The Hidden Emotional Reasons Why I Burned Out

It’s not the tasks that make us tired, it’s the reason behind them

“I think you might be heading for a burnout.”

A colleague pointed out after hearing me a few times say that I’m tired.

I hadn’t even thought about that until she mentioned it.

It isn’t my first time experiencing burnout, and I’m always shocked at how I have such a hard time being aware when it’s happening.

Many of us, myself included, believe that burnout is a result of too much work.

But in this recent one, I took a lot of time to think about it, and discovered that it actually isn’t work the reason I’m tired, it’s my ignored emotions.

Numbing My Emotions

Work and career have always been my strongest castle. When everything is burning in other areas, I know I can go and hide in there. I did exactly the same thing this time.

This year has been emotionally intense for me.

My mom had a life-threatening heart surgery at the beginning of the year (thank God, she is doing well now).

In Spring, I went through a messy engagement breakup, because the other side was not accepting the end.

And I lost a few friends in both of these experiences.

It is true what they say, you learn who the real friends are in times of need. Grateful to learn the truth, but painful nonetheless.

During and after all this, work has been my escape.

And to make myself forget all the not-so-nice feelings, I buried myself even more in work. If I’m busy and tired, I won’t have the time and energy to feel.

Work is an addiction for me. Some people go to more dangerous coping mechanisms and this might not seem that bad, but it works just the same.

And like any addiction, we can never get enough of it. I took on more projects at work, I started new side hustles, I engaged in more volunteering, and I tortured myself to follow disciplined routines around my spirituality and health.

I had a checklist of around 25 items I had to tick every single day. On top of that were all the emails and tasks from meetings. And I was getting great results from all the work I was putting in. I was on a roll and couldn’t be stopped.

But very soon, that’s how my brain started feeling also. Like it couldn’t be stopped. It was constantly running from one thought to another in every waking hour. Hours which were slowly eating my sleeping hours, making it even worse for the brain.

I reached a point where I was on autopilot. I almost lost the power to control what I was going to do on a day.

I would wake up, start hitting the checklist without thinking, and get on to producing results all day.

And it felt exhausting. It was exhausting.

After my colleague mentioned that maybe I was burned out, I went online searching for the remedy. I almost created a new checklist of the things I should do to fight my burnout.

And as I was thinking that, I realised that it had reached a point where I had to stop because my brain wasn’t thinking straight anymore.

So, I Stopped

I didn’t plan on how to stop, I didn’t schedule a time of when to do it, I didn’t ask for time off, I didn’t select relaxing activities to do, I didn’t tell anyone, I didn’t make a big deal out of it.

I just whistle-stopped the crazy train of tasks I was doing every day.

I stopped looking at my checklist and the self-imposed responsibilities.

Because I had used all my leave when my mom was sick, I had no annual leave left from my day job.

Therefore, I stayed at home and continued doing my day job, but I allowed myself to react only to urgent requests I would get from other people.

The non-urgent stuff could wait for later.

And I stopped all the non-urgent work in my side hustles as well, the volunteering and the rigid personal routines.

It’s okay if I’m not the most productive version of me for a little while. I have over-delivered for a long time, I am sure the world will cut me some slack. And so it did.

There was one last non-urgent task I did before I fully surrendered. Sent this text to my candid colleague:

Thank you for helping me understand I am having a burnout. I did a little self-diagnosis after our call and I have every sign. It helps a lot to acknowledge it to take the necessary rest now. ☺️

Calm Brain, Awake Heart

The rest allowed my brain to calm down. Especially, catching up with some sleep and not starting the day in a rush had the biggest impact.

And the calmer my brain got, the more I could listen to my heart. I started hearing her soft voice after months of telling her to shut up.

There are some long conversations I need to have with her.

We need to discuss the paralysing fear that she had of I losing my mom on that operating table.

We need to discuss about how she broke into a million pieces when I decided that the plan to get married this summer was not happening.

And how terrified she was when I thought my ex-fiancé was becoming a stalker.

We need to discuss how lonely she felt noticing close friends disappear when I needed them most.

And any other topic she will bring to the table that I still am not aware of.

But I am taking this slowly. What is important now is to give her the space to exist and have a voice.

Finding Balance

It’s been three weeks since I did this whistle-stop, and now I’m slowly getting back to a more balanced routine. Introducing small parts from my different engagements at a pace.

I don’t blame them for my burnout, and I do love all the things I am involved in.

Being productive and working hard is not the reason I burned out. There are people who are a hundred times more productive than me and don’t burn out.

But using work to numb my emotions was the issue.

What led to me burning out was the emotions I was trying to avoid feeling.

Trying to ignore that thought on the back of my mind reminding me that I wasn’t okay, made me go on autopilot, not the tasks themselves.

It’s a classic example of the ostrich effect. I buried my head in the sand of work, trying to avoid the discomfort of emotional pain.

Not realising that my big body outside the sand was going to take all the hits now that I couldn’t even see what was going on anymore.

I believe the solution is finding a balance where I do the things I’m passionate about and also have space to recognise and process my emotions.

I will get there hopefully, and as they say, acknowledging the problem is the first step. Glad to have taken that step.