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burnout

run

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So I'm reading all these articles on burnout, and they all say "nausea, infections, depression, etc." are the symptoms. But it seems to me, if you're so burnt out, you have these symptoms, you have bigger problems. Not to be a douche, but if I'm not throwing up and contracting ear infections, am I not burnt out?

So then I thought, "Oh, I'll post on MBTIc." I want to know about your burnout story. 'Cause I'm at the point where I don't care. I have a paper due and I just laugh at it. I fantasize about May 28th, and I don't have the passion for music like I did. I'm burnt out, right?
 

sculpting

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burnout just means you fucking hate what you are doing, lack the passion you once had, feel all of your efforts are wasted and spend lots of time doing other stuff-like posting on personality websites.

Not that I know anybody who is burnt out or anything...
 

placebo

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I don't think you necessarily need such blatent physical symptoms to be deemed 'burnt out'. Stress and burnout are related, but not entirely the same.

This site seems to explain it pretty well: Preventing Burnout: Signs, Symptoms, Causes, and Coping Strategies as well as the links.

Burnout may be the result of unrelenting stress, but it isn’t the same as too much stress. Stress, by and large, involves too much: too many pressures that demand too much of you physically and psychologically. Stressed people can still imagine, though, that if they can just get everything under control, they’ll feel better.

Burnout, on the other hand, is about not enough. Being burned out means feeling empty, devoid of motivation, and beyond caring. People experiencing burnout often don’t see any hope of positive change in their situations. If excessive stress is like drowning in responsibilities, burnout is being all dried up. One other difference between stress and burnout: While you’re usually aware of being under a lot of stress, you don’t always notice burnout when it happens.

As a student, I feel like I've been witheriing away over the past few months and I've literally got less than a week left of exams and I've just started breaking out, getting migraines, tearing up, feeling anxious/depressed, and procrastinating like crazy. It's so close yet so far away. I mean, this sounds like major test anxiety, but it's also because I've been studying something I've never been passionate about, and actually, used to actively dislike, and I'm basically forcing myself to get it done with because it feels like I don't have much choice. Whenever I get close to having to do a major evaluation this fact comes up in my head and depresses me. I've tried hard to change the extrinsic motivation into intrinsic motivation, because I know that it's much more powerful.

Sometimes I feel like I'm on the verge of burnout but I just feel more overstressed than anything else because I AM still hopeful that once it's over with, things will look better. I think full on burnout requires a total loss of any motivation to get things done.

So anyway, from what you said, it does sound like you're burnt out, but I'm definitely no expert. Hopefully you'll find a way to pick yourself up from it.
 

juggernaut

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I burn out every quarter/term/semester toward the end. Then we get a break, I catch my breath, and dive back in. I've basically resigned myself to this existence. I love the work and I love the life, the burn out is just part of the package. When it starts to feel like it will never end, I just remind myself that it always does.
 

ptgatsby

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I burn out every quarter/term/semester toward the end. Then we get a break, I catch my breath, and dive back in. I've basically resigned myself to this existence. I love the work and I love the life, the burn out is just part of the package. When it starts to feel like it will never end, I just remind myself that it always does.

Burnout is more than just stress overload. A lot of it has to do with long term attempts to force ourselves to be something else/do more than we can handle in the long term. But the feeling to burnout is very different than stress overload.

It's waking up feeling trapped... It's you forcing yourself to put foot in front of foot... it's you walking to the gallows, surviving it with no energy and no hope... Everything else in life fades. Your life becomes empty... no energy and no will to do anything. You'll hide yourself away in some corner, try to escape it, but it sits in your mind. The escape fades as soon as you stop doing it. You avoid bed, just because you know you have to get up... and every day ends the same... back in bed, unable to sleep, thinking about doing this again tomorrow. And the day after.

Soon the incremental stress takes it toll. Now the escape is going to bed. Depression sets in... you sleep as soon as you get home... and wake up and lie in bed for most of the night. The anxiety builds up... you start to become erratic. The body gets weaker... and the physical symptoms set in. You start taking OTC medications for headaches, tension, muscles. You see a doctor, get anti depressants, sleep aids... but that just raises your ability to function - raises the amount of stress your body will take before more functions start to break down.

Hmmm, sounds kind of dramatic when I put it that way. Anyway, it's the compounded amounts of small but significant stress that leads to burnout. Test "burn out", spurts of high pressure and stress leads to crashing and breakdowns... Students do get it, especially over achievers... but that's over the long run too, when they never really stop. It's harder for students to get it... less identity and fixed time lines break up the stress. And being trapped in a job tends to mean mortgage and family, never mind social pressures in general... that's a serious amount of long term (ie: 30+years) pressure to stay miserable.
 

juggernaut

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It appears the OP and I must be experiencing something else. Thank you for the clarification.
 

professor goodstain

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Imo. If one sneezes at that last stretch just before that redeeming box of donuts at the end, that same person will have less appetite for the donuts. In other words, It can become a habit to start sneezing:) Don't start becoming allergic to finishing or you may start to concoct allergies to starting later on. Should you finish, you will likely always finish. And i pose a question to you. Will those donuts be tastier to you if you have prior allergie/s?
 

CrystalViolet

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I know burn out well. I think I burn out in every job I've had (except this one, and I can't stay.)
One of the last jobs I was in, I developed tonsilitis, RSI, and was becoming more and more billegirent with each passing day. I was so tired. It didn't help that I had to have my doctor phone up my work place so I could have some time off. My manager wouldn't let me have annual leave otherwise. Resentment built up and I was angry all the time. And I stopped caring... and I stopped worrying about being "nice."
They were wankers any way...but still I kinda blush when I think about some of things that came out of my mouth during that time.
 

wolfy

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I only burned out from a job once. I didn't get depressed, just felt trapped and angry. I could have smashed the whole place down with a sledgehammer in 30 minutes flat. It's the feeling of having no options that leads to burnout.
 

ygolo

My termites win
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Burnout is more than just stress overload. A lot of it has to do with long term attempts to force ourselves to be something else/do more than we can handle in the long term. But the feeling to burnout is very different than stress overload.

It's waking up feeling trapped... It's you forcing yourself to put foot in front of foot... it's you walking to the gallows, surviving it with no energy and no hope... Everything else in life fades. Your life becomes empty... no energy and no will to do anything. You'll hide yourself away in some corner, try to escape it, but it sits in your mind. The escape fades as soon as you stop doing it. You avoid bed, just because you know you have to get up... and every day ends the same... back in bed, unable to sleep, thinking about doing this again tomorrow. And the day after.

Soon the incremental stress takes it toll. Now the escape is going to bed. Depression sets in... you sleep as soon as you get home... and wake up and lie in bed for most of the night. The anxiety builds up... you start to become erratic. The body gets weaker... and the physical symptoms set in. You start taking OTC medications for headaches, tension, muscles. You see a doctor, get anti depressants, sleep aids... but that just raises your ability to function - raises the amount of stress your body will take before more functions start to break down.

Hmmm, sounds kind of dramatic when I put it that way. Anyway, it's the compounded amounts of small but significant stress that leads to burnout. Test "burn out", spurts of high pressure and stress leads to crashing and breakdowns... Students do get it, especially over achievers... but that's over the long run too, when they never really stop. It's harder for students to get it... less identity and fixed time lines break up the stress. And being trapped in a job tends to mean mortgage and family, never mind social pressures in general... that's a serious amount of long term (ie: 30+years) pressure to stay miserable.

You write this as if you know these feelings intimately. I know them quite well myself. I relate to the description of burnout you wrote. You weren't being too overdramatic. Lucky for me the family part hasn't happened yet.
 

Qre:us

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I've experienced burnouts....and in school, it usually happens when I'm so close to the finish line. I think it's because my mind leaps ahead to being done/finished, when reality hasn't caught up. And, the melancholy then sets in, because you can't just speed up time and wrap the whole shebang up and move on. Going through the motions then feels like time is stretching itself infinitely and there's really no end.
 

juggernaut

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+1

I think people outside of academia sometimes forget what this is like. Having worked plenty of shit jobs, for long periods of time, I can say without equivocation that what we go through near the end of a degree, or even just a really hard term, is probably as stressful (or more so) as anything I ever dealt with in the decade and a half I was out in the "real world". Burnout seems to be a part of the package for us.
 

ptgatsby

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You write this as if you know these feelings intimately. I know them quite well myself. I relate to the description of burnout you wrote. You weren't being too overdramatic. Lucky for me the family part hasn't happened yet.

Yup, I'm familiar with it... but I've heard quite a bit from some psyche friends that deal with really bad cases.

The thing to remember about burnout is that it is, at its core, a sort of long term stress. It is very different than being in stressful situations - like exams - which carry a different set of risks. And the symptoms are quite different - people on burnout start to shut out the world, emotions become dead, purpose and goals mean nothing. Stress is pretty much the opposite of these. The exact cause is up for debate and is probably somewhat personal, but small incremental stress - even if just being out of a 'natural' environment - seems to be the common link.

The distinction is important because a person can seem to have it all - like I did - and yet be on the verge of collapse. Stress is way more physical than burnout, so burnout can fly under the radar... and it isn't so easy to unravel.

I was reaching my limit over the last 6 months. It went from 'some issues' to 'check off every single thing on the list'. My wife knew it, but my family can't see it... so now that I am leaving this job (which wasn't my choice), it's hard to explain that I really need time to recover.
 

ygolo

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It's good to know you've gotten yourself out of the situation that was burning you out.

It took me a long time to realize I need to make a change as well. However, I still haven't found a new job. I am still searching.
 

AOA

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Fortunately, I was way too aware at the possibility of 'burning out' during university - Cambridge University (UK), the original institution, here. Now I'm about to state something (to the world) that I never stated before.

... And that's that I never gave a damn about pursuing hard whilst being there - I simply knew that in the end, whether I attain a good degree or not, that I'd be worn out to the extent that only my degree, a decent job opportunity and a mundane 'settled' life out of it would be my atonement in the long-run.

It didn't fit for me to go about like that - it's in my criterion to explore life the way I see it, and seek to make the most in all my areas... not just academics. That place seemed to focus solely on the academic area as though it's 'everything'. It's not right, there's more to life than that.

Being asked to go back to Cambridge nowadays, which is quite a decision to make.
 

ptgatsby

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It's good to know you've gotten yourself out of the situation that was burning you out.

It took me a long time to realize I need to make a change as well. However, I still haven't found a new job. I am still searching.

Getting out is hard... but what's really hard is finding something else that isn't the same. Once you learn the bad 'habits'... aie. I dunno what I'll end up doing yet... and that's the scary part for me.
 
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