burnout vs. depression

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I hate feeling like I'm whining, so ... I have, um, *this friend* who suddenly snapped and has felt exhausted and apathetic towards everything the past few days. More than just tired. She was stressed out this weeked from being stuck by herself in her apartment for two days without running water, electric, a phone, her car, etc, thanks to Hurricane Irene and it may have triggered something.

She now has no energy to do anything and doesn't care about anything. She has lost energy she needs to act normal at work by making conscious efforts to make eye contact, modulate her tone of voice, be polite and ladylike, act like loud noises don't bother her, etc. She feels like she has suddenly been hit by a Mack truck full of autism and will probably be fired if she keeps this up. And, things in life she'd been frustrated with, but had just accepted she'll have to deal with, have started feeling like huge, insurmountable obstacles. Really hungry, can't sleep, can't concentrate.

I'm realize the two overlap a lot, but how do you tell the difference between burnout and depression? I suddenly feel the need to address some things in my life that have been going bad for a while and think it could help me figure out where to start, if I could get a handle on exactly what I'm actually experiencing.

Just to clarify, since I got PM's from people who were wondering what the heck I was talking about, the 'friend' mentioned above really is me, lol. Sorry.

I don't really know the difference between the two, but like you, the manifestations are really similar.

I don't know about any remedy except for time, but I can usually force a "reboot" with a complete change of surroundings. When my kids moved 50 miles away last year, I ended up in eastern Europe for two weeks

Maybe you could go visit relatives or take a road trip or something?

Anyway, hope you feel better soon...

I don't know if this is true for everyone, but to me burnout is like being zombified -- where it's hard to have any thoughts at all. -- Whereas, depression is having depressing thoughts that constantly go around and around in my mind.

It's probably possible to be burned out and depressed at the same time, though.

I guess I'm in the 'zombified' mode, but in hindsight a lot of this stuff has been building for a while and it's got to be a mix of the two.

I have the bad habit of dis-engaging from what I'm feeling on a day-to-day basis until I get to a bad point, but really, that coping mechanism is what keeps me going a lot of days! So, I think I need to get back into keeping a journal and start thinking about things I'd rather push aside and that'll go a long way towards helping me figure some things out.

A change of scenery couldn't hurt, too, Grisha, and I was planning on doing a little hiking along the Chesapeake over Labor Day, so that might help clear my head. Not as grand as a trip to Europe, but still fun and probably a little better-suited to my budget right now.

Hang in there, BlueRoses...right now it's tough, but you never know what's on the horizon. Sorry to hear that you've been stranded due to Irene. But things will get better. Give it a few more days.

Btw, I've been there too. Been in a deep funk that I am now coming out of, but it's taken me weeks to feel better about stuff. I do know how it feels to just want to hide away from all the stressful stuff. Hope you feel better soon!

The two biggest differences between burnouts and depression are: how long it lasts (a week or two vs. months at least) and how you feel (zombie-fied and exhausted, mentally or physically, vs. having repeating dark, depressing thoughts running through the mind). Other than that, they're the same to me - you still feel crappy.

And yes, they can exist together, and I'm living proof of it. I have had a depression issue for god-only-knows how long, and every single semester of college around midterms and finals, I get totally burned out as well. I'm more exhausted than usual, and though I still do have many depressing things going through my mind, usually I just feel like a creature out of Resident Evil.

I think your best resources here are nutrition and sleep, with nutrition especially brainfood and stuff with high poly/monounsaturated fat - without those two a lot of things can stack up toward burnout. That and, when you're home, you need to have something - anything - that you can give yourself to with abandon that recharges you. Depression's not really cureable obviously unless the causes are, the bright side - if you find ways to bring your energy back you feel like you have less to stress about over immediate performance issues.