Burnout Doesn’t Look Like Breaking
A real-time account of exhaustion, overstimulation, and what it actually takes to function again when everything feels like too much.
I’m writing this from inside the burnout. This is me, right now, exhausted, not keeping up with friends the way I want to, irritable, sleeping 13 hours on a Saturday and still wanting more. This is what burnout actually looks like when you’re living it & just a slow accumulation of everything being a little too much for a little too long.
What Burnout Actually Is
I think a lot of people hear the word burnout and picture someone completely falling apart, quitting their job, not getting out of bed. But most burnout doesn’t look like that. Most burnout looks like a headache that’s been there all day. Like being inexplicably exhausted at noon even though you slept. Like your to-do list looking the same as it always has but suddenly feeling completely impossible. Like being around people you love and not having the energy to actually be present with them.
Burnout is a state of chronic physical and emotional exhaustion. The physical signs are things like persistent fatigue, headaches, disrupted sleep, getting sick more than usual. The emotional signs are subtler, feeling detached, not finishing things you started, dreading things you normally enjoy, withdrawing from relationships even when you don’t want to. That last one has been big for me lately. I genuinely want to be a good friend, a good partner, a present and engaged person and I just don’t have the reserves for it right now.
What I’ve realized is that burnout almost never comes from one thing. It comes from the accumulation of everything. For me is working full time, trying to build a social life, taking care of Miso, managing my health, staying on top of social media, cooking from scratch because I care about what I put in my body, and keeping my apartment clean enough that my brain can function. Individually, none of these things are overwhelming. Together, all at once, with no real breaks built in, that’s how you end up sleeping 13 hours on a Saturday and still feeling like you need more.
What Actually Causes My Burnout
Before I get into what I do to recover, I want to name the real sources because I think recognizing them is half the battle.
Work and money stress. I’ve worked since I was 14 or 15. I’ve always had multiple jobs, always chased more hours, always been someone who ties a lot of my sense of security to my income. Right now I’m at the warehouse, making enough to get by, but not making enough to feel okay and I know logically I’m fine, I have savings, I can manage. But the anxiety around money that I developed growing up with less doesn’t respond to logic. It just hums underneath everything. And simultaneously I’m trying to build something with social media that I believe in deeply but that isn’t paying me consistently yet, and I can feel the pull between practical stability and the thing I actually want to be doing with my life. That tension is exhausting in a way that’s hard to explain.
Time scarcity. I did the math once. There are 168 hours in a week. Sleep takes roughly 49. A 40-hour work week leaves 79. Working out daily takes another 7. Cooking, cleaning, walking Miso, social media, by the time you account for all of it, the hours disappear fast. And when you’re someone who genuinely cares about doing all of those things well, not having enough time to do them well is its own source of stress.
My health journey. I say this as someone who is passionate about holistic health and navigating hormone imbalances, gut issues, and joint pain is exhausting. Not just physically, but emotionally. I’m a years into trying to figure out why my period runs over 40 days, why my energy is chronically low, why certain things that should be better aren’t better yet. Our bodies are so bio-individual that what works for someone else might not work for me at all, and that means a lot of trial and error, a lot of uncertainty, a lot of money spent on things that may or may not make a difference. Sometimes I just want someone to tell me exactly what’s wrong so I can fix it. The not-knowing is its own kind of burden.
Connection. I moved to Orange County post-grad expecting to build a solid friend group and underestimating how hard that actually is. Most of my close friends are long distance now. I’m going to a girls’ walk club, I’m inviting people from TikTok to hang out, I’m reaching out but when you’re already running low on energy, putting effort into building something new is hard.
What I Actually Do to Reset
These are not revolutionary. They’re not a 30-step protocol. They’re just the things that actually help me come back to myself when I’ve run out of steam.
