Burnout

On the 1st of February, I woke up feeling like I was coming down with flu. Frustrated, I took to my bed for the best part of a week. I slept and wrote when I had the energy. In one of my journal entries, I noted: It’s been a relief to slow down, to know this is what it feels like to be kind to myself. I don’t recall a time I’ve ever given myself such grace before. How can I bring this grace, this slower pace, this caring towards myself into my life going forward?

Ten days later, despite resting, I wasn’t feeling much better. I’d expected to be taken down by a full-blown flu virus, but my symptoms were constantly edging. I was told it was neurodivergent burnout (which can cause flu-like symptoms), that I needed to keep resting, and that if I didn’t, I’d elongate the burnout. It shouldn’t have been as difficult as it was to accept this – that I needed to give myself more time to heal.

I thought back to the last time I majorly burnt out (an event I thought was a depressive episode), which lasted almost two years, two years of raging with myself, unable to comprehend what was happening – why I couldn’t write, why I was so exhausted all the time, why I could hardly string together a sentence and was essentially scared shitless into slowing my life right down.

So I slept more. I stopped writing my ‘to-do’ list and left the boxes on my calendar unfilled. I avoided social media and drastically cut my screen time. I pushed away the pressure to be productive. I’d feel slightly brighter some days. I could feel the rest was doing me good. I noticed my thinking and conversation skills improving. Breathing was easier (I’d been experiencing shortness of breath), and I wasn’t aching as much.

But then I’d wake up, exhausted, grief-stricken, unable to do any of the things I was able to do the previous day, such as make a meal or wash my hair, read a book or meet a friend. On these days, I’d find myself self-sabotaging; I’d look at triggering news stories, I’d sign into social media, and eat things I knew gave me stomach cramps, though mainly because these foods were easier to prepare than the foods that didn’t cause pain. These days, my mood would blacken and reduce my conversation skills to yes, no, maybe, I don’t know.

One of the scariest things about burnout is that there’s no knowing how long it’s going to last. It could be days, weeks, months, or, as I’ve bitterly experienced, years. Thinking about it, I’ve likely spent most of my life in various stages of burnout, with brief stints of functionality.

It’s also terrifying to admit being burnt out, especially when you don’t think you’ve done anything to warrant being in such a state. (I know, my brain is a bitch.) I panicked about how family, friends and health professionals would react if they would react at all. Not getting any reaction at all is particularly damaging, especially when you don’t feel you deserve to be burnt out. I’d be compelled to reel off a list of how the burnout affected me as if I needed to prove all the ways that the struggle was real. However, more often than not, I was too tired even to try to explain.

Some Lines From My Journal During February

11th Feb: It hurts to read. What day is it? I can’t remember what I had for lunch if I ate lunch. I demand too much of myself and hold myself up to impossible standards.

12th Feb: I had to look at the calendar to see what date it is. Yesterday, when I was walking to town, there was so much dog shit, and I had to concentrate so hard not to step in it. Don’t cry, I told myself. Don’t cry. I eyed every dog walker with suspicion. I want to go underground. I don’t care about being relevant. Yes, I should write if I can, but I shouldn’t clamber to share. I’ve eaten rice cakes and pesto, rice cakes and peanut butter, a carrot, chocolate coins I bought for Saga. I want children’s fiction and a cuddly toy.

13th Feb: I’ve been carrying too much baggage, mentally, physically, my whole life. Always a heavy rucksack, always a heavy head. I want to move lighter.

14th Feb: So tired. Not giving a second thought to my work. Leaning into this act of just being, something I’ve never done before in my adult life. I didn’t open my laptop once yesterday. Done with noise. Done with the rapid-fire oversharing. I need to soften into my life.

15th Feb Watched a devastating film – All Of Us Strangers. Struggling to take deep enough breaths. I was going to go swimming today, but when I arrived, it was so crowded, and the noise was unbearable. I couldn’t. Thinking back to summer in Sweden, the lake we had to ourselves, thinking of the peace, the peace, the peace.

16th Feb: I think I’m over being busy. Over trying to find my worth through scratched-out ‘to-do’ lists.

21st Feb: I’m tired as I write, and I’ve only been up an hour. Feeling depleted and lonely – in need of strong hugs. I’m at a loss. I’m worried and hopeless and don’t know if I want to keep writing for my blogs.

22nd Feb: Be kind, be as kind as you can, you’re doing the best you can with an impossibly difficult situation.

25th Feb: It’s best for an ADHD brain to minimise clutter wherever possible. If I’m beginning to emerge from this burnout, what’s the next step? I need to acknowledge what I’ve learnt – that my worth isn’t dependent on what I create. That I am enough as I am. That I’m entitled to do whatever brings me joy.

I wrote in my journal some of the main symptoms of burnout so I had them to refer to when my brain tried to convince me that I wasn’t burned out, but lazy:

• Irritability
• Emotional exhaustion
• Headaches
• Backaches
• Low self-esteem
• Feeling overwhelmed
• Lower productivity and poor performance
• Fatigue and constant exhaustion
• Difficulty in focusing on what matters to me
• Flu-like symptoms and ‘feeling old’

When I made the decision to rest, I immediately thought ‘I can write about this…do some burnout diary on my blog.’ ‘You take the opportunity to turn everything into work,’ Finni said to me. He wasn’t wrong. I mulled over the idea, checked how often the title The Burnout Diaries had been used, and then thought better of it. How fucking relieved I am that I didn’t try and turn this excruciating experience into work. It’s work enough as it is trying to heal.

In my journal, I wrote about how taking a step back from my work felt ‘entirely unnatural,’ but that working also felt ‘unnatural…impossible even.’ ‘I’m incapable of making decisions,’ I wrote, referring to my projects, ‘incapable of planning or seeing a way forward.’

On Reddit (one of the main places I go to source tips on living with ADHD), one of the best pieces of advice was to, when I was feeling better, ‘follow the dopamine and do whatever makes you feel good.’ ‘You’ll recover if you surrender to rest,’ was something I also needed to hear.

I’ve been trying to figure out how to move forward. I’ve slipped back into some old habits. I’ll have a good day, then three bad days, two good days, then six bad days.

I’m trying to find a therapist and a life coach (I need both). It’s dawned on me that I must simplify my life as much as possible, something I don’t believe I can do in England, where existing feels much more complicated than it needs to be, where I feel misaligned and at odds with myself, with the people, with the land. In truth, I don’t need much to be happy. Three words I’ve been writing a lot are: Quiet. Space. Freedom.

How many things there are that I do not want. – Socrates, Circa 425BC

The word burnout wasn’t part of my vocabulary until recently. I still feel an element of shame when I say it out loud. I tense up when I speak about being burnt out, always anxiously awaiting a bemused response of ‘Why?’

I’m trying to be gentle with myself as I attempt to heal; who would have thought that could be such a difficult thing to do and to remember to do? Skimming through my notebook a few minutes ago to try and find a clue as to how to end this post, I saw a quote from Julia Cameron I’d scribbled down: ‘Treating yourself like a precious object requires attention and practice.’ A few pages later, I saw another quote, this time from Wolf Border, the novel by Sarah Hall, reiterating what I’ve known all along, ‘The further north they go, the safer they will be.’