard our precious two weeks' time, if we have that - maybe some of it gets eaten up by going to see the parents for Thanksgiving, and a couple more days here and there go to having to take a day to let the plumber in the house or something - and that leaves us maybe four or five days for a vacation, which is nothing - three days in is when you finally start feeling like you're catching your breath from the work grind and it's only one day left before you have to go back.
I am hogging this thread but this resonated with me. Growing up my parents subscribed to this mindset. Each had two weeks off a year but neither used them in any meaningful way. They'd use a couple of them to go up to see my grandfather in a different state, but usually my dad would just cash them in at the end of the year. My mother would as well although she was also inclined to take a solid week to clean or paint our house, which was already immaculate by most people's standards. They would also work Saturdays. Not because they had to, but because they liked having days when no one else was around to distract them from doing work.
After the grim march of time has claimed my father I look back in horror on the time they wasted on what were just mundane tasks. As if life wouldn't have gone on if they weren't at the office at 2 pm on a beautiful Saturday afternoon filing paperwork, etc, or forgoing vacations so they could vacuum a guest bedroom. Consequently I use my vacation time in every way possible even if that just means a periodic day off during the week.
posted by drstrangelove at 4:34 AM on February 17, 2021 [6 favorites]
I am hogging this thread but this resonated with me. Growing up my parents subscribed to this mindset. Each had two weeks off a year but neither used them in any meaningful way. They'd use a couple of them to go up to see my grandfather in a different state, but usually my dad would just cash them in at the end of the year. My mother would as well although she was also inclined to take a solid week to clean or paint our house, which was already immaculate by most people's standards. They would also work Saturdays. Not because they had to, but because they liked having days when no one else was around to distract them from doing work.
After the grim march of time has claimed my father I look back in horror on the time they wasted on what were just mundane tasks. As if life wouldn't have gone on if they weren't at the office at 2 pm on a beautiful Saturday afternoon filing paperwork, etc, or forgoing vacations so they could vacuum a guest bedroom. Consequently I use my vacation time in every way possible even if that just means a periodic day off during the week.
posted by drstrangelove at 4:34 AM on February 17, 2021 [6 favorites]
(Old memories have bubbled up... I remember one summer when I young I had to spend a gorgeous Saturday at my dad's office while he worked. Then we picked up my mom from her workplace and went for a drive after getting a bite to eat. We ended up out at the swimming beach at our local reservoir. Dad pulled up in one of the parking spaces and I saw the happy beachgoers splashing in the water and basically enjoying life while sailboats were tacking back and forth further out in the lake. My parents were in an usually good mood and that's when they started talking about how the following weekend we should come out to the lake and have a picnic and go for a swim. But the following weekend came, my parents worked, and neither were in the mood and we went home where they crashed shortly after 7 pm, dead tired from another 6 days of work. The subject was never broached again. Obviously there's a lesson in all of this.)
posted by drstrangelove at 4:39 AM on February 17, 2021 [9 favorites]
posted by drstrangelove at 4:39 AM on February 17, 2021 [9 favorites]
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posted by not_the_water at 12:40 PM on February 15, 2021 [5 favorites]