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Healing from knee surgery — and from burnout
How healing from ACL surgery helped me finally heal from burnout, too.
Today is exactly two years since I had ACL replacement surgery. A lot has changed since then. I was living in Orange County, California. I was in an unhappy marriage. My husband was away for three months for work, so I was mainly alone. Luckily, the surgery was on my left knee, which meant I could still drive (see semi-gratuitous photo of Ruby, my beloved Mustang, above) to my daily rehab sessions and get groceries.
I wasn’t allowed to work while I was in the States due to visa restrictions. So, after that surgery I focused on two things: healing my knee, and researching and writing about burnout.
My curiosity about the latter was sparked by my own burnout: the one I’d never really healed from. For years, I avoided thinking or talking about what I’d been through. I’d tell people, “I came close to burning out,” explaining that what I’d experienced was a close shave rather than total burnout.
This was a lie. I told it for my own benefit. Inside, I still felt ashamed. I made a bargain with myself: If I didn’t really burn out, I didn’t really fail.
Finally, I realized that to heal from burnout, I had to accept and process what I’d been through. It would…
