For the record: Burnout

By Hattie Butterworth

Here begins a weekly essay from me because I miss writing for pleasure. The podcast and all that surrounds it is always complete pleasure. I refuse for it to be otherwise.

For over two years now I have worked full time within classical music print media. First as a publishers intern, and now as a magazine editor for two classical music publications. It’s how I make money and takes up most of my time. I work in bursts of intensity towards deadlines and experience the full scope of emotions around how the hell to manage contributors, commissioning, budgets and promotion of the brand.

So, here I am the day before press week for Opera Now’s Summer issue and I am in bed with the most severe burnout I have felt in a long time. I remember when we spoke to Cara Houghton from the Conservatories UK Student Network about their burnout campaign a few years ago and I struggled to understand what the experience of burnout was or could be. I knew depression and mental illness, but I didn’t quite know what this strange, elusive experience was people described of complete exhaustion from work. Now I know it intimately.

It comes with guilt as I ask why I didn’t spot it sooner. Why am I so flakey and having to cancel everything ‘fun’ in my life just to make the deadline? Burnout is becoming the sacrifice of full time work within a sector that is struggling. Resources are tight and I love my job. I find it so hard to reflect or take stock about how I’m feeling before it’s too late. I love the feeling of being ‘on rails’, ignoring every impulse as my full focus is employed on work.

I just don’t know how to find a middle way. Can burnout really be avoided? I've learned to accept it as part of the job and part of the cyclical nature of my brain and experience on the earth. Days where I can’t move much or see anyone or be anything are becoming part of my normal working life. Why do I think that’s ok?

My work ethic comes from years of intense training as a cellist. I was told always that I could be practicing more and harder. I would always go to bed feeling guilty that I didn’t work harder that day, or thinking over a plan for the next day to make sure I practiced for more time. Idle time in the day was a waste to me. Even time walking between lessons or practice rooms felt stressfully wasteful.

And so now I don’t know how to trust that I can adopt a slower pace of working life. That it will continue to hurt me if I don’t stop to reflect and plan rest into every day, not just into the enforced full days of disabling burnout. I can’t believe that my worth continues, even when I stop and rest.

So still, reflecting on life as a young cellist, absorbing all the advice given and champing on the bit of musical success has led me into professional turmoil where I don’t know how to be anything but intense. How I can work in any way other than extremes. Deconstructing those musician norms is vital for me to have any chance of long term health and success at full time work.