On Burnout

Palermo, Sicily

It happened. I knew it was happening and yet I couldn’t stop it. For so long I felt as though I was on a train speeding towards the edge, and I knew if I could just make it to the end of the line, then I could collapse.

Towards the end of last year, I reached my limit. I was exhausted in every way possible. It was the culmination of three months of non-stop…everything. Demands from school, unexpected health concerns, cold weather and incessant rain. I was exhausted but I couldn’t sleep but for all the thoughts running through my head, all the things I had to do. Then during the day, I was barely able to function due to how tired I was. If I managed to go to class I would always be late, and then I stopped going at all.

This is not like me, and anyone who has known me before knows that. For possibly the first time in my life, the demands placed on me (and the demands I placed on myself) were too high to be met. Furthermore, I was dealing with the ending of an emotionally intense relationship that became more toxic by the day.

I regret it. I regret the effect it had on my health. I noticed new grey hairs and fine lines on my face. I was literally weary, and I won’t ever be able to get that time back.

When I finally arrived home in Ohio, I walked in the door to my house and burst into tears. I stood in my mother’s arms and the weight of those months began to fall off. For ten days I practically did nothing but sleep. I sat by the fire, I drank hot chocolate with heaps of mini marshmallows, and I ate really, really good, hearty food. My friend reminded me that there is nothing like “being surrounded by the people who love you the most,” and it’s true.

Later, after hearing me talk about how lovely it was to be home, another friend of mine asked me how I was feeling about returning to Palermo, which is also my home and really the place I want to be and I am so happy to live here. However, I honestly was not prepared for her question. It hadn’t yet hit me that just because I had taken the time to rest, the situation which led to my burnout was largely still the same: I am still in university, and I am still in largely the same social environment. It became very clear that I could not just jump right back in.

When I was at home, and I was finally able to rest, several realizations came to me that I hadn’t had the free time or brain space to realize before. And as I internalized these realizations, I began to feel in my body gut reactions to the idea of doing certain activities or being around certain people. Now that I am back home, I am doing my best to honor those feelings, my body and soul telling me whether it is a good idea to go certain places or do certain things. I am hesitant, I am going slowly. I am dipping my toe in the water and going home early. I am advocating for myself, and when a situation is not right, I am walking away.

It is difficult. And it is challenging. But I feel the support of my family and friends who love me and want the best for me. Their support gives me the courage, the fortitude, and the duty to go after the best for myself. To study, to take care of myself, to spend time with my friends, and to do the things I love.

I don’t ever want to be in a situation of burnout again. I don’t want to think of the damage the stress has done to my body. So I am going slowly, re-entering my life one step at a time. But I now have the wisdom that burnout does not resolve by itself. If you need a break, you need to take one, and I mean really, fully. You need to clear the table and your mind and rest. However, in order to do this you need to be able to be honest with the people around you, and to ask for their help. I am so grateful for my friends and family, who saw how much I was struggling and who took things off my plate for me, when I didn’t have it in me to do so for myself.

Looking back, I can tell you confidently that it wasn’t worth it. None of the things I had to do were things that couldn’t have been pushed back or managed in a different way. Or just so unimportant they could have been taken off my mind altogether. But this we can only know looking back. I share this with you now so that we can look forward together: to be able to discern what is really a priority and leave behind those things that aren’t. Wasting our precious time on things that don’t matter and doing harm to ourselves in the process is just that, a waste. Let’s enjoy our time while we have it.

love,

greer