I’ve always had the impression that feeling “burnt out” meant being really, really tired. Studying and working in design made me believe that the phrase burnt out was a term exclusively for creative folk: it meant running out of inspiration or lacking any generative ideas. I thought that being burnt out meant that you just needed a long nap, and you’d wake up with renewed spirits or even a new muse.
I believed that I never ran out of creative steam because.. I didn’t have much to begin with. I believed that I had never been burnt out because I had never been tired, or rather was always the same amount of exhausted.
I convinced myself that I wasn’t burnt out these past few months because I didn’t feel the symptoms I thought I would feel: I haven’t been exhausted, powerless or empty. In fact, I’ve been waking up with more energy than usual, eager to get work done.
I learnt this past week that there are symptoms of burn out that are quite the opposite: I’m not exhausted, powerless or empty, I’m paranoid, overwhelmed and stressed. I could go outside but instead I’m going to get a jump on tomorrow’s tasks. I wake up with my heart pounding in my chest, not exhausted but with all this nervous energy. I’m not tired, I’m wired.
Modern day stressors are so abstract, cerebral and disembodying that completing the stress cycle is so much more challenging1. I’m sure it manifests in a lot of ways. I tend to think in negatives, too tired to have good emotional regulation. I make myself believe that I have brought this on myself, and that no one else is experiencing what I am.
I read about The Great Exhaustion – about how since Covid, we’ve all been burnt out in some format. Worrying about climate change2, politics, living costs, and so much more.
And the more I think about it, a bigger fear starts to set in that isn’t just a creativity or work related burn out: is this it?