Are we depressed or burnt out? How to find out (the two conditions are often confused)

«I am 54 years old and have been for at least a month I almost always feel tired and sad, negative thoughts are spinning in my head, I see a dark future for me and my family. I work for a large national bank, but more and more I can’t concentrate and every task I have to do seems boring and repetitive. Yet before, I liked my job. But now the load of commitments seems to me constantly exceeding my strength. The fact is that there are innovations and changes every day, which young employees face without batting an eye, even with a lot of enthusiasm. Instead I feel anxiety mounting every time, I’m inadequate, I have no esteem for my work skills. And on top of that my headache has gotten worse lately. In the evening I go to bed very tired, but I have many awakenings at night and in the morning at five I find my eyes wide open and there is no way to go back to sleep. It’s the worst moment, because those thoughts keep spinning in my head, I feel unable to take initiatives, I don’t know how to face the dayI toss and turn in bed and, when I get up, going to work seems like an insurmountable undertaking. I’m very attracted to sweets, but then I end up digesting badly, even when I had a frugal dinner. And it strikes me to think that I’m in the same situation as my mother, whom I criticized at the time when she said she didn’t have the strength to shake herself off. I’m afraid I’m slipping into depressionI’ll have to decide to get help, at least talk about it with my family doctor».