Tag: burnout

That Look on Their Face… And That’s Not Me

A strange thing happens to people when emotion overwhelms rationality. For a few moments, sometimes longer, they become someone they do not fully recognize. Not permanently. Not completely. But enough to frighten themselves afterward. It usually does not happen the way people imagine.

Most emotional derailments do not begin with evil intentions or conscious decisions to become destructive. More often, they begin quietly, beneath the surface, while someone is carrying more emotional pressure than they realize.

Stress. Exhaustion. Resentment. Fear. Humiliation. Burnout. Years of trying to hold everything together while slowly coming apart internally.

Then one day, something relatively small happens.

A tone of voice. A dismissive comment. A criticism. A disrespectful glance. A delayed text message. A disagreement over something that, under calmer circumstances, probably would not have mattered very much at all. But this time is different.

This time something inside the person accelerates. Their chest tightens. Their thoughts narrow. Their emotional intensity rises faster than their rational mind can regulate it. Their voice changes. Their posture changes. The nervous system floods with urgency, adrenaline, and emotional momentum. And for a few moments, everything they are saying feels completely justified.

Until suddenly… they see the look on the other person’s face.

Not anger exactly. Not even fear. Something worse. A look of emotional withdrawal.

A look that says: “I don’t recognize you right now.”

And for one painful instant, the emotional storm briefly breaks. The person hears themselves. Really hears themselves. The volume. The tone. The hostility. The emotional force that had taken control of the room.

And somewhere underneath the adrenaline and emotional static, another realization quietly appears:

“…And that’s not me.”

I think many people have experienced moments like this. Maybe not with yelling. Maybe not in dramatic ways. But most people have had moments where emotion temporarily outran perspective.

A father hears himself speaking to his son in the exact same tone his own father once used on him, and it shakes him to the core.

A woman in the middle of a jealous argument suddenly realizes she no longer even believes half the accusations she is making, but cannot seem to stop herself from escalating.

An exhausted executive walks out of a meeting replaying his own voice in his head, disturbed by how arrogant, defensive, or intimidating he sounded over something so minor.

A mother locks herself in the bathroom after screaming at her children and quietly cries because she never wanted to become this version of herself.

A person lying awake at night after another emotional collapse whispers into the darkness:

“What is happening to me?”

These moments frighten people because they feel revealing.

People begin wondering:

    • “Maybe this is who I really am.”
    • “Maybe I’m becoming someone terrible.”
    • “Maybe I’m broken.”
    • “Maybe the emotional storm is the real me.”

But I no longer believe that is necessarily true. I think emotionally overloaded people often become temporarily consumed by states that are not the total truth of who they are. And modern life is producing emotionally overloaded people everywhere.

People carrying:

    • unresolved grief,
    • financial pressure,
    • relationship disappointment,
    • chronic stress,
    • loneliness,
    • emotional suppression,
    • burnout,
    • nervous-system exhaustion,
    • and years of accumulated emotional compression.

Most people keep functioning anyway. They go to work. Answer emails. Pay bills. Smile in public. Try to appear normal.

Meanwhile, internally, the pressure continues building beneath the surface. Until eventually, something breaks through. And when it does, many people react in ways that leave them sitting quietly afterward wondering:

“How did I get here?”

I have become increasingly fascinated by that moment. Not the outburst itself. Not the emotional collapse. The interruption. The moment awareness returns. The moment someone sees the look on another person’s face and suddenly realizes: “Something just took over me.”

That moment matters more than most people realize. Because the moment we become capable of observing the emotional storm, we are no longer completely possessed by it.

A small separation appears between:

ourselves,
and
the emotional state moving through us.

That separation may feel fragile at first. But inside it lives something extraordinarily important: awareness.

And awareness changes everything. Not overnight. Not instantly. But awareness is often the first moment a person begins finding their way back to themselves. Not through shame. Not through denial. Not through pretending difficult emotions do not exist. But through the quiet realization that:

“This emotional storm passed through me…
…but it is not the total truth of who I am.”

Maybe more people need permission to talk honestly about moments like these. Not to justify destructive behavior. Not to avoid responsibility. But because emotionally flooded human beings often feel deeply alone in experiences that are far more universal than most people realize.

And perhaps emotional healing begins the moment someone finally becomes able to say:

“That reaction happened…
…and that’s not me.”

 

Counter Selfless Disregard and Burnout

You’re a giver. You know that more often than not, you will put the needs of others ahead of your needs. You see yourself as a helper, someone who helps others to have a better quality of life. You’ve been maintaining a frantic pace and you are doing your part to make the world a better place. If anyone needs, anything, they know who to call on in their time of need: You. You answer the call and save the day once again, and there is a degree of satisfaction from helping others, but what about you?

You’d like to think you have an endless reserve of energy to call upon at any time to meet the needs of others. You keep pushing forward, you’re helping everyone you can, and they don’t even know difficult it is for you to follow through and “be there” for everyone else.

You might not even giving much thought to changes happening inside your body because your energy has been running low and your body begins to cannibalize itself to provide you with the energy you need to continue to help the people who have come to depend upon you.

You may (or may not) have noticed certain changes, such as difficulties associated with your digestive system, you might be experiencing headaches more often than in the past, you might be grinding your teeth or seeing a rise in blood pressure.

It’s as if your life force is draining from your body, you’re noticing that you’re feeling a lack of energy and feeling overwhelmed with fatigue. You’re not feeling well about yourself, feeling hopeless, powerless and/or resentful.

The satisfaction you once felt in helping others no longer satisfies and you’re starting to feel as though you are merely existing as you continue to help others even though you’re wondering if you’re just going through the motions. You’re not getting out as much as you used to, you’re beginning to withdraw from others, and life, in general. This whole life which used to be so meaningful for you, feels more like a prison these days.

As you continue to run out of fuel, you are becoming more susceptible to heart problems, heart attack and stroke.

Your inner force needs tending to, if ignored long enough, your energy dwindles and there may not be enough juice left to sustain your basic function. Your flame, you, your body, mind and spirit are literally burning out. I suppose that’s why we refer to this state as, “burnout.”

Stress is a key contributor to burnout. When all our systems (body, mind, soul) are operating at peak performance, we are invincible. Stress has little effect on us as we cast it aside. But if you’re constantly giving more than you receive, or do not take care to re-charge your systems, you develop a deficit. And if neglected long enough, you will suffer the results of burnout.

Stress left to itself can take its toll on you, though there are some of us who can withstand a great deal of stress over time and not be affected much. But these very same heroic individuals are susceptible to burnout, and if or when they do, they are ill-equipped to recoil or respond appropriately. They fall victim to emotional fatigue, which promotes negativity, and they begin to spiral down in the shadow of burnout’s decay.

As your system deteriorates, you will notice areas of your life that were easily and naturally manageable becoming more and more problematic, affecting your professional life as well as affecting areas of your personal life as well, including interpersonal relationships. You might start feeling as though you don’t have anything in common with anyone and begin to withdraw from social interactions and intimate relationships as well.

If you are potentially amidst this sinking whirlpool dragging you down, you’re probably not as mindful about what you eat, nutrition, or exercise. And it’s likely, you’re not getting enough rest.

So what can you do?

Do what you can. Definitely, if you see signs of burnout in yourself (or someone else) take a quick inventory and fix what can easily be addressed. Seek to eat better and integrate more healthy foods in your diet. Start finding ways to incorporate physical fitness, walk, jog, go to the gym, do something. And start going to bed earlier and get some good sleep. This will start to rebuild your energy reserves.

Take it upon yourself to start finding ways to relax and deal with anxieties and situational stress.

Let’s face it, without the basic elemental fuel, your body will wear down and so will the rest of you. You have to take the responsibility for ensuring you, your body, spirit, and soul are tended to. Don’t let your physiological, intellectual, social and spiritual parts of you wither and die.

This is a good time for a checkup with your doctor for a complete physical battery.

It might also be apropos to consider taking a time out for a brief sabbatical to ready yourself for your triumphant return and resuming your powerful heroic performance.