5 Signs That You Might Be Experiencing Fertility Treatment-Related Burnout (And What To Do About It)
Written By: Michelle Kapler R.Ac R.TCMP
Seeking fertility treatment is more than just physical treatment, it’s emotional and mental. As you progress in your treatment plan, you may experience hope, despair, anticipation, uncertainty, excitement, sadness, and many other emotions. Each step, each test, and each result can stir up a whirlwind of emotions, making you feel isolated even in the most supportive environments.
Building a family can take an enormous toll, leading to what I recognize as fertility burnout. In this article, I’m going to share five signs that indicate you’re experiencing fertility treatment-related burnout and how you can begin to heal from it. Let’s get started.
Defining Fertility Burnout: 5 Signs You’re Experiencing It
The term “burnout” is a real buzzword these days, meaning it’s thrown around in magazines, the news, and on social media. But what does it mean?
Most often, the term is used in relation to someone’s career. While the term burnout is defined broadly across different sources, it generally refers to a sense of sadness or loss of control and is indicated by a loss of interest, investment, or drive at work. However, I believe burnout can be experienced in other contexts as well, like with fertility.
The following five signs come from a combination of the World Health Organization’s formal definition of burnout and signs I’ve gathered from when working with fertility patients over the years. They are:
1. Physical Fatigue
Specifically, I’m referring to physical fatigue and exhaustion that persists despite having plenty of quality rest. Physical fatigue that results from fertility-related burnout occurs regardless of when you took your last vacation, how much you slept in this weekend, and even if you’ve taken a brief break from fertility treatment.
2. Cynicism and/or Detachment
Cynicism and/or detachment refers to a negative outlook on everything, especially in regard to your fertility treatment. Thoughts that indicate your feeling cynical or detached may include:
“This just isn’t going to work.”
"There must be something wrong with me."
“Maybe I’m just not meant to have a baby.”
"Everyone else makes it look so easy. Why can't I?"
"I feel so alone in this; nobody truly understands."
3. Thoughts of Lack of Accomplishment
Feelings of lack of accomplishment are the last sign I’ve derived from the World Health Organization’s burnout definition. But what does this mean in the context of fertility treatment?
Within the journey of fertility treatments, milestones are often overshadowed by the overarching goal of conceiving. As a result, even as you make progress, the emotional weight of not achieving your desired outcome can intensify feelings of stagnation, regression, and failure. Often, it can mean experiencing thoughts like this, “I’ve been doing this for 2 years with nothing to show for it…”
4. A Decline in Emotional Resilience
This symptom can be different for everyone, but in general, it suggests your emotional battery is constantly on low, making it challenging to navigate daily tasks and interactions with the same vigor as before. This diminished emotional capacity can be a direct outcome of the ongoing stress and anticipation related to fertility treatments. In my experience, this is expressed in one of three ways:
“Your patience is thin.” You may notice this if you’re constantly snapping at your partner, people at work, and even the fertility clinic staff.
Emotional expressions are exhausting. Whether you’re experiencing angry or sad emotional outbursts, these outbursts tend to deplete your energy for the rest of the day.
Anxiety and emotions are high. Contrary to what a decline in emotional resilience might suggest, you may experience increased emotions or anxiety.
5. Isolation
Isolation is a deep emotional response to overwhelming feelings. This sign is indicated when you withdraw from social interactions that once fit within your “normal.” The weight of the fertility journey can sometimes make even familiar settings feel daunting or taxing. This may manifest as avoiding gatherings with friends, sidestepping family get-togethers, choosing to eat alone at work, or even finding reasons to distance from your partner at home. Such behaviors aren't just about seeking solitude; they often signal a deeper struggle with processing the emotional roller coaster of fertility treatments.
Bonus: Numbing with “Substances”
There is one final sign I’d like to address, and that's the tendency to seek refuge in “substances” as a way to numb or escape the overwhelming emotions tied to fertility challenges. While the term "substance" might instantly bring to mind alcohol or drugs, it's important to expand our understanding. Beyond the traditional realm of substance abuse, it also encompasses behaviors that offer temporary distractions or comforts, like binge-watching Netflix, excessive social media usage, emotional eating, or retail therapy.
These behaviors may seem harmless on the surface, but they can be indicative of an underlying attempt to avoid confronting our deeper emotions and feelings. While turning to these behaviors doesn’t necessarily mean you’re experiencing fertility burnout, they can be red flags. You’ll want to look deeper at what you’re feeling and why in order to determine whether these behaviors are associated with your fertility treatment or if they’re related to another concern like depression or even work-related burnout.
How to Heal from Burnout
Now that you’re aware of the signs of fertility burnout, let’s look at three ways you can begin to recover.
1. Focus on What You Can Control
Pay attention to what you can control rather than what you cannot control. Fertility treatments are inherently stressful. They can be uncomfortable and invasive. There can be months of waiting and strong feelings of loss of control. But, you can control how you talk and think about yourself as you navigate the fertility treatment process.
This is not to say that you shouldn’t feel your negative feelings. It’s crucial that you process these feelings, but when you have negative thoughts and feelings, you want to make sure that you question them and ask yourself, “Is this actually true?” Allowing these negative thoughts to go unchecked will lead to burnout over time.
2. Avoid Overly-Restrictive Mindsets
Tread lightly with your lists of health and wellness initiatives. These are the things you use to “optimize fertility.” This includes fertility diets, fertility yoga, fertility supplements, and certain lifestyle practices. Then there’s the list of things you “can’t” do, like “don’t exercise too much,” “don’t eat this,” and “don’t get too stressed out.”
To be clear, I’m not advocating that you shouldn’t live a healthy lifestyle. But more often than not, people use these stringent lists against themselves, turning them into a prescriptive fantasy. In creating this fantasy, patients can put themselves in a scenario where they’re constantly disappointed with themselves.
I’m here to tell you that there isn’t one simple action that you can mess up that will cause your entire treatment to fail. So yes, do what you can to the best of your ability, but meet yourself where you’re at—and know there isn’t any one thing you can do to make fertility treatment work perfectly.
3. Have Your Own Back
There are a ton of decisions to be made in the fertility process. And the most challenging part of making these decisions is that there are usually equally good reasons for your decision to go in either direction.
Sure, your doctor can make the best guess, but ultimately it comes down to what you’re feeling up for. And what people fear most is making the wrong decision. But guess what? There is no such thing as the wrong decision. That’s because there is no way to know what the future holds. No one could ever know where Decision A will lead over Decision B. So my suggestion here is to make the decision to the best of your ability with the knowledge you currently have and then have your own back, no matter what the outcome is.
Final Thoughts
In the challenging journey of fertility treatments, it's essential to be vigilant about our mental and emotional well-being. Recognizing the signs of fertility treatment-related burnout is the first step to seeking the support and interventions that can help.
Book for clinical care with one of our mental health support clinicians for individualized support.