The parent is making a distinct difference between what the industry typically refers to as "burnout" and what actual, physical, burnout is. As someone who has gone through phases of burnout and currently working through yet another one in my career I can attest the parent's definition IS the correct one.
You are not burned out when you are bored at work. You are burned out when you are so tired of doing something that you cannot bring yourself to not only do it, but anything else. When you need drugs to get through the day. It's a combination of depression/anxiety/fear of failure that manifests as what I can only describe as a feeling of wanting to disconnect from everything forever and sleep. The only solution is to disconnect for a long time. I, for example, have not programmed as a hobby in almost half a decade. It's the only way I can stave off repeated bouts of severe life crippling burnout.
Be far less sensitive. Also, perhaps you should try to experience burnout before a needlessly pedantic out-of-nowhere virtue signal.
As with all mental health issues, there is no clear line between "fake" and "actual, physical". It's a spectrum. Even small amounts of stress and boredom create physical responses.
I have Bipolar disorder and I will happily admit that anyone can suffer depression & mania symptoms, and that the difference between what they suffer and I suffer is one of magnitude and not one of categorical difference.
The article author sounded a little bit burned out. You were/are severely burned out. Is there something wrong with saying it like that?
Unrelated, read both of these statements and tell me you don't see irony:
> Be far less sensitive.
> Also, perhaps you should try to experience burnout before a needlessly pedantic out-of-nowhere virtue signal
What I'm saying is that it's especially easy to get caught up in this mindset when discussing mental health topics. The existence of "real" burnout artificially introduces the concept of "fake" burnout.
Let's be clear, the concept of burnout and worn out is more compassionate, descriptive, and most importantly has the important consequence that I'm interested in avoiding: not turning into a who has it worse spiral that ultimately ends in people with burnout not being able to identify it because someone else has it worse.
It's this class of false negative that I believe is important to have a conversation about. These people often go unnoticed, because despite having burnout will not identify it as such because someone has it worse.
I get that you're interested in the false positive case, and that's fair. I understand that if too many people misidentify worn out as burnout that it can make burnt out people feel like people aren't able to understand their circumstances as severe, but I trust you'll consider both types of error as important and deserving the attention they do.
The parent is saying "I broke my ankle - fractured in several places I was crippled and needed surgery you did not experience a broken ankle". You cannot fix this problem by icing it. You need a systemic reduction in everything.
The author is conflating a sprained ankle with a broken one. The parent is saying that is not true. A lot of people who have sprained their ankles have come into this topic to tell everyone "WELL ACKTHUALLY" in the most obnoxiously stereotypical HN way possible thereby diluting the actual meaning of the parent's statement. There are far too many HNers who have a permanent craniorectal issue.
> If you can be restored from simply doing a different task, then its not real burnout.
You're not wrong, it's just that you seem not to realize this statement was a "well actually", probably because you happen to agree with it.
I do get what GP is trying to say though. I just believe its all the same and "small burnout" can be fixed with small tricks.
I hope you see where this eventually leads, because it's a common pattern when discussing mental health topics. There is a single instance of the "true" thing and no one else feels justified in taking care of themselves because someone else has it worse. I'm sorry that you had burnout, but there are better ontologies of burnout than drawing the line around your experience as "real".