Burnout

First post of the New Year!

Unfortunately, it’s very on brand for me that this post is being uploaded in February rather than January.

It’s not like I somehow forgot that January is the first month of the year. It would be kind of hard to forget since its thirty-one days always manage to feel about a decade long. One would think, that with that kind of time, I would have managed to post this before the month was over. Time was only part of the issue though. The other part?

Burnout.

It’s such an ugly phrase, isn’t it? Burnout. Like, somehow, I’ve become a burned up, hollowed out, shell of a person. The funny—and not so funny—thing of it, though, is that that isn’t far off from how it feels—to me anyway. It’s as if everything that makes me who I am has been slowly razed to the ground.

Suddenly, I can most often be found lying on the couch doom scrolling on my phone—house a mess, kids a mess, just zoning out on their tablets. As I scroll, I’m already trying to figure out what to make for dinner that will take the least amount of effort while still being better than throwing a bag of chips and an apple at the kids and telling them to enjoy. A scene I’m sure more than a few of you can relate to.

And, it’s frustrating. The things that typically bring me joy are no longer in the cards. I just don’t have the energy or brain capacity to enjoy them. Reading? One of the great loves of my life? It’s one of the first things to fall to wayside. Writing? My lifelong passion? Impossible. It doesn’t matter how many times I try to crack open a book or pull up that document I’ve been working on. Suddenly, it feels like trudging through a pool of quicksand in weighted boots and a hazmat suit to get through a single page. A single paragraph. A sentence.

Every ounce of energy I do have goes into maintaining survival mode. What is the bare minimum I need to do to keep myself and the kids fed, watered, and kept safe? There is nothing left over for things like ‘fun’ or ‘learning’. All the things I know I should be doing with my kids to ensure they have a full and enriching life. Burnout robs me of my ability to provide that for them.

And this, my friends, is where I mention the ever-present companion of burnout…guilt. That voice at the back of your brain that torments you daily with all the ‘why not’s. Oh, you can’t finish reading that book you’re already half-way through? Why not? You can’t sit down and edit that blog post you wrote a month ago? Why not? You can’t muster up the energy to play that board game with your daughter? Why not?

Nothing breaks my heart faster than hearing her little voice ask me why mommy won’t play with her. And explaining burnout to a four-year-old is no easy feat. Trust me, I’ve tried. Especially to a four-year-old that seems to have limitless energy and a boundless fascination with everything life has to offer.

How do I explain to her, in terms she can understand, that life itself can be too much sometimes? How do I explain that when it all gets too overwhelming and I’ve been pushing through for too long, that my body no longer gives me a choice? That it shuts down, pulling in on itself until even the most basic things require a herculean effort to accomplish?

It’s not like I want to be this way. I mean, who would? My money is on no one. If we could all take life as it comes, full speed ahead, and never feel like we ended up running into a brick wall, I think the world would be a much happier place.

But for a lot of us, that’s not how it works. And everyone’s threshold is different. What seems manageable to one person might overload the next. Or what has been manageable in the past for one person might suddenly be too much down the road. It’s like an ever-changing puzzle that is impossible to keep up with.

In a lot of ways burnout can feel like a sneak attack, and you never know when it is going to pop up and clobber you over the head like a cartoon villain.

The entire beginning of this past year, 2023, I felt great! I was reading a lot, I was working on my novel, I started this blog and was actually keeping up with it—shock of all shocks, I know. Then came summer and everything fell apart. The momentum I’d gathered throughout the year evaporated and burnout set in like a boulder crushing my chest.

I didn’t pick up a single book or write a single word all summer. Part of me blames the unholy heat of a particularly hot summer in Tennessee. Despite having lived here the last nine years, I am still unused to summer in the south. Apparently, I remain the girl from upstate New York in my heart.

While some of the blame, a small portion, can be laid at the feet of the weather—reaching temps that I am sure no human person was meant to live in—the main problem was burnout rearing its ugly head once again.

Summer should have been a time to slow down, to spend quality time with my family. But with one child in summer school, add in weekly therapy appointments, doctor’s appointments, the dentist, and all of the other crazy bits of running around that pop up, and there was barely time to breathe, let alone slow down. The world kept on chugging along at a frantic pace, only now it was roughly the temperature of Hell outside.

I didn’t pick up another book until September. After an entire summer spent in survival mode, I was slowly starting to shed the last vestiges of my burnout cocoon and rejoin the world. But, though I’d wish otherwise, it’s not a process that happens all at once. Reading was the first thing to return. I tend to use that as a sort of rough gauge of my mental health. If I’m not reading, then there is something very wrong. So, the fact that I finally was able to pick up a book and once again immerse myself in the written word was a good sign. And once that first sign popped up, I was able to start focusing my efforts on my family.

Coming out of my burnout was like waking up after the longest, worst nap of my life. I didn’t feel refreshed, but I was at least functional. I was finally able to read that book with my son or play that board game with my daughter. It sounds like such a small thing, but those of you who have experienced burnout know just how big those small things really are.

Slowly, over the next few months, more and more of my life came back to me in pieces. Reading and family were eventually joined by writing and friendships. Old friends that I was lucky enough to have kept through months of struggling and silence, and new friends I was lucky enough to add to my life.

Things aren’t perfect. As someone who struggles with depression and ADHD, who tends to burn brightly, but burnout quickly, I doubt it ever will be. But things are good for now. I’m back to reading in my limited spare time. I’ve managed to add almost ten thousand words to my novel. I’m spending wonderful days making memories with my family.

I know that another burnout could be just around the corner, but I can’t think about that. I have to do what I can to make the most of the good times I have and prepare myself as best I can to survive the down times. Because, at the end of the day, what matters is that I made it through.