2025 s Been a Ride a Different Kind of Engine Failure

[vaud]

OK, PH, go easy on me. 2025 has been, erm, interesting so far.

This is hard to share and write, probably the hardest post in my time on PH, but also important to share and makes my recovery easier.

[To those that know me in real life, please respect the anonymity of PH ]

From 2020 - lockdown, my mother died suddenly, young kids with schooling disrupted, extreme hours with work, etc led to burn out in 2022- a few weeks away from work and I felt ok. Had some negative thoughts (would dream that my boss was knocking on the door of my hotel on holiday, etc) but thought I was just tired. Got back into the role.

And then last year, I was working very hard, my wife was working away 2-3 days per week on business, 2 kids in primary and early secondary school. Both neurodivergent in their own ways (nothing major; need some extra support). Also the need to feed them, do household stuff, be dad taxi for sports, etc and work silly hours in a very pressured job (evening work, weekends, etc). I work for a very large global company doing hard stuff for the executive and their team. No time for me .

Then, last September/October I started to have:

• Very severe anxiety attacks, especially in crowded / noisy places or with sirens (maybe a connection back to ambulances for my mother)
• A degree of psychosis - nightmares that I couldn t separate from reality - hyper realistic dreams of the death of my children, wife, friends, and in the dreams I was powerless to help. I d be dreaming that I was reading the messages on my phone explaining what happened to them - and then I d wake up and have to check my phone that they were not real. That lead to a fear of going to sleep, and even less sleep, which becomes a vicious circle. The brain needs REM sleep to do stuff.
• Severe depression leading to suicidal thoughts.

So work was a factor - I thought it was the cause and that I was weak and to blame.

I had my doctor (who is awesome, very lucky) sign me off for a few weeks and I took time out in Spain in November. I thought I just need a break and sunshine - it will help - It didn t. It was quiet, but the nightmares were getting worse. In Spain whilst walking I was thinking I could just step off this mountain path and no-one would miss me; the dreams would be gone .

I came back and saw my doctor and they immediately signed me off, running some tests and checking if I was suicidal on a repeated basis.

I had some tests and then 5 months off from work until April 2025 - adjusting to an array of chemical assistance to find the right balance, plus CBT and related therapy which has helped.

It wasn t about work or home, it was my brain unable to process and keep balance. So the work and home stress contributed, but it wasn t the cause. I have a defect of serotonin, which is a rather important brain chemical

At the moment I am on a high dose of Sertraline, which seems to work. Don t mind if I never stop using it.

I m now in a much better place and now on a phased return to work in a different role about 80% now, but no evening or weekend work/emails. Work have been good about it to their credit. Week by week at the moment rather than day by day.

So today:

Upsides:

• I ve stopped drinking coffee and only one cup of tea a day in the morning. Helps the sleep.
• Can have fun with family and work - and engage with a more positive approach. Life is worth living.
• I don t mind about work as much as I did. I m still dedicated and giving my effort in the week, but f**k weekend working...
• Talking with colleagues openly, it is alarming how many people have been through something similar (in various degrees) and talking seems to help us all.

Downsides

• Side effects for the drugs can be bad at first but stabilise over time. Still have a few side effects but manageable. The brain fizz of the first few weeks of Sertraline is erm, interesting but does settle. If I miss a dose then I feel it. As the doctor said, never come off it in winter.
• Can t eat anything spicy as it has a really(really) bad impact on my digestive system (which is also a downer as I loved spicy foods)
• Mental health (I think maybe more for men and for senior leaders) is a last taboo - viewed as a sign of weakness. Trying to counter that with work engagement and posts like this.
• Looking across my sector the burn out rates at all grades are alarming. Not many executive role models saying that they have issues; by the nature of stats some must have similar challenges.

I now understand a lot more about brain chemistry (intellectual brain vs primitive brain, and the chemicals involved) Sometimes your brain chemistry evolves over time and combined with stresses, well, stuff happens.

So folks take care of your brain folks! It s a complex wee beastie. I

Edited by vaud on Tuesday 10th June 07:41

[numtumfutunch]

Very well done and huge respect for sharing

Best wishes from me

[Hoofy]

Yep, look after your mental health! Glad you're on the mend.

[WyrleyD]

I can relate to everything you have said. i had a very bad time in Summer 1997 where something in my brain just stopped working right. Terrible insomnia and vivid dreams on the few nights I did sleep, this went on for over a year before my GP reckoned I had a serotonin problem. As the main issue was not sleeping, sometimes for a week at a time, he put me on Temazepam for two months then tailed those off over a period and went on Amitriptyline for about 9 years before I could gradually come off those too when I felt OK. Still have bouts of insomnia and vivid dreams at times but I can cope with that now with the occasional heavy duty sleeping pill when I get desperate.

[danb79]

Well done for sharing and thank you; life can be shtty at times!

I'm also on sertraline, but 50mg a day and coming off it currently as I'm emotionally blunted because of it and need to be able to process my Dad's prostate cancer stage 4 diagnosis we got a week or so back; at the moment I'm numb to it and that's not like me at all

Had to start taking it back in Oct due to my own health issues/battles dragging me down, the worry about my Dad (and Mum) and also some internal politics crap I got dragged into at work, even though I work from home & I'm in a different country (I got that sorted soon enough and they learned not to drag me into stuff like that there & then)!

Hopefully OP you'll be back to some what the normal you soon enough; keep talking though and don't care at all what folk may think; put you & yours first above all. As you said too; when you start talking to people, it's amazing how many can relate or have experienced similar etc

[GloverMart]

Just wanted to wish you all the luck in the world, Vaud. Have exchanged posts with you over the years and found you to be a sensible, decent poster on here and that makes me slightly more invested in your recovery than if I'd never noticed you.

Take care of yourself, thanks for sharing, and please keep sharing.

[Earthdweller]

You'll be fine Vaud

It will take time but you WILL come back to being yourself with a new awareness of what triggers you

I collapsed at work back in 2008, a gibbering wreck in the corner when I hit the stress overload

I was off work for 9 months and a complete wreck, but slowly it cam back and now I'm fine

It took probably 3 years for me to fully get myself back

But now I know my triggers

Best advice I can give is

Don't worry about things you can't control


Wishing you all the best

[bmwmike]

Thanks OP for sharing. Some of that I could have written myself - loss of a parent a few years ago and not really getting over that, but recently getting anxiety which i've never had before, and triggering fight or flight when in noisy or busy surroundings which sends tinnitus off the scale in both ears and i just have to get away from wherever it is. I can't go anywhere noisy lately. Luckily i work from home full time, but its concerning and maybe i should get that checked. Thanks again for sharing as its bound to help lots of others.

[ComStrike]

Well done on putting it down & posting

I had a cluster f**k of a year in 2024 so can echo the comments above

Keep pushing

[vaud]

bmwmike said:

Thanks OP for sharing. Some of that I could have written myself - loss of a parent a few years ago and not really getting over that, but recently getting anxiety which i've never had before, and triggering fight or flight when in noisy or busy surroundings which sends tinnitus off the scale in both ears and i just have to get away from wherever it is. I can't go anywhere noisy lately. Luckily i work from home full time, but its concerning and maybe i should get that checked. Thanks again for sharing as its bound to help lots of others.

Fight or flight is basically your primitive brain taking over, rather than your intellectual brain that is mostly in control. I found a great therapist who spent the first parts of my sessions educating me about my brain, it's chemistry and how you can try to retrain it, as well as giving me distraction techniques to reset myself when I find anxiety creeping up.

Seeing your GP and/or finding a good therapist might be worth a try.

[vaud]

Thank you all for your kind words. Means a lot. It's honestly the hardest thing I have ever been through.

[dhutch]

Not much I can add, other than echo the above.
Fair play for sharing, and as you have said yourself, its more common than you might think.



Leave it there is you want, Else if you want a bit of a share, while hopefully I am now broadly out the other side of it, I was a good way along that track last summer.


Lots going on, but a lot of it was loss of family, and burn out with young children, as well as a drawn out battle with work to switch to four day working (80% hours 80% pay) as a method of balancing the above, and it turned out undiagnosed adhd just to add to the mix.
Had a load of time off, like 9 weeks or so, two consecutive summers. On reasonable dose of Fluoxetine (40mg) having already all but completely dropped alcohol and caffeine long before.

Don't think I was ever at a black and white suicide risk due to the awareness of what havoc that would lead behind, but I certainly was aware of the attractiveness, and taking excessive risk in my day to day life.
First time I went off I just broke down at work, ended up emailing the office 'mental health first aider' and just fell to bits in floods of tears, thought I would be back in work a week later, but ended up 9weeks off, getting the meds sorted an recovering, shes left now but fortunately at the time we had an amazing woman in Occ Health who totally got it and walked my through the process of not coming back too soon. The following summer I was trying to get support proactively but that time it ended in me running down a steep grass bank at work rather than use the carpark stairs, which got me hauled in for review!

Opted to come of the tablets this spring, partly because the heartburn, partly the loss of libdo and general bounce, and touch wood while there are some ups and downs this summer is much better. Taking plenty of holiday, just had a week annual leave at home with my wife and 3yo. And also refinding my dive at work having secured the 4day working and also a new and much improved line manager.


Look after yourself.

[RDMcG]

Your approach is incredibly positive and I feel sure that you are succeeding in your journey. It is true that mental illness of any kind is a bit of a taboo, despite the fact that it is just another form of illness.

Agreed it is more common that we realize, and I suspect it is much harder when you are male. In my experience women frequently have support mechanisms and are far more likely to communicate with their friends and support group, whereas most men ( guilty here) try to deal with things alone. I have not suffered the illness you described but I hope I would approach it as you have.

Very best for your continuing recovery but you are well on the way.

[breakfan]

A lot of what you've written resonates heavily with me and I can totally sympathize. I had a mega burnout in July 2020 - my life now has a clear "before" and "after" that day - it was like I'd been injected with the chemical of anxiety and depression, having never experienced those before. I'm still recovering but to be fair I wasted at least 2 years taking a passive approach (hoping it would just go away) and not dealing with the underlying issues. It sounds like you are being more pro-active which incidentally is probably my number one piece of advice - you have to get on the front foot and ACTIVELY deal with it. A big part of this is educating yourself, as you've already identified it is super helpful to understand the mind/body connections and will make the physical symptoms less scary. Sport is an absolute non-negotiable, you have to exercise. You also have to be prepared to reassess every aspect of your life (habits, diet, alcohol... everything) and not take "well I've always done that and it’s been fine" as a valid excuse - perhaps your body has changed and it’s not fine anymore. CBT helped me greatly with the suicidal thoughts. And for the insomnia (the absolute worst of all my physical symptoms) I was prescribed a small dose of mirtazapine (not without its side effects but sorted my sleep right out, I'm now off it).

I could write a book about this stuff, its been the greatest challenge of my life but there are some positives to draw from it all. Made me more compassionate that's for sure, everyone is fighting their own battle.

Edited by breakfan on Tuesday 10th June 17:26

[vaud]

numtumfutunch, Hoofy, WyrleyD, danb79, GloverMart, Earthdweller, bmwmike, ComStrike, dhutch, RDMcG, breakfan, and all

Thank you all. Much appreciated.

Thanks for listening to my ramblings. Been a long day.

Edited by vaud on Wednesday 11th June 07:23

[shed driving]

I've been plagued by vivid dreaming for roughly 18 months, vivid dreams indistingushable from reality, I'm waking up knackered. Can't find any cause for them but they're having a bad effect. Has the medication stopped the dreaming? Mine are not nighmares or scary but they're leaving me fatigued. If I don't dream I feel fine the next day, wish I could stop them.

[vaud]

Yes, over time it has and I get a block of 7hrs sleep without dreams.

The vivid dreams were appalling and at points I was too tired to function and yet afraid to go to sleep. Took about a month of Sertraline, but there are other options that are more sedative in effect and were given to me as an option.

A GP can do a phone consultation with you and will ask you a series of questions to give an approximation of anxiety/depression. It’s okay to have bad dreams, all part of your brain processing the day, but as in my case it had gone to an extreme.

[Rayny]

I've just come across your post.
It sounds as though you are through the worst, and are now improving.
Much more is now known about the brain than was known fifty years ago.
Keep well.

[vaud]

Rayny said:

I've just come across your post.
It sounds as though you are through the worst, and are now improving.
Much more is now known about the brain than was known fifty years ago.
Keep well.

Thank you

I've learned a lot about brain chemistry in recent months - things I wish I had been taught at school.

Talking to my daughters teacher (daughter is 7) they do "happy minds" which includes a lot of teaching about the brain and the various chemicals / fight vs flight, etc.

Hopefully the next generation will be better equipped as god knows they are going to need it...

[shed driving]

In my case I find medicinal alcohol reduces or stops the dreams to the extent I can feel rested and productive the next day - compared to being otherwise knackered after enduring vivid dreams all night. Perhaps there's a link to substances (alcohol) in my case. Does this ring any bells?