In my mid-20s, an out-of-nowhere viral infection landed me in the hospital for nearly a month, about a quarter of which I spent in ICU. Despite several spinal taps, a bone marrow aspiration, and a right thoracotomy, a diagnosis was elusive. Employing the medical equivalent of a “Hail Mary” pass, the doctors gave me a blood transfusion and pumped me full of steroids. It worked and I was discharged a week later, without ever knowing exactly what I’d had. The lead physician on my team noted that my recovery could be tracked by my boredom. At first, I was so sick I was oblivious to everything around me. By the third dose of steroids, I had counted every object in my hospital room—including the six ducks in the print on the wall, five in the pond and one in flight. When I started giving the ducks names, they sent me home.
It’s occurred to me that I can perhaps use the same instrumentation to track my recovery this time. However, I’ve run across an unexpected dilemma. I’m bored all the time, but not in the antsy, send-me-back-to-the-world kind of way that signaled my previous return to robust health. Between the depression, which steals my joy, and the medication, which suppresses my emotions, I’m still numb. I’m bored because I can’t bring myself to engage with the things I care about. Even playing board games with my daughters, who have been on a school break the last few days, I find myself disinterested and disconnected. I know this isn’t how I’m supposed to feel, but I can’t force myself to experience life the way I want to.
I’m bored, but not in a good way. It’s frustrating and defeating. This week I am starting the next phase of my medication taper. I’m hopeful that the boredom will start to recede and, in its place, interest will take hold.
From history major, with side quests in Medieval Studies and chemical engineering, to nonprofit finance leader, Big 4 tax partner, technologist, researcher, and now co-founder of Divine, nothing about my career has been linear. The throughline has always been systems: financial systems, organizational systems, technological systems, and human systems. I have an MBA in Operations and Supply Chain Management and a PhD in Organizational Leadership Psychology, and I’ve spent my career trying to understand how complex systems shape people’s choices, opportunities, wellbeing, and sense of belonging. Today, my work sits at the intersection of psychology, technology, human-centered design, and digital trust. I am co-founder of Divine, an open-source, decentralized social video app built to put creativity back in human hands and replace doomscrolling with joyscrolling. Divine is part of a bigger question I care deeply about: how do we create online spaces that support safety, creativity, identity, and belonging without defaulting to surveillance, extraction, or control? At Divine, I wear a lot of hats across engineering, finance, operations, and strategy, while helping shape the app’s trust, safety, and values work. I focus especially on teen online safety, human-generated content, participatory design, and healthier relationships with technology. I am a postdoctoral alum of Vanderbilt University’s Department of Computer Science, where I worked with Dr. Pam Wisniewski’s Socio-Technical Interaction Research Lab. I continue to write, speak, and research at the intersection of online safety, digital trust, decentralized technology, and youth wellbeing. I was named a Distinguished Fellow at the Institute for Data Integrity in 2023. In 2025, I had the honor of serving as President of Division 13 of the American Psychological Association, the Society of Consulting Psychology. I also live with major depressive disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder. In 2020, I took a leave from PwC to focus on my mental wellness, and I now speak and write openly about mental health, especially in the workplace and in relation to digital wellbeing. This blog, Seriously Jerk Brain, chronicles much of that journey.
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1 Comment
Hi Liz! Thanks so much for sharing your experience. I also am battling with depression, and have been feeling chronic boredom. I didn’t fully make the connecting that it had to do with the depression – although it seems so obvious. Thank you for helping your followers with their own experiences, by being so vulnerable with yours. Sending peace and love to you!
Hi Liz! Thanks so much for sharing your experience. I also am battling with depression, and have been feeling chronic boredom. I didn’t fully make the connecting that it had to do with the depression – although it seems so obvious. Thank you for helping your followers with their own experiences, by being so vulnerable with yours. Sending peace and love to you!
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