Breaking the Burnout Cycle - Part Two
I was curious to find out how people who experience burnout feel on an apparently normal day, yet one filled with thoughts and inner turmoil. Thoughts that arise due to a conscious or unconscious trigger. So, I decided to do a little exercise and tried to write an informative piece about burnout, interspersed here and there with the thoughts I mentioned earlier. It's important to note that everyone's experience is different, and the feelings and emotions are individual. I tried to express their stories as close to reality as possible and translate into words the common elements. Throughout the article, you’ll come across texts that seemingly have no connection to the current subject, but as you’ll see, that’s how it often happens in reality when a trigger appears, and the mind seems to fly wherever it wants.
It is said that when you're in the midst of a storm, it's difficult to see the lifeboats waiting for you on the shore or the people around ready to jump in after you if you start to sink. When you're in burnout, people feel miles away, and the sense of helplessness is overwhelming. Sometimes it's so intense that you feel like you could almost touch it with your fingertips if you tried. But the feeling is so overwhelming that you're afraid to even reach out, because then burnout becomes a reality, and you know you've reached the end of the tunnel. And it's not the good end, not the one where you see the light, but the one where there's total darkness, where the walls close in around you, and you feel like you'll never see the sky again. Even if you lift your eyes and the sky is there, you can't see it, you can't enjoy it, and most of all, you don't have a shred of energy left to appreciate everything around you. Seconds turn into minutes, minutes turn into hours, and hours turn into days. Time seems to stand still, your breathing intensifies, and the world collapses around you. But... because there's always a "but" in any equation, these things are only in your mind. The world around you doesn’t perceive the walls, the sky is always blue, even if sometimes covered by clouds, and you feel increasingly alone, not understanding why only you have to live with these feelings.
"When you feel like you can’t go on, you can still push a little further"
The reality is that the above fragment is just a small part of the feelings thousands of people live with daily. Almost every person I've talked to about this subject has contributed to the text above. People are often hesitant to be vulnerable, even with those closest to them, because the fear of being judged is sometimes stronger than the desire to clearly and openly admit that they have no energy left.
Hustle Culture has taught us that even when you feel like you can’t go on, you can push a little further. And all you need to do is grit your teeth and keep moving forward. It doesn’t matter how you continue to move forward, or how many pieces of your soul you lose along the way, the key is to keep going. Although at first glance, this advice might not seem bad, if we look more closely, there’s no concept of “taking a break” in this scenario. But people need breaks, and society itself functions with breaks. We have lunch breaks, work breaks (vacations), game breaks, breaks between medical treatments, and even breaks from “people” (cutting ties with toxic relationships).
Looking around, I see more and more people moving forward almost on their knees, as if they were in the trenches, completely paralyzed by the idea that they might need to stop at some point. The reasons? Almost always shame, closely followed by financial pressures. People have mortgages, car payments, families to support, and the idea of not having a reliable salary forces them, unfortunately, to continue in the same cycle over and over again.
Additionally, many people haven't even considered the idea of taking a break. They are so entrenched in the day-to-day grind that they've ended up functioning on “autopilot.” The circle of people who can afford to take an extended break from work or put a business on hold is extremely small, and for many, almost impossible to reach.
The impact of burnout on physical health
How do you quantify the impact of burnout on a person’s life? Quite simply, you look at their lifestyle, how they interact with others, and their overall health. When it comes to physical symptoms, the most common ones include:
Sleep problems (insomnia, nightmares)
Brain fog (forgetting details, events, or constantly misplacing objects)
Panic attacks
Weakened immune system
Headaches
Digestive issues (nausea, vomiting)
Chronic fatigue
Appetite changes (increase/decrease)
Hair loss
Excessive sweating
Destructive behaviour (alcohol, drugs)
Heart problems (arrhythmia), etc.
These symptoms reflect the toll burnout takes on a person’s physical well-being, showing just how deeply it can affect daily life.
When emotions are too intense, and it feels like your brain is about to burst out of your skull, you know you've reached the limit of all limits. And the saddest part is that you will hit that limit several times a day, and with each instance, the barrier drops another meter, slowly but surely. Everything spins around you, yet at the same time, nothing moves. Time stretches and contracts simultaneously, but you're stuck in the same place. Life slowly flows past you, one year passes, another begins, but everything feels frozen in time. You feel like you can't breathe, yet somehow, you're still alive. Your reasoning is still there, but sometimes you don't trust it. Don't be afraid—your reasoning is there, it's just difficult to access it due to the overwhelming emotions. And you know that tomorrow you'll wake up and start again, hoping that maybe things will be better. And you know what? Maybe they will, or maybe they won't, but it's your duty to fight back. Perhaps one of the saddest experiences a person can go through is feeling utterly alone in a room full of people. That feeling can't be described in words, captured in poetry, or portrayed in a movie. It's a unique feeling, one I hope you never have to experience...
…and emotional health
On an emotional level, the effects of burnout are quite intense, especially if the person has tried to suppress their inner feelings. The most common emotional states include anxiety, depression, insecurity, and an overwhelming sense of loneliness. In some cases, you may notice people becoming extremely cynical, lacking confidence in their own abilities, feeling unmotivated, and tending to isolate themselves when their emotions become too overwhelming.
These emotional symptoms are often just as debilitating as the physical ones, making it even harder for individuals to function and connect with others.
From a behavioural perspective, people suffering from burnout tend to display verbal aggression. Before judging this aggression, it’s important to consider that the human body is not built to remain in a constant state of "fight or flight," and aggression is often one of the first signs that emotions have become too intense and are "overflowing." It’s essential to acknowledge the mechanism behind this behaviour, but that doesn’t mean it should be tolerated.
Another major red flag is a decrease in performance, which almost never happens without a reason. The inability to maintain focus for extended periods of time is a warning sign that shouldn’t be ignored.
Isolation is one of the saddest behaviours we can observe, the refusal to participate in social activities, meetings with friends or family, and sometimes even the refusal to answer the phone. If you have people around you who behave this way, try not to judge them. Believe me when I say that they judge themselves before being judged by others; they just feel overwhelmed in almost any social context. My advice: try not to force them to attend events, send them daily messages to remind them that you are there for them, and a sincere conversation will eventually come up sooner or later. Sometimes people need time—time for themselves, time for others, time in general.
The night feels endless, and you have the impression that you’ll remain in darkness for the rest of your life. You toss and turn in bed, get up, feeling like a lion in a cage. You take a sip of water, smoke a cigarette, two, three, and stare blankly from your beautifully decorated balcony. But what do you see? The city is silent, empty, and you feel overwhelmed by the quiet, wishing for nothing more than to be surrounded by people. But then you think... all those people will judge you. They’ll see that you’re vulnerable, that you’re not perfect, and that you’re... human. You can’t just be human—mediocrity is absolutely unforgivable, and you have to excel at everything you do. Either you do something perfectly, or you don’t do it at all. You’ve repeated this phrase to yourself so many times that you no longer know how to live without it. You’ve pushed yourself to exhaustion trying to be perfect, but you’re far from it. You’ve set standards no ordinary person can reach, but it doesn’t matter—you fight for the things you believe in, fully aware that you’ll achieve them. The price? It doesn’t matter; it’s irrelevant… You smoke another cigarette and decide to give sleep a chance, but sleep eludes you. You notice the dawn breaking, take a shower, grab your mask of fulfilment from the nightstand, place the widest smile on your face, and walk out the door, knowing that tonight you’ll stare blankly once again from that beautifully decorated balcony.
It seems a bit tiring to read texts that represent thoughts, doesn’t it? Try to put yourself in the shoes of the people who experience these states day by day, sometimes seemingly out of the blue, other times arriving at these thoughts due to external stimuli. It’s no wonder that burnout is considered a disease of modern society, as the impact it leaves on people is difficult to repair.
P.S. If you’ve made it to the end of this material, I invite you to reread the thoughts, but this time with the following song in the background. They will hit differently...