This is quite a long post divided in several chapters, so if you are looking to read the whole thing in one go, please go to the toilet first, get a cup of coffee and sit down in a comfy place before starting to read :)

My story started as a kid that, like many other kids, loved animals. Thus, I had always wanted to become a vet to be able to help them and be around them as much as possible. This dream got me through my school, high-school and university years, and once I was qualified I landed a job almost immediately. After a few years practising in Spain in a fairly quiet practice and some odd locuming in the UK, I felt I was lacking something. It did not seem like I was learning or progressing much in my career, so I decided to start a surgical certificate and, almost at the same time, found a job advert from a practice in the UK that I really liked the look of. So I applied and they said yes, and before I new it, I was living and working there.

Veterinary surgery sign by Matt Seymour

I was very happy and excited about this opportunity that life was giving me, and I worked very hard for very long hours. I had a lot of clinical support from my fellow senior and junior colleagues as well as the nurses and we all got along really well and worked as a team, and I frequently thought I was very lucky for this.

Time went by and I found myself more and more tired with each passing day, to the point that I would not go out with my friends or find the energy to do any physical activity after ten hours straight on my feet. Something wasn’t right and I could feel it in my bones.

After talking to one of my colleagues that was feeling similarly, we decided it was time to speak to our manager and clinical director and explain the situation. I thought I would ask for reduced hours so that I could have some time to decompress and not be constantly exhausted. But our open hearts and our concerns about our mental health were received with a “Well, there’s nothing we can do right now.”. No alternative solutions, no support, nothing. I felt shattered and frustrated, how could the company I had given so much to just look another way when we were begging for help? How could some people have such little understanding about what burnout involves and how important it is to tackle it before it is too late?

Then COVID hit, and the whole world was upside down. People were scared, lonely and angry, and paid many of their frustrations with professionals, vets included. We had to carry ten kilogram cats from the carpark and all around into the practice and take big dogs on the leash that pulled like if their lives depended on it, as owners were not allowed in the building. Carrier after carrier, day after day, serious back pain creeping up. In the meantime, some owners wore a distrustful or grumpy look on their face because they couldn’t come in with their pets. “What is that evil vet going to do with my beloved Peanut while they are in there?”. On the other side, there was no relief for the pressure that built-up. We couldn’t see anybody, We couldn’t do ma!ny of the things we enjoyed. I felt so alone, so fed-up of what my life had become, work-home-sleep-repeat.

If I was burnout before lockdown, that was a different level, and it drove me to meet a couple of new friends called “anxiety” and “depression”. I had always been a nervous person, but anxiety is something different, something deeper, that changes how you perceive, that turns even the most innocuous and harmless thing into a huge, menacing and scary monster. On the other side, for me being depressed meant that nothing excited me or motivated me any more. My routines became rigid and almost compulsive and I would spend most Sundays in a really low mood or directly crying, which at a later point I realised was because I had to start my five days working week all over again. I was barely sleeping and had the sensation that I was auto-piloting most of my days, that a zombie version of myself! had taken over my body and my brain. They were dark times indeed.

We are wrapping up here for now, but if you would like to know how this story continues, please go to the next post of this series!

White cat by Remi Remino