Meet Lapinlahti people: Satu Luukkonen

Satu Luukkonen, who works at Lapinlahden Lähde tells her story about life as a person with partial work ability. She describes Lapinlahden lähde as a safe home for people with work burnout.

Working life was supposed to be a rewarding and challenging adventure for me. I did not dream about getting rich or a high position, but being good at my job. That I would do something worth appreciating, and changed the world even a little for the better.

Things didn’t work out like that. I have been sick, gotten better, and gotten sick again. Of course, I have also worked a lot, graduated from a university of applied sciences, and tried entrepreneurship. Through happenstances I have worked in seven different industries and in very different sized organisations. And I have also burnt out.

Work related burnout is increasing year by year and is getting more prevalent in younger workers and female employees. Burnout is not an illness but it causes challenges similar to illness: neverending fatigue, worsening work-related self esteem, and direct cognitional and emotional disturbances. For example, remembering things and learning can become difficult, or things can feel totally pointless.

Unfortunately, a lot of burnt out people end up solving the issue by changing their workplace or line of work. It’s the logic of a burnt out person, that the most important need is to get distance from the thing that causes fatigue. When that is the case, help for recovery must be sought from somewhere other than occupational health services, even though attempts have been made to resolve the responsibility for burnout by jointly agreeing that the employer bears the responsibility through occupational healt services.

So, a burnt out employee often turns into a burnt out job seeker or industry switcher. Job seeking is not fun for anyone, but even worse it is for someone with only a fraction of the resources. For me, the only realistic option for returning to work was to stagger my return and start with tasks with such a threshold that a hair would look like a wall next to them. Starting a new job is a tough test when learning is hampered and your memory is a handful of wrinkly papers instead of an invisible library.

We have a growing need for places where people can rehabilitate back to work

So, we have a growing group of burnt out people, who don’t have a job to return to. That’s why we also have a growing need for places where you can rehabilitate back to working life. We need safe homes for people in occupational burnout, where the job assignments are actually flexible according to the shifts in working ability, and where the smallest accomplishments are appreciated. Lapinlahden Lähde is like that.

Above all, these places are needed, because they give an opportunity to learn away from the root cause of burnout. Burnout can be carried over to a new job or another field like a parasite. As long as I carry theses of inadequacy in my head, I will burn out regardless of my job.

Burnout causes feelings of inadequacy, and feeling inadequate raises the risk for work burnout. The cycle needs to be broken, before you can truly change and recover.

That’s why I am at Lapinlahden Lähde. Learning, how to work without burning out.

Original text: Satu Luukkonen

Sources:

Työhyvinvoinnin heikentymistä ei ole saatu pysäytettyä: www.ttl.fi/tutkimus/hankkeet/miten-suomi-voi 

Aihepiiri koskee erityisesti naisia ja nuoria: www.tilastokeskus.fi/tietotrendit/blogit/2020/naispalkansaajien-jaksamisongelmien-roima-kasvu-yllatti-myos-tyoolotutkijan

Työuupumuksen oireet 18.8.2022: www.terveyskirjasto.fi 

Työuupumuksesta on tullut vaarallisen normaalia: yle.fi

Check out a video about Satu Luukkonen that was filmed at Lapinlahden Lähde:

Video production: Kreatos Films / Aaro Aho and Antti Rekilä

The video produced by STTK takes a stand on the fact that it is estimated that there are 65,000 people in Finland who have a partial work ability, and are willing and able to work, but are outside of working life. Can society afford to leave a significant group of people outside of working life?