Burnout has been the scourge of my adult life. It’s taken years of effort to start getting a handle on it. Even after I started drawing boundaries and saying no, there were major sources of burnout I couldn’t do much about. Until recently, the biggest was my job. For several years, I was basically a hamster on a wheel turning faster and faster. There was no space for growth or thinking or a future; just me and the wheel. Over time, I noticed my brain wasn’t working the same way it used to. It felt overdramatic to frame it that way, but I was undeniably fuzzier in the head. I’d always had a near-photographic memory and found it easy to concentrate. Now I missed details, couldn’t remember things (occasionally I had no recollection of entire conversations), and had a drastically reduced attention span – like I didn’t have the energy to focus on anything for long. I blamed it on depression, then, when depression eased, wondered if I had developed ADD out of the blue in my mid-thirties. In 2017, things got worse. On top of the mental fog, I started having heart palpitations, shortness of breath, and/or heartburn regularly. I was not doing well, and said so, a risk I took for the sake of my health. But no one could really do anything about it, because I was a very efficient hamster, and that wheel had to keep spinning.
When I accepted a new job at a new company, my therapist warned me it would take at least a year to recover completely from burnout. While I noted that advice, my new job is structured so differently that I felt noticeably better within weeks. I’m doing a variety of things with less urgency, and thinking more critically and abstractly. The fog is clearing – look, I’m even writing again! But all that space started to feel weirdly stifling, like I was thrashing around inside my own head. I worried about my job performance. I got excessively stressed about “failing at life” aka having reduced time for personal stuff and social/cultural obligations. I felt anxious about my relationship. I had an overwhelming sense that Something Was Wrong and I had to fix it immediately. I had tearful, nonsensical conversations with Taylor and my sister, which left me even more frustrated that I couldn’t express myself adequately or fully grasp what my problem was.
A couple of weeks ago at work, I noticed I was having all the old physical anxiety symptoms, even though nothing remotely stressful was happening. It occurred to me that maybe something deeper was going on, so I made a counseling appointment for the first time in months. The moment I finished trying to explain my mental state, my therapist assured me that my brain is detoxing! This information is the whole point of this post – it explains SO MUCH and I feel sure it will help others.
When you’re in a high-adrenaline environment for an extended time, your brain (specifically, the amygdala, which controls fight-or-flight type stuff) adjusts to accept that level of adrenaline as its new normal. So when you get out of the stressful environment into a calmer, more stable place, your brain gets confused and tries to increase the adrenaline level. My brain has joined the cast of Real Housewives – it is literally trying to create drama. It’s sending me vague alarm signals, and I’m trying to find something logical to pin them on, but there is no logic. Just adrenaline run amok. The bad news is, there’s nothing I can do but push through it. The good news is, as long as I don’t feed it with more drama, it will eventually go away. As always, just having an explanation has relieved and empowered me (this is why I love counseling!). When the freakouts come, I can step back and remind myself this is a thing happening to me, not something I’m doing wrong (my loved ones can remind me too). I’m good at powering through things. It’s kind of how I ended up in this situation in the first place.
In conclusion, the climb out of burnout continues. Shoutout to my fellow sojourners on the path.
(Photo by Jason Briscoe on Unsplash)
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