Writing from burnout 🤲🏼 💌 🌝
Writing from burnout 🤲🏼 💌 🌝
So… a confession. This message comes to you from the dark pit of burnout. I’m unsure of how coherent it will be and it may be littered with spelling mistakes and gramatical errors. I don’t think I have the bandwith to proofread, so you’re getting an unfiltered glimpse into my mind in real time (faults and all). I always lose my footing this time of year. All of the work, emotions and life changes of the year pile up on me, until I’m struggling for breath. I’ve stopped processing things properly; skimming emails and failing to attend in person meets. Today is my fifth day in bed on the trot and I’m showing no signs of moving any time soon. Simply put, I’m running on empty.
That this deterioration happens every December could be surprising given the arbitrary way we organise time into months and annual cycles. But I’ve always liked the cyclical nature of weeks, months and years. I like setting myself goals at the beginning; be it a Monday, the 1st or January. Then as the cycle progresses, my best laid plans slip to the wayside by Friday, the 30th and December.
This year, much like last, I’ve decided to take a month off. This isn’t an act of self indulgence so much as a necessity for my health. I’ve stopped coping. With that lack of coping comes an increased likelihood of flare-ups and burnouts. Still, just as I’m about to set that out of office I always waiver. What if someone needs to contact me? What if I miss something important? Do I really deserve a month off?
Then, I think about how difficult it is to guard rest time when you’re freelance (or not freelance, let’s be real, this is a universal problem). How weeks of annual leave are optimistically plotted in, out of office’s set, weekends and evenings put aside, then before you know it you’re obsessively refreshing your email browser and giving out your personal number “just in case”. It never fails to amaze me how capitalism frames free time through a rewards based system – you only deserve to take time off if you’ve been working really hard. Our life is accounted for in relation to productivity, whereas leisure is siphoned off as an add-on or afterthought.
For the past week, I’ve become increasingly unwell. And yesterday I made the resounding decision not to attend my Open Studio this week. Despite the studios curator being characteristically supportive and understanding, I still couldn’t shake the guilt… I’m not being actively involved in the studio culture and community. What if someone important is there and I miss an avenue for future work. I tried telling myself that I have a studio to make my life easier, not as an obligation, but in the end it was my health that made the final decision (in spite of the voice in my head).
The one thing about being disabled and having a deterioration in health over the past few years, is that I can no longer go on ignoring my needs for months at a time. When my body and mind need a break they let me know LOUDLY. Those cries to stop are hard to ignore when they’re pinning you to the bed and making it so you can’t string together a sentence. It’s progress that I can now say that I’m grateful for aspects of my disability. Namely, that it’s given me a community and the ability to observe boundaries. Yet, that guilt still reigns supreme, particularly in new working relationships where the other person might not be accustomed to the lived daily realities of what my disability looks like (I use the personal pronoun here because, of course, everyone’s disabilities and access needs are completely unique to them).
You might ask yourself why, in the midst of this burnout, I find myself writing this newseletter. Maybe I’m trying to assuage the guilt by taking one final stab at productivity. For me, burnout doesn’t always equal a switched off brain. And while my most glaring barriers are around verbal communication, writing sits on the periphery as something I can still occassionally pick up (except for the words I’m meant to write, which have started blurring together into an incoherent mess… sorry if I owe you words). Ultimately though, I think I just wanted to send a little message out into the ether to all the burnt-out bed-dwellers beating themselves up for having a lie down. A message to say, it’s ok to take a break as and when you need it. You don’t need to earn it through productivity or good behaviour. It isn’t a reward at the end of a gruelling period. It is your right, as a living, breathing person, to stop.
Which feels like a good place to stop and wish you all a restful end to your year.
I will be trying my hardest not to look at my emails for a month. What will you be doing to lighten your load?
If you’re still here, whether you’re new to the party or are joining us for the first time, thank you for taking the time to read.
No December updates or currently watchings/viewings/readings 🤲🏼 💌 🌝
Because let’s face it, I already told you I’m burnt out. And the only thing I’ve been doing is watching re-runs of Gilmore Girls and savouring every last episode of Succession.
See you on the other side…