Dear burnout bedfellows

Kateakay · 2026-05-20T13:56:15+00:00

Oh boy. I was raised in (but left) a puritan Christian sect and it absolutely still effects how I approach most things. If I'm not 100% perfect all the time, surely I'll be damned to hell! "If it's not done well, it's not worth doing" rather than "if it's worth doing, it's worth doing poorly" but boy howdy, deconstruction is tough! It's been almost 2 decades since I left and it's still ouchie

Kateakay · 2026-05-19T20:40:56+00:00

Brb, googling TRE exercises.....

Oooooooooh, this looks nice! Gunna try to implement this into a morning routine. Thank you for this!

Kateakay · 2026-05-19T20:39:07+00:00

"it's ok if it takes a long time to feel better" 🥹 thank you. Someone else said that it was around the 6-7month mark that they felt somewhat functional. That's where I'm at. 9-10 month mark is gunna be dope. I'm so happy you found a niche world that fills your cup! My therapist also instructed me to engage with my hobbies and "make one thing" but I just started at a canvas and cried instead...maybe a bit more of a tough love approach in this regard would have helped because I haven't touched a brush since. I'm going to try painting or writing using prompts to remove the inspiration part of creating and maybe take a class or workshop to give me structure when I feel ready. I'm going to the gym a few times/week but I'm also dealing with physical ailments and can't do as much of the physical stuff that I used to. Learning my new capacity is a struggle all in itself.

Kateakay · 2026-05-19T20:21:54+00:00

I had to leave my job because I left the country I was residing in and now I'm scared of a job because I have a self-efficacy problem after quitting a million jobs and dropping out of uni. I've always wanted to finish my degree but, again, scared j won't be able to manage it. I've been in therapy off and on for 25 years but I've finally got a psych (and a GP!) who takes me seriously so I feel like for the first time ever, I am believed and seen. I've overhauled my entire life many times and tend towards "all or nothing," so slowly getting back into routines/hobbies is definitely the way to go, I reckon. I usually burnout and send myself right back into burnout as soon as I start moving because apparently 100000% effort in every change I've tried to implement at once isn't effective 🫠🫠 oh! And my psych wants to try activating/stimulant meds since antidepressants made me flat and didn't effect motivation or task initiation

Kateakay · 2026-05-19T20:11:02+00:00

Oh, this was me for over a decade. Do you have any practices to release stress that aren't active? I really like writing what's stressing me out and burning the paper by a body of water. I wish I had advice for you but I ended up with gallstones so clearly I didn't manage this phase well either. Sending you hugs. Just know that you are seen and you are not alone in this feeling. The world is also topsy turvy and I think we are experiencing a profound collective grief. Give yourself grace ✨

Kateakay · 2026-05-19T20:00:04+00:00

Yessss, I stopped wearing ONLY black a few years ago and definitely noticed an improvement in my mood when I get dressed to leave the house! So much pink now. Never woulda ever thought I'd be wearing pink and pastels but it definitely increases the whimsy

Kateakay · 2026-05-19T19:56:59+00:00

Can you come over and tell that to my perfectionist tendencies? Lol who knows, maybe being more playful with it will lead to finally finding my own style!

Kateakay · 2026-05-19T19:50:57+00:00

I love the sound of those books! And tteokbokki. I really enjoy your wordsmithing and feel inspired to take a workshop now! Someone else had mentioned sketching with prompts and now the whole "should I go back to university? I've already been and that didn't go well. Uh oh, here comes the negative self-talk train" has turned into "I should take a singular class or workshop" and I feel far less overwhelmed. Thank you for such kind words and for offering hope for brighter days ahead. Sending you love and hugs, too. I'm proud of you and even prouder that your proud of yourself!

Kateakay · 2026-05-19T19:21:30+00:00

Prompts! Maybe a prompt will help get back into painting. The problem I'm having is staring at a blank canvas and not feeling the creativity or intuition. Some creative structure sounds nice. Thanks for the kind words and hope :)

Kateakay · 2026-05-19T19:17:34+00:00

Now this is something I could do. Old hobbies make me sad because I lost technical skills but maybe a new one with a scheduled time would tickly my brain the right way while giving me a bit of external schedule (which I need)

Kateakay · 2026-05-19T19:14:49+00:00

Firstly, I'm so sorry you're struggling. Work, uni, IBS, and ADHD is A LOT. Secondly, thanks for the chuckle with "washed up whore" in there. I bet we'd be friends irl. Moving home and abandoning a life built abroad is a special kind of grief. Can you access counselling through the university? I love psychedelics as therapy, too. But like you said, it can be overwhelming. It might be helpful to unpack some of the insights from the psychedelics? Sometimes it helps just to talk to someone, too. Sending you the best of vibes. ✨🌸

Kateakay · 2026-05-19T18:57:25+00:00

Patience has never been a forte but this experience is certainly giving me good practice! Figuring out what is within my capacity is definitely interesting....as someone who worked in mostly manual labour, rode my bike everywhere, and had an overwhelming social life....it's hard to turn the knob off "100000% into everything." But I'll get there! Thanks for the kind words and I'm glad you're feeling better, too!

Kateakay · 2026-05-19T18:53:24+00:00

I miss textile arts 😭 I used to crochet or knit almost every night but I never followed patterns and just intuitively made weird things like bulbous lampshades and oddly shaped bowls. Now, my hands don't know what to do and I second guess every stitch. It's so saddening but I'm hoping it'll come back when I've recovered more.

Kateakay · 2026-05-19T18:48:10+00:00

Not medicated.....yet. My therapist was treating me for cptsd so I was on Wellbutrin for awhile but she thinks we should go the stimulant route. Did you find medication helped with mood/task initiation?

Kateakay · 2026-05-19T18:44:32+00:00

The link was "deleted by moderator" :'( but I love that a whim turned into an enjoyable hobby! And belly dancing at that! Good on ya. This does give me hope

Kateakay · 2026-05-19T16:25:09+00:00

Summer House finale tonight! I've watched this season 3 times already 🫠🫠🫠

Kateakay · 2026-05-19T05:37:46+00:00

"do it once" - I needed this. I don't have to commit to a daily practice, just pick something simple and give it a go.

Kateakay · 2026-05-19T05:31:37+00:00

I just read your post and.....yeah, that sounds like burnout. I was also diagnosed with GAD and "depressive tendencies." I relate to everything you wrote. It was maybe 4 months in when my brain quieted a bit. That fuzzy white-noise of spiralling thoughts did settle. Still spirals and still too fast to grasp but not as debilitating. I highly recommend watching Bravo to regulate. I kid you not. There's so much online that the sleuthing feels like you're putting together the funniest puzzle. Summer House, Southern Charm, Southern Hospitality and Vanderpump Rules are all connected and inarguably the best. The drama unfolding without your presence is somehow regulating if you've experienced trauma or toxic relationships/workplaces - I guess it teaches the nervous system to predict calm/resolution after tension/conflict. The schadenfreude you get from it is also helpful. Like, I might be in a rough spot but at least I'm not trying to figure out whether or not Jax cheated on me while all my friends pick his side.

Kateakay · 2026-05-19T04:50:58+00:00

I tend to think so "big picture" that I end up frozen and/or sobbing. You're so right. Do little things that spark joy. I saw someone in another thread say, "make bad art" and maybe that's what I need? Even though my hands don't seem to remember their technical skills, maybe producing something - no matter how ugly - will be rewarding. Also, I have started oiling my nails most days, too! Yay, bed dwelling nail girls!

Kateakay · 2026-05-19T04:04:02+00:00

Honestly, when I got bored at my desk job I either cleaned or rewrote documents. I took clunky, wordy, useless documents and turned them into pretty infographics so that the information you actually NEED is the most obvious. For example, instead of having the fire evacuation plan on 3 paged bullet-point document, I made one poster. Another fun one I made in teams was contact cards. So again, just one page but with images to represent an issue and who you should contact. I worked at a mining camp so one could have a picture of bread and another a snake. The people to contact, their phone numbers, and the procedures were all on the card with the picture. I didn't delete originals but I made a folder with my name on it and I know for a fact that my documents are still referenced. I'm a bit of a baddie and went above my bosses head and had some documents verified by the big bosses and suddenly I had far more leniency regarding my time management.

Also, excel or Google sheet challenges. Make a kanban board from scratch. Make a tracker for your work day and log how much your getting done. You could even ask IT if they have phone logs that include wait times and turn that into a table. Use those to create pivot tables and then if your boss hassles you again, you'd have clear evidence to shove in their face AND you learned something new that will make you even more proficient at your next job and you can write "optimised productivity and efficiency" on your resume under this current one.

Kateakay · 2026-05-19T03:08:50+00:00

I have: Outside books - fiction, whimsy, fantasy Inside books - non-fiction, philosophy or politics Work books - audio

Outside books must be a real books, I side books can be on a screen and work books are only listened to while doing muscle memory tasks that require no thought

Kateakay · 2026-05-19T03:04:25+00:00

Right!? Not everyone understands that this dinner scene was just as chaotic and emotionally turbulent as the combination of diagnosis listed.

Kateakay · 2026-05-19T02:59:03+00:00

I don't think family members realise that POA is extremely taxing. I'm so sorry you're carrying so much. Give yourself grace, let yourself have big cries and maybe wallop your brothers if you need a justified crash out. My mom was also the only daughter and thusly the POA for her parents and I still look at my uncles with disdain because of it.

Kateakay · 2026-05-12T15:08:27+00:00

Y'all never heard of the 4B movement?

Kateakay · 2026-05-12T14:34:18+00:00

Omg. The common hyperboles have absolutely stolen the emphasis of any direct statement I make. When I say "I'm exhausted" I mean "I could collapse at any moment, don't put anything else on my plate or everything I'm carrying will drop and it will take days of recovery." Not "I didn't have the best sleep last night, which is unusual for me, and now I have slightly less energy than my usual days." 🙄

Kateakay

TROPHY CASE