Pushed out of career because of mental deterioration?

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Pushed out of career because of mental deterioration?

Question: Has anyone here had to leave a high-paying career because they mentally couldn’t cut it any more? This could be happening to me.

I have found my current project at work to be very difficult because of ever-changing product requirements and many, many changes in the details of the product’s implementation. My boss has noticed that I’m not completely keeping up and has even pointed out areas where I thought things were ok, but are not up to her standards. Fortunately, she is supportive, telling me she has faith in me, and giving me some extensions on internal department deadlines. She has drafted one of my colleages, who is also heavily burdened, to help out.

Unfortunately, I can see this is part of an emerging pattern in my recent life.

Three years ago, at another employer, I was put on probation because my work had become sloppy. I had been there too long and my heart wasn’t in it, I’ll admit. But even when threatened with firing, I found I was having difficulty in staying focussed and paying attention to detail.

I moved on to another place where the boss thought the sun shone out of my ass. But the office closed within 9 months and I never got to complete a major project. While I was there, I went to a doctor for the first time in 15 years. My complaint: I feel mentally tired and burnt out — is there something wrong with me? Well, the doctor did the standard tests and said I was in good health, but if my symptoms persisted that I might want to be evaluated for depression.

I have self-medicated with St. John’s Wort for winter depression ever since. I have added Valerian root in the past year to counteract the agitated, almost panicky state that sometimes makes it hard to think clearly and be focussed at work.

The only relief for my symptoms was a period of unemployment. I take that as a hint that I need less stressful work. My current plan calls for me to keep up the high-paid high-tech work for just four more years to get mortgage-free. Now I’m doubting my ability to make it.

I’m thinking of checking out my company’s employee assistance plan. Perhaps I can see a shrink for free. I know he can’t prescribe less work for the same pay but perhaps there are some drugs that could help keep me going for the few more years of mental high-performance I need.

Has anyone here had the sort of problem I describe? Did you find anything that helped? Is a shrink the right professional to see, or should I be looking somewhere else?

Answer: Skill sets change as we age. Nothing is fixed, but I’ve seen this or similar patterns in many people: The young have physical stamina and tolerance to wide extremes, slightly older folks have more drive, then comes that combination of mental acuity and focus that is so highly prized in the tech fields, then comes a more candid self-examination and examination of immediate life, then examination of the world and hopefully a wisdom that creates a natural state of zen, followed by babbling, drooling, and incontinence.

The physical stamina of older people is generally assumed to be less than their younger counterparts, even though some oldsters are stronger and in better health than their offspring. The same goes for mental stamina. Some people, who exercise their brains regularly, continue to grow shaper as they age. Others may have medical or other problems that work against them.

Mental acuity and depression seemed to be linked in the minds of western medicine. I’m not sure if that link is always true. Depression can create lethargy, which is often confused with mental dullness. A lot of (non-chemical or biological) depression can be traced to repressed anger or inappropriate coping strategies.

Examining your personal goals is almost always a good thing. A psychologist or psychiatrist can help you do that, and sometimes all that is needed is a good book or two. Check on Amazon for “Feeling Good” by Burns. This is an older book aimed at the lay person and could be a lot cheaper than a psychiatrist for minor issues. Be aware that if you use a psychiatrist, some of the common meds used to treat depression increase mental fog rather than lifting it. If you do try other meds, be sure to evaluate them on your own terms, and not those of the psychiatrist.

There are a couple of big downsides to seeing a psychiatrist. First is the cost. Your plans for early pay-off of a mortgage can be seriously set back by the cost of seeing a shrink regularly, and insurance is often limited for therapy. The other more subtle cost is the stigma that still lingers in many fields against those who have sought out a psychiatrist. Unless you are in the entertainment or publishing industries, where you aren’t taken seriously unless you’ve had years of therapy, such actions are best done without any employer or co-worker learning about it. While it is technically illegal to discriminate based on something like this, it can have a bad effect on careers, security clearances, and the ability to get insurance in the future.

There is always the possibility of one or more physical causes for reduced brain function. Sleep apnea or lost sleep, poor diet, excessive alcohol intake, drugs, buildup of cholesterol in arteries leading to the brain, etc. can all cause problems. Sitting in front of a computer monitor or a television can also cause problems. As an example, I’ve found that it is easier for me to outline a core program psuedo-code on a yellow legal pad than it is to input it directly into the programming environment or a word processor. Is it the refresh rate of the monitor affecting me somehow? Is it the brightness of the screen, or is it years of schoolwork done on writing pads having some hidden effect? I don’t know, I just know that is how I work.

Brain boosters like ginkgo and vinpocetin work for some people. My wife relies on one of these and it does wonders, but each person is different and the effects of different formulas may vary. I don’t like to product endorse a particular brand of OTC supplements in a newsgroup or forum. Email me if you are interested in the one that works for her (she has tried many others with only limited success.)

Be aware that many of these products are blood thinners by nature, and may increase bleeding or interact with other medications, however they might be the easiest way to tweak your system before you get disgusted with the dog eat dog world of some work environments.

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Pushed out of career because of mental deterioration?

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