You need a break
and I do too
Did you ever find yourself thinking that pondering about the past and the future is exhausting? But then you come to the realization that even having a single thought about the present is quite literally detrimental to your mental health. It’s almost as if the “now” is so excruciatingly overwhelming that you would rather dwindle at some other time when you didn’t feel this way.
The worst part is that your reality may not even be that bad, but you just can’t find peace in the present moment, and instead, it fills you with an undetermined sentiment of dread. You try anything that comes to mind, and it doesn’t work. Breathing exercises, journaling, gym, spending time with loved ones, therapy, and so on. Nothing is helping, or it’s just not helping enough, and for a human being, even ‘enough’ is what we usually settle for, but this time you don’t even get to relish in that experience.
Usually, at this point, the guilt claws its way into your mind. You start thinking about how your situation isn’t as bad as it may have been before or how it’s way worse for some other people you know, and that guilty feeling doesn’t even stop there. Your thoughts are consumed by your personal assessment that you are not strong as a person, and that just may be the worst guilt one can feel. Lack of strength to fight through your own mind. But that isn’t the reality, and deep down you are aware of that. You just need a break, and this is completely normal and natural to feel.
Not every crash feels catastrophic, and not every high feels manic, so following this logic, not every burnout is supposed to overcome you with guilt. This is not the time to force yourself to be better for others or even yourself. Feel it. As much as it feels uncomfortable, feel the exhaustion. You are a human being, and we people, can and should allow ourselves to just be and not question it too much all of the time.
It’s not an easy task to admit to yourself that you are drained, and there is nothing you can do to change it at that very moment. But that also doesn’t mean that your current state won’t change. You simply need to cut yourself some slack. Take a pause. Be a person, and if even that’s too much right now, then just be.
