Truth be told, the main impetus for starting this blog, and for being more proactive about change in my life, is that recently I experienced burn out.
I had heard about becoming burnt out before. But I never really knew what that meant. And having never experienced it before, I wasn't sure what to expect, or if it would really even happen to me. But it did. And it sucks!
As a self-identified Type A person, I work a lot. I volunteer for things. I take on a lot of responsibility. I've been like that my whole life. I think it started in kindergarten when I won student of the month, and the rest was over-achiever history. I worked a lot in high school. College maybe wasn't so intense (I practically slacked for over-achiever standards). I worked my butt off in law school. But never once have I felt burnt out.
Sure, I've felt overwhelmed. And I've felt exhausted. But there was something important I realized. I think about in law school how it was a lot of work. And not everyone can hack it. But through years and years of experience, professors know what kind of work load legit students can handle. Sure, it sucks, but it ends and you feel accomplished. There is time to refresh before the next round starts. And eventually you are done and get a reward.
Jobs are like that. You don't have "work units" where you can only take so many before you need special permission from your boss to take more. And you don't get set breaks between hard projects. If you are the type to take on a lot, there is probably going to be an infinite amount of work you can be assigned. As for breaks, sure people get paid time off, but it's easy to let months, even a year go by without taking a much needed break.
It's an interesting edge to walk for me. I am admittedly Type A. I like to achieve. More so, I like to be useful to people. I want to be that reliable, go to person when we're down to the last inning and the coach needed a miracle touchdown from the free throw line, or whatever. Plus, I volunteer for like 1,000 things because I just like doing lots of different things. If it's interesting, and someone will let me volunteer (especially if there aren't enough volunteers) then of course I am going to sign up!
I know this about myself. And for a large part of it, I am not going to change. Being like this is part of my identity. I bet people I know wouldn't really want me to majorly change this because it's what makes me myself. The hard part is finding the right balance between being myself, but in a healthy way. I am a BIG fan of Aristotle's Golden Mean. There has to be a desirable middle ground.
But what does it feel like to burn out? After I realized what was happening I looked it up online. Really it's about just having too much stress that you can't deal with it anymore. I was seriously stressed all the time, I didn't sleep well, eat well or exercise enough. I worried about things all of the time. I worked too much. But it wasn't the actual work so much as the mental stuff on top of it. And I think I just got lost in everything.
I always thought burning out would be this instant thing, like when a light bulb burns out. But I felt it was more like I was an ink cartridge running low on ink, but I kept having to print more and more, but each new paper was lighter with more gaps in the letters. Finally I just hit the point where I was done.
I didn't really realize just how miserable I was until I hit that point. It wasn't that I was unhappy every minute of every day. In fact, I had some days that made me really happy, and could easily drown out the bad things. But after, I realized just how much unhappiness I had. I wasn't really enjoying life anymore. Even in my down time, I sat around really more trying to dull and distract my mind, rather than enjoying myself. I found little motivation for things I enjoyed - I didn't read as much, and for sure hadn't written in awhile. I definitely didn't have any motivation for bettering my life. I kept thinking "one day I'll feel better and will make changes, but for now I'll just live like this."
The hardest part is I just haven't felt like myself. Before I burnt out I felt I was being pushed and pulled into someone I'm not. I would get irritated or stressed, and be meaner than I naturally am. And after burning out I found I just didn't have energy to care about anything other than my stuff. That's not me - I care about everything! I wasn't motivated. And I sure wasn't happy. The worse things was that I found even the one thing that had been making me happy lately was tainted by my burn out. I started seeing everything negatively. Honestly, I cried everyday for two weeks in a row. There was always something (music, a TV show, just thinking) that made me realize how sad I was.
It really sucks to write about this. But it was worse going through it. And as awful as it sounds, and it felt, writing does help, getting it down. Hopefully this will help someone else. Or at least help me. It's been a rough few weeks. And I don't think I am 100% Dayna again. But I am getting there. It took some tough self-love. It also took some disconnect time. I realized that to get back to me, I had to pull away from other people. I needed to understand what I was really feeling, and to refill my ink, if you will. Most importantly, I feel like I've really made a significant change in what I am going to do about life. I have to find my balance. And maybe I won't get it perfect right off the bat, but I am pretty sure this effort is better than none.
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