Burnout is not fun. I would know. I’ve had it for most of my twenties.

I found the countless nights of tossing and turning in trying to both fall asleep and then stay asleep to be both frustrating and despairing. Insomnia, the two kinds of not being able to fall asleep and to stay asleep, terribly affected my sleep cycle and energy throughout the day. Let me tell you, to wake up tired is not fun.

My daily routine, because of my lack of energy, was always compromised. Making plans with others was always done tentatively because I knew there was a good chance I’d have to cancel. After canceling enough times, people began to think I was unreliable or that I was trying to avoid them. But, really, I was exhausted and needed to rest.

I was also more easily triggered - irritable - because my emotional regulation was weak. It is also not pleasant for anyone to be around someone who is easily angered over little things. People around me would call me a spaz. little did they know, though, I was in a storm of unbalanced hormones and a collage of emotions due to being tired all the time.

And, of course, I can’t forget the experience of having frequent memory lapses caused by my poor sleep, which made my day-to-day life much more difficult. I had found myself writing down many things only to forget where I wrote the reminders. Ironically cruel, I know.

Having burnout felt like living in a world where up was down and down was up. I was mostly tired during the day but had loads of energy at night. It was like running on defective batteries that were low on power and made me moody, except, of course, when I wanted to fall asleep. Unfortunately, I couldn’t just swap my batteries for new ones. I needed to heal the ones I had.

My healing process began when I made changes in my life: changes that involved eating healthy and taking pressure off myself. However, the most significant changes came when I began to forgive people who had wronged me in the past and when I became more transparent about my burnout with others.

Thankfully, my journey of recovery is still proceeding along the path of good health. I no longer experience insomnia every night and my energy levels throughout the day have been consistently healthy for months straight now. I’d say my batteries are about 80% charged.

If you have burnout, you can gain strides in healing, too. Fill out the form below, and you’ll be connected with a mentor who will walk with you on your journey toward healing.

This article was written by: Vincent Rizzo