Burnout: The Guise of Anxiety and Depression

Photography & Words by Alison Engstrom

Since May is Mental Health Awareness Month, I thought I would share a personal story about severe burnout. It’s so great that we are in a day and age with an open dialogue, for the most part, about real issues like anxiety, depression, panic attacks, and the like that can lead to a life of struggle. One side effect that I don’t read too much is burnout, which can lead to debilitating bouts with anxiety, depression, and panic. 

When I first started ROSE & IVY I was fueled by a passion and a drive to succeed. My undying energy made me persist, resist, and move to a place I never thought was at all possible. Prior to starting it, I was in a rounds of toxic jobs and was the by-product of an terrible economy where I was laid off plenty.  From the very first story I ever did, I had never experienced anything that made me feel as alive as when I was behind the camera, talking to interesting people, and creating the stories. I tried to one-up myself in photography, I studied still life photos to learn what constitutes a beautifully composed image. I dedicated myself tirelessly to creating and producing. Once I realized what I could do, the pushing began. At first, I was still working a full time job, so I spent hours after 6pm working and on the weekends. It gave me a sense of ownership, accomplishment, and joy. I felt like nothing could stop me, I powered through swapping any sort of life for this endeavor. I felt fulfilled in many ways, but I knew I was making a sacrifice, but in order to do anything great, I realized you had to prioritize and set time aside for things you wanted to build.

Once I was laid off from yet another job, I went all in, and I went all-in hard. I worked seven days a week–the work was rarely glamorous, but I learned to love every part of it–the rejections, being ignored, requesting samples, running around, producing so many shoots, working with some great people, working with some terrible people, the whole gamut. About there years ago, in 2019, I felt myself hitting a wall, but at the same time, I also felt myself gaining momentum. There were days when it was so beautiful outside and I had a mound of fashion samples I had to photograph because they needed to be returned so I’d force myself to stay inside and photograph them. The image above was most likely snapped during one of those times. I’d make myself cook so I could style food content, but most days when it came to creating both, I was paralyzed. My free-flowing creative nature felt so stifled and I was immobile with anxiety, that was heavily rooted in perfectionism. I started to feel sad, depressed, and like I had lost my luster. 

I am a Libra, I need balance, and I had none. Things felt very off, but yet I pushed myself to keep going. I recall visiting Peru around that same time, a place that was on the top of my bucket list and I just felt this unshakable sadness. Let me also root this in saying, I have struggled with depression and anxiety since I was a teenager. I am a highly sensitive individual, who is also an empath, and sometimes life can be too much for me. I do seek treatment, but even so, I still struggle. 

When 2020 hit us all with a bang, I had to take stock of things. I couldn’t do most of the activities I had done prior like creating shoots, picking up samples, and sending emails out to the void. I realized that when we were all stuck at home, I was really relieved. I could take a break from the things I realized were making me feel pretty unhappy. But I still felt even more lethargic, anxious, and depressed, on top of everything else that 2020 brought. I also had to flip the script from traveling and meeting other people to doing everything virtual and I found myself absolutely drained from having one-sided conversations. That slowly began to unravel even more when I was greeted with an absolute lack of support from many of the individuals who I was talking to. I’d put so much time and effort into interviewing subjects and I’d explicitly say, I am the founder and I run ROSE & IVY and it would be radio silence when features would go live. Madeleine Albright once said, “There is a special place in hell for women who don't help other women,” and it was something I was experiencing a lot. Honestly, it still happens. I find it very disappointing and even adding to that feeling of burnout. I’d ask, why am I doing this? What’s the point? 

Another element of burnout is social media. I have a great disdain for it. When I abstain for a week or two, my mental health resets and I feel happier, present, and my anxiety lessens. This forcing and having to do something is really lethal for creatives. I just want to create and not have my work judged by an alien algorithm that is telling me, and everyone else, what to do and how to do it. I think we should all be scared of that. 

Realizing that what I was experiencing was severe burnout over the past few years, has helped me slowly crawl back to a newer more sustainable version of who I am and what I can actually handle. I have also had to ask myself hard questions: What am I really doing here? What is making me unhappy? What makes me happy? Where do I want to focus my attention? What’s moving the needle?

What I’ve learned

If I could share what I have learned about burnout and what I could have done to avoid or lessen it, it would be to be wary of the shoulds you tell yourself. When I really didn’t want to do something, or say yes to someone, I forced myself to do it because I should, I could have said no and learned to set boundaries. Also, I really needed to take breaks. Humans aren’t robots; we feel, we get tired, we feel uninspired, and we need to realize that if we push ourselves through those feelings, like they don’t exist, it will eventually come to bite us in the end and we will ultimately set ourselves up for failure. I would have also been easier on myself. Great things take a long time to build and even the fanciest car cannot go forward if there is no gas in the tank. I’ve learned to let go and see where things go versus be in the fearful grasp of wanting to control everything. If you really need help, seek out a friend or relative you trust or see a therapist and know you aren’t alone.