I Tried, I Still Hit Burnout (or Finding Some New Limits)

It was only a few days ago when I wrote about having to not go to plans that I was looking forward to and needing to be selfish so I could prevent burnout. I had hoped that recognizing it when I did would help me not get to the point where I needed a real break and that I could take the time I needed to recover. But of course, plans don’t always go the way you expect and you can’t always help what happens.

After I wrote that post, I had a lot of things that hit me back to back that just got me to a bit of a breaking point. First, we are now experiencing the heat of summer. Things are so much better for me now than they were before since I have my little a/c unit, but they still aren’t perfect. I did finally get over my fear of the cost of a/c since I know the unit I have isn’t as bad as most, so I do run it a lot during the day now without worrying about the cost. I know my power bill will be higher, but it’s worth it. When I have to sit at my computer for a full work shift, my computer starts to get hot and that makes me even warmer than normal. As soon as I am done with work, I go to my room to lay in front of my fan. That helps me recover, but it’s still not easy while I’m working. It’s also affecting my sleep right now, which isn’t helping me recover each night. But I’m doing whatever I can to try to stay cool, including drinking more water than normal which I know has more benefits than just cooling me down.

I also am starting to deal with my monthly pain and nausea. I will say it’s not as bad as it has been recently, but I think the combination of that plus the heat is making it feel worse to me. I’m trying to do all the things I know that help me feel better and most of them are working. The one that I am not doing right now is using a heating pad. I don’t necessarily feel like I need a heating pad right now, but even if I did I don’t know if I could tolerate it with the heat we have right now. I guess I should be grateful that I don’t feel like I need it, but I am just feeling so irritable right now that the pain and nausea are just annoying me.

I think the final thing that made me hit a point of burnout was some work-related stuff that happened. Nothing too horrible happened, but several issues required more time than it should have taken or needed me to repeat the same task multiple times because of random errors that were not able to be fixed by me. It was overwhelming waiting to see if I had to do something over again and waiting on others to fix the mistakes. Just like with my pain and nausea, I don’t know if this would normally bother me, but with it compounding with everything else it just hit me hard. After that, I hit a real low point and just had to have some time to be a hermit at home.

I did take a bit of time to myself yesterday and canceled some plans that I had made for a date (I wasn’t super excited about the date so this was a good excuse to cancel). I stayed home with the a/c on and just watching dumb videos on YouTube or reading. I’m still not feeling totally like myself just yet and I’m being cautious about what I plan. I wanted to not get to this point because I knew recovering from it was going to take time that I don’t have. Unfortunately, due to circumstances out of my control, I got there and now I need to take the time to fix it. I know it could get worse, and I’m doing everything I can to stop that. I have set new limits with myself and with others so I don’t get too overwhelmed. I also keep reminding myself that so much of what I’m dealing with is a temporary situation and will be over soon. That thought does help.

I have some fun things coming up over the next few weeks, but they are more spread out than things were the past few weeks. I’m finding what I can take off of my schedule to allow myself more downtime and more time to mentally and physically recover from things. And I do hope that these efforts I am making will help me get back to the normal me soon. All I can do is try and hope for the best. And maybe having that hope will help make it become a reality.

You Might Also Like

Online Dating (or Finding Comedy in What’s Out There) Productive One Way And Slacking In Another (or Working On Finding Time) Trying To Avoid Holiday Burnout (or Staying Home For Self-Care) Running And Walking (or Accepting My Limits) Finding Soul Mates (or Why I’m Having A Tough Time Finding An Improv Class) Being Hurt And Finding Closure (or Still Finding Out More About Myself Through Dating)