The College Burnout
It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” — Charles Darwin
I always believed burnout was a myth or something that only happened to really nerdy students (people who I admired, by the way, I was just too lazy to work that hard). I couldn’t ever imagine myself burning out because of campus. I was a hard worker, yes, but not the type to quit living my life for the sake of academics. So the day when I was told that I was experiencing an extreme form of burnout, I was shocked, confused and also very relieved, but let’s start from the beginning, shall we?
I am a health sciences student currently pursuing my Master’s degree. I am not allowed to practice my art of healing until I graduate so I have basically been studying for 5 years at this point in the story. In my 5th year, we were expected to study full time, work our internship and write up a dissertation. The academic component included multiple theoretical and practical modules which needed to be passed separately in order to write the exams, the internship included working from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. every second day and on weekends and the research dissertation…well that took a back seat for a while.
It was a lot to juggle but it wasn’t impossible. The perks of being a health science student are that the environment in which you’re studying in is extremely competitive and honestly, I loved it. I thrived on the fact that my best friend at the time, and I, were always pushing each other to do our best by challenging each other, whether it was through getting better marks or raking up patient numbers (we were required to see a certain number of patients for our internship). The whole process took me out of my comfort zone and I was having the time of my life. Interacting with patients helped develop my sense of empathy and build my communication skills, studying whilst working helped develop my time management skills and the fact that I hadn’t touched my dissertation helped humble and frighten me just a little.
Everything was running smoothly until my grandfather fell ill. Being an INTJ personality means that I can easily balance out my emotions in order to focus on whatever task requires my attention. I often describe myself as a robot, I hardly ever let my feelings get in the way of smashing goals. The problem was that I was unknowingly starting to project the energy from the fear of his death into my work. He fell ill just before exams and I started to work a little harder, my focus was sharper, and I was constantly telling myself that I was perfectly fine.
Then, my brother met with an accident. We were chatting whilst I was free at work when he sends me a voice note saying “I’ve just been in an accident”. Hearing him say that almost drained the blood from my body. The car was ruined but he came out with a few scratches and with his life. I was grateful but the emotions that came with this turbulent event shook my carefully balanced state of equilibrium to the core. It was becoming more difficult to keep it together but I stuck to my guns and pushed forward.
It was exam season now and the pressure was ON. I was working and studying in between patients. I hardly slept and barely ate. I needed to pass. I never failed any module and I had never had to rewrite an exam in my entire academic life. I had absolutely no intention of breaking that record now. It was the second week of exams, I was busy with one of my regular patients when I had got the message. My grandfather had just died. I stared at my phone, shocked. Now what? I can’t cry, I’m with a patient. I can’t fall apart, I have 5 more papers left, one of which was the very next morning. I had to compartmentalize this feeling and shove it in the “deal with it later” folder and carry on.
The next day was the funeral, my mom had just lost her father. My mom is the captain of the ship in my house, she keeps us all in check. So when she’s not able to be our rock, I feel a sense of responsibility to take over since she’s trained me well enough to be a vice-captain should anything happen to her. So there was no way I could fall apart now. I had to keep it together, for my mom’s sake. She never asked me to do that. It was my choice. So I pushed my feelings further down and marched on like a soldier, straight towards the line of fire.
Eventually, I started working crazy hard. I had passed all my exams (thankfully) but it wasn’t enough. I needed more. I worked from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. almost every day, trying to see as many patients as I could. Being surrounded by strangers on a daily bases provided an escape and gave me a sense of quiet bliss…until it all came crashing down.
Slowly, I started hating my internship, I hated dealing with patients and superiors. I started hating all the people around me and how happy they were. I hated the environment I was working in. I had made plans with my best friend to go to a concert, just the two of us, and then she dropped me without letting me know. It hit me that this wasn’t the first time she’s done that to me, it was just the first time that I had acknowledged it. I started hating her too. The anger started boiling up inside me like a cauldron of acidic poison. I started to feel so alone and so despondent that I was slowly becoming depressed.
One day my mom looked at me, a month and a half later post the death of my grandfather, with objective eyes (she’s a psychologist so she had already picked up on my vibes) and told me that I was experiencing burnout. An extreme form of mental and emotional burnout. I hadn’t grieved almost losing my brother, or the death of my grandfather or the inevitable end of my friendship. I was still in fight or flight mode, because of the added stress of exams and work. I had all these feelings just growing inside me with no healthy outlet. It was at this moment that I cried, waterfalls of tears, full of pain and heartache, but also full of appreciation and love for my mother. It was the first time that I felt like somebody had actually seen me and understood what I was feeling. Someone understood that I actually needed permission to grieve.
The aftermath of the burnout was rather unsettling. For me, I had lost all the people I genuinely cared about, friends and family alike. I had, however, achieved my goal and I saw the most number of patients which garnered me the recognition and receipt of an Excellence Award that I had dreamed off for the last 3 years. However, I never truly appreciated the weight of what I had achieved. It took losing so much to achieve this, so what was the point?
The point was that I had survived and this was a token to prove that. I had been under tremendous pressure, so much so, that most people would’ve cracked and yet, I came out unscathed; but polished like a diamond under pressure. I am still struggling to come to terms with all I have lost but what I have gained is an appreciation of myself. There’s nothing I cannot do if I put my mind to it. If I could do this, so can you. All you truly need to do is to be willing to adapt to change. As Charles Darwin says “It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” So regardless of whatever it is that you’re going through, take your situation, look at it objectively, learn from it and adapt.
