What if I told you your burnout might not be due to exhaustion at all. But that it might be because you’re lonely.
Surely it can’t be? It had never crossed my mind before either.
First, let’s take it back a step and talk about what loneliness really is. Loneliness is commonly associated with isolation. The media portray older people stuck at home by themselves with no visitors and an ever smaller social circle, or those living in rural areas cut off from from civilisation.
But you can think about loneliness in a different light as well. People can still be lonely even though they’re surrounded by people all the time. What they’re lacking are humans who they experience meaningful connections with. It doesn’t matter if you’re with other people all day at work and live in a house full of flatmates, if you don’t connect with them on a deeper level, you’re still going to feel isolated.
Loneliness and Burnout
It’s hard to recognise loneliness in ourselves though, and people might describe feelings of tiredness, exhaustion, restlessness or feeling unfulfilled which can be easily attributed to a plethora of other causes. The main one being – burnout.
When vets work in practice with a big team all day, it would surprise many to realise that these typical symptoms of burnout might actually stem from loneliness.
We’re not the type right? We’re young, plenty of colleagues, had a whole year-group of friends at vet school, most family members still around… It can be very difficult to recognise that we might actually be lonely. And there is certainly a stigma around it, hard to admit to yourself? Certainly. Even harder to admit to others.
Brené Brown (an American professor) talks about an officer speaking to a group of American Air Force troops who were describing feelings of being ‘really, really tired’. After a bit of digging, she found out they hadn’t been discharged home for a long time. When she then asked if anyone was actually feeling lonely, slowly but surely many, many hands in the group went up.
These guys weren’t going to benefit from less work hours, more coffee breaks or better perks. They just needed to go home and surround themselves with close family and friends who made them feel whole again. Yet as part of their work, they’re surrounded by team and squad members 24/7 – sounds a lot like a busy vet practice!
How many vets are lonely?
According to VetLife, a poll asking vet professionals if they ever felt lonely in the Veterinary Voices UK Group showed – 72% said yes. Of this 72%, 52.5% were lonely occasionally and 39.5% regularly.
I know that these aren’t representing the whole profession but it’s hard to find any evidence that looks at a great study population. But even still, some really quite heartbreaking statistics!
It’s also hard to gauge the number of lonely vets out there because it’s not something that is easy to acknowledge or admit to yourself let alone tell anyone else.
As is the nature of practice, a lot of large animal practices (as well as many smallies too) are based very rurally and quite often vets move away from home for their first job at least. We set ourselves up for a struggle – extricating ourselves geographically from friends and family, an all encompassing job that often inhibits regular evening and weekend socialising, a lot of heavy and emotional interactions with people and animals to decompress from.
Am I lonely?
Loneliness is probably experienced by most people at some point in their lives transiently. But more prolonged periods of loneliness is more of a worry. But how do you know? Here are some signs you might be suffering from loneliness:
- You have no close or ‘best’ friends. Your friends connect with you on a more superficial basis, and there isn’t anyone you feel truly knows you inside out or you could rely on in any time of need.
- You feel overwhelmed with the feeling of isolation no matter who you’re surrounded by, whether it be at work, socially, at home, or even just on your commute.
- Feelings of self-doubt and self-worth that you just can’t shake take over much of your life.
- You feel exhausted and burned out either socially or at work.
- This can lead to sleep problems, neglected diet and immunocompromise, depression and/or anxiety.
How to deal with loneliness as a vet?
VetLife is an amazing resource for this and it’s worth reminding everyone reading this that they are available to talk to on the phone anytime night and day if you are really struggling, or even just need to speak to someone who understands! These are some of their suggestions:
Prioritise and nurture connections with family and friends
When you’re busy with work and covering on-call, staying late, and worrying about cases in the evening, it’s definitely easy to forget about chatting to friends and family. Try scheduling phone calls with friends so that they can hold you accountable, and make time to face-time or visit family so that you can really nurture those meaningful connections.
Put yourself out there, even when you don’t want to
Loneliness and isolation can turn into a vicious cycle. Once you’re feeling lonely and probably unhappy because of it, it can be really hard to make yourself get out and socialise. Sometimes just forcing yourself to put yourself out there and try a new hobby or join a new club, can be a great kickstarter to forming new and meaningful connections close to where you live and work. You never know who you might meet, but doing something like a sport or an activity can be a great ice-breaker and similar people to you are likely to be attracted to very similar things!
Use social media with care
We’ve all spiralled into a pit of self-loathing after scrolling through Instagram or LinkedIn for ages. Social media can be an amazing tool at bringing people together, but it can also be incredibly good at making you feel like everyone else is having the best time apart from, and without, you. Set up social media time-limits on your phone or try to send a friend a message via a social media platform each time you go on instead of just scrolling.
Provide support for others
If a new colleague of yours seems to be lacking in confidence or keeping themselves to themselves, try and be a pillar of support for them. You could suggest the team goes out for drinks or a meal, or even just make time to have a meaningful conversation with them in the break room at lunch.
The Bottom Line
On true reflection, loneliness is very likely a lot more common than we think in vets. If you imagine how many new vets graduate and dive off all over the country looking for their first jobs. Your original epicentre of friendship all in one campus is suddenly shattered and before you realise it, you haven’t seen your friends in months and everyone is working so much that it’s impossible to synchronise dates when everyone is free.
Take time to self-reflect and eek out where your feelings of burnout are coming from. Is it just that you need to reconnect with loved ones and build up your support network to feel whole again?
Remember VetLife are there to talk about anything at anytime 🙂
ThisVetCan 