Alison sat at her desk.

She stared at the computer screen. Out the window. At the alerts on her calendar app.

She was done.

Done with everything. Emails. Calls. Presentations. Working harder. Producing more.

Enough.

What am I doing, she wondered? Why aren’t I getting anywhere? Does this even matter?

Maybe you’ve felt that way before. Maybe you’re there right now.

Everything you strive for seems exhausting and never ending.

That feeling that you’ll never regain that old sense of satisfaction or achieve your goals keeps you up at night. Disillusionment about your abilities, usefulness, and lasting impact may even have you wondering, “What’s the point? Do I even matter?”

What is that feeling?

Is it burnout or depression?

How Do You Know if It’s Burnout?

Are you too stressed, sleep deprived, and sick of your everyday grind to care anymore? Are you literally overcome by that “over it” feeling and frustrated to the point of being unable to work?

Sherrie Bourg Carter, Psy.D, author of High Octane Women: How Superachievers Can Avoid Burnout, writes that burnout is a chronic, “insidious” stress state. She and most experts agree that, by itself, burnout is defined by the following experiences:

• Physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion. You may be wrestling with a variety of physiological issues like chronic fatigue and illness that cause you to miss work. Insomnia, anger at co-workers, and forgetfulness or distractibility are common.

• Pervasive cynicism and/or detachment. You may notice a sense of joylessness in your work or a desire to withdraw from coworkers and anything work related.

• Feelings of ineffectiveness and a lack of accomplishment. You may feel immobilized or unproductive at work. Nothing seems to go right and what you are able to accomplish feels insignificant.

How Do You Know It’s Depression?

Are you dealing with feelings that are more general and relentless?

Are feelings of personal worthlessness and hopelessness creeping into everything? Are negative rumination, low self-esteem, and low mood taking over?

Depression symptoms are very similar to burnout, but they aren’t confined to your occupation. You may feel sick or fatigued all the time. You may withdraw from everyone or feel that no one wants to be with you. Your perfectionism or feelings of never measuring up may extend to your relationships and once pleasurable activities, not just climbing the ladder at work.

Could it Be Both?

Maybe what’s going on inside you is just not very easily sorted between burnout or depression. That’s okay.

If you feel like you’ve got signs of both conditions chasing each other around in your brain and body, science is catching up to you. Research indicates that the two maladies aren’t as separate as doctors and therapists once thought.

A 2016 study, published in “Personality and Individual Differences” found that burnout is linked to a “depressive cognitive style.” Essentially, the findings show that burnout is more than just exhaustion-based stress, it’s also rooted in ways of thinking known to be connected to depression.

A similar study, conducted in 2014, surveyed nearly 1400 teachers, three quarters of whom were female, across 18 US states. Having careers averaging almost 14 and half years, with ages falling around their early- to mid-40s, every study subject reporting burnout also reported depression-like symptoms too. Every one.

In fact, many of the teachers surveyed in the second study claimed they were feeling uncontrollably perfectionistic and unable to meet very high personal standards. They were constantly focused on challenges and problems, experienced constant fatigue, and lived blanketed in a pessimistic frame of mind, among other depressive thought patterns. No way for a teacher to do her best work or feel good about herself.

This is no way for you to operate either. So, if you’re frustrated with work and feeling unbearably sad in general, you’re not alone. Depression and burnout often go hand in hand.

Burnout or Depression

Whatever you’re experiencing doesn’t have to be labeled one or the other.

Neither burnout or depression have the right to call the shots for you professionally or personally.

The most important thing is that you get your life back.

Pleasure, positivity, and productivity needn’t remain out of reach.

Call on a therapist or counselor you trust. Let someone knowledgeable help you feel better and live better soon.