Workaholism & Burnout
Workaholism. For me, it was about the need to feel needed.
Who can feel neglected when everyone wants/needs a piece of you?
Answer: Me. My deepest self. My soul.
If you make yourself as close to irreplaceable as possible, you can continue running from yourself as long as you choose. Because then you’re always wanted/needed by someone else.
That means you can outrun the deeper feelings you’re neglecting - that you’re worried if you’re not needed, no one will miss you when you’re dead and gone. If you take it a step further, as I was so prone to do, and you add the chameleon-ability to that conundrum, people then need the image you portray to them. NOT your true self.
If you can outrun your thoughts and make yourself so needed by so many people, you can almost begin to believe the lie that you’re wanted.
Don’t mistake the words want and need.
Because at the end of the day what are you truly trying to do? Make yourself needed to the point you can fill that void of feeling unwanted.
Newsflash: You’ll burn out before you even reach that stage.
…
Burnout. Just seeing it feels heavy. There are so many things I had to do to claw my way out. I hit it twice - once in 2020 and again in 2021. In fact, my husband likes saying he could tell the explosion was coming sometime; he was just patiently tiptoeing around me until I stalled out. While I wish he would’ve said something, I wouldn’t have believed it anyway.
I truly believe I “quick fixed” the first episode of burnout. Weekly acupuncture, EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing) and IFS (internal family systems) therapies, EFT (emotional freedom technique) all to deal with the underlying traumatic history I tried to run from, and functional medicine treatments brought it from blaring to background noise.
The second episode crept in because it was background noise. It slowly turned the dial up until I could no longer hear anything else. To heal from that one I quit my job in 2022. I began to make time and space for my spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical health. I chose when my days off would be - taking four of them every single week. Working six hour shifts in one day at the max. Talking about my burnout and my bad experiences. Learning more about my childhood traumas and how they’ve affected my work capacity going forward until I can heal those. Setting boundaries with patients who violate them so easily (mostly saying goodbye). Being forced to work less because of a non-compete clause. Choosing to rely on my husband more, when I’m usually so good at saying, “no thanks.”
Side note: I could go on and on about my experience. If this resonates with you, please feel free to put in a website submission and I will get back with you ASAP to help if possible.
Suggested Resources*:
Addicted to Busy by: Brady Boyd
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