Content warning: mental health / depression / burnout. It ends well, though!

Part 1: Burnout

This story starts sometime in the last five years, but let’s start in October of 2023, when I realized that I was burnt out at work and fell into a deep depression that lasted through all of 2024.

I was working as a (senior!) software engineer at Google, which was my dream job, and while it was stressful, there were some really amazing things about the position. I’d just been accepted to work with the Education Equity team, which was my dream dream job: teaching and working on social justice initiatives while getting paid Google salary! I had it good.

But internally, I was struggling. I started working less — not because I wanted to slack off, but just because I’d totally lost my spark. I didn’t care about the work anymore. I was burnt out.

If you worked with me at Google at the time, perhaps this explains some of my behavior. I think I did a good job of continuing to put on a good face for work and get my assigned tasks done, but if I disappointed you in some way during that time, I’m sorry. 

I was working with an amazing therapist at the time, and she helped me realize that something needed to change. Even so, I was still able to rationalize why I should stay at Google: I had amazing pay and benefits, and with my son due to be born in April, I told myself that I needed to keep the job so that I could keep my healthcare in case anything went wrong during his homebirth.

As part of my effort to change things up, I went through a round of interviews with some really cool companies that were doing good work. I should have been excited, but I found myself thinking “I just … really don’t care about this.” They also paid less than my Google job. So I stayed at Google and pushed through the burnout. Perhaps unsurprisingly, my depression got worse.

I didn’t feel like I could quit my job without losing everything, including my own value as a human being. I didn’t figure this out until much later, but I had tied a lot of my perceived “self-value” to my value as a worker and as a provider. We’ll get back to that.

It was in October of 2023 that I suffered my first ever panic attack. I had tried a new ADHD medication, but it didn’t work so I stopped taking it, which put me in a depressed state. Combined with my feeling of helplessness about my job and the apathy I was feeling about everything, my mind and body went into overdrive. Maybe that sounds silly — woe is me, I had too good of a job — sure. Zero-th world problems. But it doesn’t matter who you are, or how wealthy and privileged you may be. When depression hits, it hits hard. 

For me, depression is not a profound sadness. It’s a lack of emotion. It’s disassociation. My energy to change anything was sapped. It all seemed so distant, like I was playing a videogame where my choices didn’t really matter.

One year ago on January 10, 2023, the eve of my 33rd birthday, I was taking a bubble bath and texting with a friend. A notification came in, and I clicked on it, expecting a reply from them.

Instead, I saw:

Dear Erty:

Due to changes in business needs, Google has decided to restructure operations […] Based on this decision, we have had to make some difficult decisions about ongoing employment of some Google employees and we regret to inform you that your position is being eliminated. We recognize how much this impacts you and regret the need to move in this direction. […]

I finished my bath in a mix of shock and relief. I was unemployed, but now I didn’t need to do the hard work of stating my needs, quitting my job, and dealing with the aftermath. Google had done it all for me. 

It certainly helped that (acknowledging the privilege of this) they gave me enough severance that I didn’t need to look for work for about 9 months. Through a quirk of the COBRA system, I didn’t need to pay for health insurance for several months as well. So I was covered, both financially and for healthcare. What could have been a crushing blow was instead a reprieve; I was going to get time to recover.

Unemployment meant I had time to do the things I wanted. I’d always wanted to take my stained glass art full time. I signed up to sell at a local market and started making glass. Like this pillbug named Millie (available for purchase on Etsy from the designer, my friend Allison Conway!)

I ended up selling glass at two markets, and people bought some pieces!

I started preparing the house for my son’s arrival and spending time with my daughter at home. My son was born at home on April 7, the day before the solar eclipse. Here’s a picture from the next day, with the shadows of the eclipse on his little baby face:

But as much time as I spent making and selling glass and hanging out with my kids, I spent more time dissociating. My relationships — especially with my spouse — deteriorated. I just didn’t care about anything. I didn’t care about myself. The work I did to prepare the house for my son’s arrival was half-assed and I felt terrible about it.

I dragged myself around the house. Burnout doesn’t go away when you lose your job. I’d heard it takes six months to start to recover, so I knew it would be a long road.

When you feel trapped, your body looks for ways of escaping, whether that’s through distraction, disassociation, leaving relationships, or the unrecoverable leaving that is death. Though I at times engaged in what my therapist called “passive suicidal ideation” (i.e. thoughts of “I’d be better off dead” without any specific plan or action), I thankfully never harmed myself.

(CW: thoughts of self-harm) Show

Through all this, though I left my spouse feeling like she had another child to take care of instead of a partner, we are still together. Though I strained many relationships, nothing was broken permanently. But I was fighting each day for energy and stability, and I was not finding it.

Part Two: Internal Family Systems

I’d started attending a local men’s group where we do breathwork (similar to fast yoga?) and then talk about deep feelings with each other. I always left those sessions feeling energized and re-centered. One of the organizers was a therapist who specialized in a technique called Internal Family Systems, which I’d never heard about before but was curious about. I asked if he would take me on as a client, and he agreed.

If you’re familiar with IFS, you can skip ahead to “###”. If you’re not, I’ll give a brief overview. It might seem really silly or “out there” at first glance. But, stick with me for just a moment.

Aside: I’m not a therapist, so this is all my own interpretation; I may have some of the details wrong. If you want an actual introduction to this technique, I recommend the book Self Led by Seth Kopald, PhD, an IFS practitioner.

The idea is that you were born with your self: a beautiful, whole, undamaged center which is curious, playful, excited, and compassionate. As you go through life, and especially as you encounter small-t and large-T traumas, internal “parts” form to protect you and help you cope. This is not split personality disorder. These parts are formed from emotional reactions to things that have hurt or scared you in the past. For example, if you’ve experienced pain from rejection, a protector-part might emerge which distracts or numbs you, attempting to shield you from this pain by making you not express your wants and needs.

IFS uses a lens of naming these separate “parts” and treating them as other versions of yourself, which allows you to hold conversations with them. You can ask them questions to figure out what they want. You can observe how they interact with each other. And you can start to speak to them from your self instead of your other activated parts, who are not playful or curious at all: they’re scared or angry.

Parts are usually — but not always — formed at specific ages, and during specific difficulties. They are younger versions of yourself that you spun off to survive and remain safe. And they react to anything that looks like their particular activator, whether or not it actually is. They need to be told that you are no longer in danger, and they need to be gently and kindly shown that they can stand aside without bad things happening.

There are two major “kinds” of parts: Protectors (already mentioned) and Exiles, which are parts of you that are repressed or severed from your self. They hide away because they are parts of you that were deemed unlovable or unsafe to express.

The final part of IFS that’s really important is that you don’t seek to destroy or get rid of any of these parts. That tends to make the parts dig in and fight harder. Instead, you engage with them, find out what they want and talk to them. Ask them what they need. Update them on your new circumstances. Eventually, they’ll calm down and re-integrate with your self, bringing you back toward wholeness.

###

Working with this new therapist, I identified a few of these parts and began to work with them. I did ten sessions in the Summer of 2023 and I cried in every single one.

Every single time I engaged with these parts, these younger Ertys who just needed to be heard and loved, I felt the emotional pain that I’d shoved aside into my subconscious. It was difficult, but in the way that climbing a mountain is difficult. When you’re done, you feel exhausted in a good way, and you start to see things more clearly.

Part Three: Doc, are you hearing this?

You might expect that with the work I was doing I would be able to say, “And then I cured my burnout and got back to work,” but that’s not the case. It was now September 2024, and I was continuing to spend large stretches of time just laying on my office floor feeling nothing or doing the bare minimum to connect with my kids. Through the lens of depression and dissociation, everything seemed far away, like life wasn’t real.

My talk therapist worked with me to help understand that some of this depression stemmed from a belief that I lacked intrinsic value. I was operating from a place of needing to constantly prove my worth, any negative feedback or failed project hit me really hard. Understanding this narrative didn’t solve my problems, though. It just meant I had an explanation for why I felt so emotionally fragile. Any little negative thing could send me into a days-long depressive episode, making it difficult for my spouse to give me any kind of feedback.

I began to consume a lot of news and social media. I went on TikTok, as the kids do. I stopped working on stained glass. My therapist and family recommended that I get on antidepressants, but I didn’t want to. I was afraid of side effects, and I felt like the depression was a message: “There’s a gap between who you are and who you need to be.” Taking antidepressants meant admitting defeat.

Then, browsing TikTok one day, I heard a song by Madelline that resonated with me, specifically the bridge, the lyrics of which I’ve pasted below.

I used to think I was better than all of the
Prozac, Abilify, Wellbutrin, Adderall
Told myself I didn’t need any meds at all
All the depression and lethargy’s all my fault
I can be stronger and I can work harder and
I can get over myself if I honor the
Values and visions and dreams that all matter to me
And I finally prioritize what I need
But I didn’t take care of myself
I neglected my physical and mental health
I pretended that I didn’t have any problems
And I had the tools that I needed to solve ’em
But now that I finally have some experience
Taking the pills that I thought were so serious
I’m feeling capable, grounded, and curious
Turns out my problems weren’t all that mysterious
I’m not a zombie, no, I’m not delirious
Doc, are you hearing this?
Doc, are you hearing this?

This captured my insecurities about antidepressants perfectly. In my narrative, it was my fault that I was depressed. I could think or work my way out of it. But that’s not how depression works. As the famous meme says, if you can’t make your own happy chemicals, store-bought is fine.

Within a week of hearing this song I went to the doctor and got prescribed Wellbutrin, 150mg and then 300mg XR. Thanks, Madelline. 🙂

They say that it takes six weeks for Wellbutrin to fully kick in, but by day three I was already crying about things that I was numb to before. It felt like I could start to address some of the issues I had been dealing with for so long. The Wellbutrin gave me a “safety net” between myself and my depression – instead of sinking into the dark water, I could feel myself bounce off this net and stay above the surface.

I also got offered a job out of the blue: writing curriculum as a contractor for the Google Education Equity team. I told myself that I would take it easy. I would work as much as I wanted, and when I felt myself shutting down or getting brain fog, I would just lie down and nap. I took a lot of naps for the first few months of that job, but with this self-care I was productive and got good feedback from the team.

Part Four: The Protector?

The Wellbutrin gave me the energy to start working on the root causes of the depression, and not just the symptoms. I began to introspect. There was clearly something – some unidentified part – that didn’t want me to do any hard work. When I began to put any significant effort into my job, or my emotional self, or a passion project, that part would leap up and take over. “Stop! You’ll hurt yourself again!”. Classic protector part behavior.

I would shut down, avoid conflict, disappear when my family needed me to just be alone and try to recover. I wanted so badly to integrate this part like IFS said I should, but when I queried this protector — “What are you protecting me from?”, “What pain are you avoiding?” — it would simply not respond.

I was in a Catch-22: To deal with this part, I needed to do difficult emotional work. To do difficult emotional work, I needed to deal with this part.

As an aside, I also started Adderall around this time. I’d had really bad experiences with other prescription stimulants for ADHD, so I was afraid to try, but I started at half of the lowest dose: just 2.5mg IR, twice a day. And it gave me so much energy and focus. My previous experiences that left me spinning had started at the recommended dosage which was much higher. It turns out I’m just REALLY sensitive to stimulants.

With the Wellbutrin and Adderall, I was now able to make it through the day with no more than one nap, but I was still checked out and dissociated. While it appeared on the outside that I had a great life going on, my relationships continued to deteriorate and I was still masking my way through the day. I appeared cheery and involved at work, but internally I was numb.

Another song got stuck in my head in October 2024: Complicated Creation by Cloud Cult.

This verse specifically stood out to me:

If you rid of all your baggage you will likely float away
But you can’t know beauty if you don’t know pain
Gotta feel it, feel it all, feel it, feel it all
There’s your medication

Were they saying that you had to suffer to be an artist? I took this quote quite literally and didn’t understand why you couldn’t experience beauty without pain. Couldn’t I look at something beautiful without suffering? My mind ruminated on this lyric, and I knew the meaning was deeper than I was able to comprehend. 

I stopped working with my IFS therapist for financial reasons, and so I remained stuck through November and December of 2024.

Part Five: Catharsis

Winter break, 2024/2025: My family and I drove up to the U.P. to spend time with my spouse’s extended family. While we were there, I still struggled. I spent a lot of time inside while my family went and had adventures. I didn’t understand why. Why didn’t I want to go skiing with my kids? Why was I taking so long to heal? 

Toward the end of the trip, I was grabbing a midnight snack and ran into one of my cousins-in-law in the kitchen. We started talking about processing emotions, and I said something like:

I spend a lot of time pushing down how I really feel about things. I struggle with the environmental and ethical complications of AI, but my job right now is working with it and promoting it. I struggle with the national news and Trump’s election, and I’ve just stopped watching the news. I struggle with the environmental crisis and I just can’t pay attention to it anymore. It’s all too much.

This was another part of the puzzle, but it was in the car on the way home that everything finally came together. I was recounting this conversation to my spouse, saying, “I just don’t care anymore. There’s a part inside me that’s so tired of fighting and losing.” — and it finally clicked: the part I was struggling with wasn’t a protector part, it was an exile. It was the part of me that cared so much about the world and had fought so hard and been beaten down over and over again during my whole life. I’d cut it off to avoid feeling the pain of that constant loss.

Treating it like a protector part hadn’t worked because it wasn’t one. Instead of “what are you protecting me from”, I asked it, “Why are you an exile?” and I was suddenly flooded with memories from my past where I’d fought passionately for something and lost.

• A time in early elementary school where I campaigned for a change to lunch time and had no power to change anything.
• A time in middle school when I did some minor environmental activism and was punished for it.
• A time in high school where we fought against the board of trustees closing the school down, and we lost in court with no standing.
• Being a delegate for Bernie in 2016 and having the local democratic party ignore our calls for due process, forcing through Hillary’s candidacy.
• Joining the AWU and fighting for changes to Google’s internal culture and ethics, but again having no power to change anything.
• …and so on

I cried and cried. I felt the pain of those losses that I’d shoved down and away. I visited the memories of myself in this part that had experienced these losses, and told each of those Ertys, “I love you”. The exile began to integrate.

I suddenly understood: You can’t know beauty if you don’t know pain. I’d numbed myself by exiling the part of me that cares about things. If you care about things, you will get hurt. But that is the price of having a big heart. As a child, I was deeply empathetic, and it’s that child who was exiled.

My narrative around lack of worth was deeply related to this. Giving up on caring about things also meant giving up on caring about myself. Since this realization, I’ve found it easier to take care of my body, and easier to take negative feedback and rejection. I have more healing to do here, but the root is starting to heal.

You can’t completely avoid pain. You can push it down. You can emotionally dissociate, or use alcohol or drugs to numb yourself. You can distract yourself with videogames or social media or TV. But the pain is still there underneath it all, and until you let yourself feel it, it will cause you suffering.

Part Six: New Year, New Me

I don’t think I can explain the clarity and optimism that I suddenly have after this catharsis (or “car-tharsis” since I was in a car when it happened, amirite?).

I’m not fully healed, certainly, but I feel like I have lifted the weight of apathy from my shoulders. I find that I’m really excited about the future in spite of all of the terrible things happening in the world, precisely because I am able to care and fight and love and be present once again.

I’m now finding it easier to be in relationship with others. When I see friends, I’m actually curious about their lives, and I have genuine contributions in conversations. I’ve started the long road of repair with my spouse, who I can once again be playful and curious around. I can start refilling and growing that relationship instead of being a passive recipient.

My exiled part is still there, but I have a completely different perspective on it now. I know what it needs – love – and I know how to talk to it. My hope is that if I get in a similar state in the future, I’ll be able to address this part directly and have a conversation about how to move forward.

This part has been in exile for many years, but in the past year and a half it was clearly the one at the helm instead of just being along for the ride. I wish it hadn’t taken that long to recognize the way it was controlling my life. I am so grateful to my spouse for sticking with me through this incredibly difficult and painful chapter, and I’m grateful to all the friends and therapists who supported me and helped me along the way. I’m grateful to myself for not giving up on myself.

I’m also grateful for you, for taking the time to read this deep dive through my emotional journey. I hope that there is something you can take away from this that might help you heal yourself, too.

Afterward: The Bodhisattva

As I’m writing this, I’m reminded of the statue that I keep in my office, a bodhisattva named Avalokiteśvara, also known as Guan Yin or Kuan Yin. The first story I heard about Avalokiteśvara goes like this. (I’m writing this from my own memory, so it may be apocryphal, but this is the version that resonates with me.)

***

Avalokiteśvara took a bodhisattva vow, to return again and again in each reincarnation until all things achieved enlightenment. But they also vowed to never fall into despair while they did this work. So they went and worked with the people to help alleviate their pain.

As they were working, they listened, and they heard all of the cries of suffering around the world. It was so much that they fell into despair. Since they had broken their vow, their head shattered into eleven pieces.

Avalokiteśvara’s teacher, the Buddha Amitabha, showed up and said, “Avalokiteśvara, what happened?”.

Avalokiteśvara replied, “I’m sorry teacher, I heard all of the cries of the world, and it was too much. I fell into despair and broke my vow.”

With compassion, Buddha Amitabha responded by giving Avalokiteśvara eleven heads, with which they would be able to hear all of the suffering of the world and not fall into despair. Avalokiteśvara got back to work.

Avalokiteśvara worked and worked but there was so, so much suffering in the world. They got tired, then exhausted, and eventually realized that it was just too much. For the second time, they fell into despair. Since they had broken their vow, their arms shattered into a thousand pieces.

Their teacher showed up again and asked, “Avalokiteśvara, what happened?”

Avalokiteśvara replied, “I tried to hold all of the world’s suffering, and it was so much that I fell into despair and broke my vow.”

Again, instead of punishing Avalokiteśvara, Buddha Amitabha granted them a thousand arms. Given what they needed, Avalokiteśvara got back to work.

(Thank you to Elena S. for proofreading and editing help!)