The burnout syndrome

It is a reality that reluctance, apathy, rejection or disinterest, seize one when one suffers the Burnout syndrome.

There are times when I feel rejection towards a patient, I know I must be professional, but the very idea, when I look at the clock and the time when I should receive him approaches, that feeling arises. They are those times when energy is "consumed" by the patient, by his story, his narrative, his expressions ..., of those times that produce an exhausting and exhausting effect when being in front of this person.

Other times, at home, I do not have the courage to speak, I am "susceptible" to any complaint either from my partner or from any of my children; I am irritable, eventually with psychosomatic manifestations transformed into a cold, or a "wonderful" and torturing headache; I end up magnifying trivia, which could be solved simply by letting them pass.

And, is that I forget that I am also a person with the same problems as anyone, with primary life needs like everyone else, that I need to eat, sleep, drink, REST. I forget that I must also be aware that each consultation requires attention and energy, and that in the vast majority of cases, they are far from each other.

One of the many phrases that I heard in class, and that moved me is: “we look for alternatives to justify why we feel so bad ", Truthful truth I have heard !, It has been as accurate as the sound of the metal coin falling into the piggy bank; we develop that "attitude" to such a degree that it becomes a habit, we put buts to almost everything, even when we see it inches from our eyes.

I remember a case of a patient who came to me with an apparent "depression"; I met this patient some time ago because I had already had other interviews with her; On past occasions, she had been relaxed, participatory, ready for the process that was dictated, jovial. This time, it was the opposite: a "cramped" body language, with a low and elusive gaze, a few tears, some monosyllables and long silences.

Against this background the question arose: What else should I do?

I started to feel like I was in a baseball game, where I was the ball and she was the bat, and each question was equal to the batting movement, so my purpose was to poach her but the harder I tried, the more she hit me ... and I knew That if I was wrong, the ball would hit home run.

Without realizing it, little by little a feeling of despair took hold of me, that made it harder for me to make the proposals and I was losing the power of observation because I was more focused on how to “strike out” and not on what it should be . At some point, I do not specify which one, but I am aware that I had the impulse to abruptly and sharply "end" the consultation, ... she was winning the game.

By the time I realized that I was no longer caring the reason why it was once again me, that I was thinking more about the moment when the clock hand would arrive at the time of finishing; the burnout syndrome had preyed upon this ignorant and humble being who calls himself "his servant".

After a while, of which I cannot say with precision the number of minutes elapsed, but I can affirm, how agonizing and tedious those moments were, ... I could only think of the ticking of the clock that fed second by second the desire to finish in one way or another with this torture; my ears were closing to those depressive monosyllables and the occasional whimpering of the patient. The gaze, sometimes trembling, struggled to stay somewhere on her face, and with each blink, it went from boredom to frustration, from anger to anger, from apathy to rejection ... I still didn't realize that I was burned.

It was then, that with an involuntary reflex, I took a great breath of air, making my lungs protest from the surprise effort, as if it were an automaton, I changed my posture, accommodating myself in the armchair and I asked myself the question: Why am I like this??

Hundreds of rewound projections passed through my mind, of various scenes in my life, without apparent coherence, as if there were no answer to that question; I could bet that I was losing my mind, but it was not like that, I realized that this rejection, for which my patient was not responsible, was being used under the pretext of workloads, excessive commitments and acidic relationships in which I had gotten involved; it was a matter of a simple and modest decision ... I must change!.

Quickly and mentally I went through similar situations in which I was "okay", those interviews that I had enjoyed because of the way they were developed, and found that on those occasions I had unintentionally protected myself. It seems that he carried a magic shield that avoided being affected by the onslaught of stress, mental exhaustion, boredom, physical fatigue, and many other things. That shield made the problems and pains of my patients be destroyed and discarded like handkerchiefs with nasal fluid.

Then, my auditory canals opened again, I began to listen, the pupils of my eyes very surely dilated with the amount of light they perceived, my mind cleared; I paid more attention to the body postures of my patient, reading together with those monosyllables that he previously rejected and that he now valued. I empowered her, I made her see that her problem had a solution and that that solution was within reach of her hand, then, she outlined a smile that was already known to me, I managed to finish the consultation, poaching the opposing batter without hitting or running. But the difference is that there was not a single winner here ...
We both won!.
As a patient, she found the answer to that which made her go to therapy. And I ... the way to avoid burnout syndrome.