I had a breakdown once

This blog is a bit different, and I hope it is not too depressing. I guess I hope someone can see a bit of themself and learn something which might make a real difference.
My breakdown happened when I was 40, in millennium year, when I was living in Norway. I had six weeks or so not even allowed to think about work, then another six gradually getting back to normal. Those 50 odd days sick leave represent I guess 90% of the total sick leave in 25 years.
The immediate cause was a failing project where I got stuck in position where I was personally in a trap: desperate to defend a subordinate who was being abused, passionate about an outcome while convinced of the right approach and personal potential to have a decisive impact, working for a client who needed a crisis to be able to reset the dial, managed by some gutless leaders, expected to conform to generally daft set of solutions. Then just doubling the pressure on myself week after week, while feeling more and more tired and, of course, performing more and more terribly.
The longer term cause was a travel schedule from hell (and I suppose my physical lack of stamina to withstand it). Two years living in Norway but spending about three working days per month there plus weekends (largely asleep after getting home at 2am on Saturday morning and departing again 4.30am Monday morning...sorry family), and in between hopping between European cities like a gadfly. I don't blame Shell for this (though it is food for thought how sustainable business requiring this can be) - I brought it on myself. This two years came after many more years similar but less extreme. The exhaustion just built up, drip, drip.
Of course, while work was going well and I had full confidence, the exhaustion was masked. Put the short term cause and the long term one together and you get trouble. Lesson - if you have such a schedule and think you are fine with it, consider that this may collapse if something goes wrong.
Symptoms (more lessons) were mainly about sleep pattens and metabolic level. Sleep was all over the place: total nothing like normal or enough, usually in three hour bursts, and not always in nights. In between was sometimes lethargy, but more normally hyperactivity: I am sure that would have been obvious in my eyes and in my behaviour. It only took two weeks to go from "OK" to "Crisis".
On Monday 18th September, 2000, I flew to London for some crappy meetings in Shell Centre. At about midday I walked into the medical centre there and announced that I thought I was ill. I hadn't really premeditated it. I remember the act as being incredibly hard (what am I doing to my career, what I am admitting about myself) and rather easy (inevitable, nowhere else to go). Maybe it was a bit like announcing to a partner of 30 years that you were leaving them, not because of a younger model or anything, just because you are at the end of the line. Luckily I've been spared that one (the breakdown actually was something that really solidified an already solid partnership), but it feels right. The welcome from the doctors felt like crossing the Berlin Wall. They behaved as though they had just spared another soul from a life of captivity, knowing that there were thousands out there just out of reach. They were great. Norwegian doctors were even better. Many colleagues were great too - the old cliche about finding out who your real friends are holds true. Advice: if you are at the end of the line, take the action, get off the train!
What happened next? I felt a bit of a plonker filling days doing nothing, but soon enough metabolism stabilised and sleep patterns returned. Rejoining work was easy in the end - I think partly because I didn't feel much guilt or feeling of failure.
As for Shell's more formal response, two bits of good news and one of bad.
Good news one is the human reaction of the Shell family. I've always said that the single best thing about Shell is that when Shell people see a colleague in real travel, thay will respond with great humanity. That is a precious precious asset for all of us.
Bad news was that certain individuals took the opportunity the following year to basically condemn my upwards career - crap IPF (I'm convince that 2000 was actually one my top three performance years), downgraded CEP, put under pressure to get out fast. I resent this and it is a shame that systems were not mature enough to see through two vindictive people and two other rather weak ones. So be it, in the end actually this has also led to the best outcomes for me as well.
Good news two was that, having done that, collective guilt kicked in, and I was sorted out through some old boys networking into a reasonable new job; a job for which my match in competence was pretty close to zero. I'm really grateful for some people for that. Not least because that job was in Shell GS in The Hague and I'm basically still doing it, six and half years on, and I'm very very happy about that.
So the last lesson (which I've also heard many times from people who had been made redundant): the road is long, and turnings which appear bad can turn out to be the best ones.
I hope this was not too morbid and self absorbed. Of course, if anyone would like to give me a call or get in touch some other way because they can feel themselves on a line with not many more stops on it - please please do.