Avoid burnout at all cost

How did you realized it and how did you got out of the death spiral?

So true, took me a year to recover

@Atlas Do you dread going to work even though you love coding, do you struggle to concentrate more than you used to, does thinking about work make you angry or keep you up at night, do you work more than 50 hours a week, do you internalize work failures, do you kill your personal life to meet unrealistic deadlines, are your non-work interests all escapist in nature, have you visibly aged in a short period of time? These were some of the signs for me. I fixed it by getting a new job at a company that believes in a healthy work life balance, and not taking on any private jobs. Know the you work to live and not the other way around!

@cjbatz Phew - yes ._. But i'm self-employed! What to do now?

@Atlas First thing, stop working more than 40 hours a week, Your brain can't handle it and you end up taking longer to do things cos you're tired. Re-prioritize your life. Whats the point of making money if you don't get to enjoy it. Work smarter, not harder. Spend more time planning, and ensure your estimates are realistic and then add on extra time for unexpected fuck-ups. Take up meditation and exercise, stop eating junk food and don't drink more than 3 cups of coffee a day. Long story short, look after your self or you will break.

@Atlas Excellent question and props to @cjbatz for his interpretation which is spot on. I'm no expert on the subject and still influenced by it to be impartial but i would say that burnout manifests itself in various forms and shapes to each individual. I still am in the burnout zone struggling to come out. It's a death spiral, no doubt, health starts to degrade and your "self" does too as consequence. I cannot truly say how to identify the starting point but the solution seems to me that it's basically time and environment. Long story short, working in toxic environments, delusional project managers and stakeholders, loosing the creativeness and becoming a sole executioner...I would say that company finances play an important role and when things get messy, the mess comes down like waterfall. For me, although i'm still in it, i won't make the same mistake again which was moving from a job onto another exactly the next day while burned out without clearing my "body" or heal the hounds.

I've been in this burnout death spiral for a year, and the past three months have been so much worse.

I get woken up very often (2yo...) so I don't get enough sleep, I don't have a quiet or sequestered work environment, I have people constantly bugging me, I'm our sole source of income, the sole developer on all of my projects, and I'm being paid peanuts -- quite literally barely enough to survive. Groceries and bills are often too expensive together, so we forego one to pay the other.

I've been so burned out and stressed that looking for work is extremely difficult and almost painful. So getting out of this is going to be extremely difficult.

On top of this, my family doesn't really do anything. Getting them to even clean is a feat in itself. I know they're stressed, too, but it really does not help our predicament.

@Ashkin I feel you. I've been on this spiral for 3 years and counting and the the first year (2014) was really bad, then i switched jobs while burned out (2015) and although things weren't so bad at the beginning they rapidly became so much worse to the point of thinking that, maybe, the problem was me... I also have a son (7yo) and an unemployed wife, my salary is our only source of income and can say to you that my salary is the same since 2009. Been searching for jobs but without being naive. Most positions I see are for outsourcing and consultancy (same sh!t) and since i'm not that young (over 40yo) I became more selective... But with bills to pay, etc... it ain't easy... it ain't... Only thing i can say, is: keep the faith that better days will come, your 2yo needs you. I'm sure you will get over it. Good luck.