Burnout doesn't always look like falling apart. Sometimes it looks like a capable person continuing to function while becoming increasingly depleted. Understanding what keeps us pushing can be an important part of finding our way back.

One of the interesting things about burnout is that the people experiencing it are often the last people you would expect to burn out. They're responsible. They get things done. Other people rely on them. They may have demanding careers, families, aging parents, volunteer responsibilities, complicated relationships, or simply a life containing too many things that need attention. From the outside they may still look completely functional. Inside, however, something has begun to change.

They wake up tired. Things that used to interest them feel like work. Their patience gets shorter. Small decisions become strangely difficult. They procrastinate on things they would once have handled easily. They may become more irritable, detached or cynical. Weekends don't seem to restore them anymore. And frequently they respond to all of this by doing the very thing that helped them succeed in the past: they push harder.

“I Should Be Able to Handle This”

I've heard some version of that sentence many times. I've always been able to handle a lot. Other people have it worse. I just need to get organized. Once I get through this month, things will settle down.

Sometimes they do. But there is an important difference between being tired after a demanding period and gradually becoming depleted by one that never really ends.

Burnout can creep up because human beings are surprisingly good at adapting to unreasonable circumstances. We adjust to the new workload, the difficult boss, the relationship problems, the caregiving, the financial pressure, the chronic health problem or the constant stream of responsibilities. Then something else gets added, and we adjust again.

Eventually an extraordinary level of strain can begin to feel strangely normal.

I think this is particularly important for capable people because competence can sometimes conceal distress. If you continue meeting deadlines and taking care of everybody else, people may not realize how much it's costing you. You may not realize it either.

The Rules That Keep Us Going

When I work with burnout, I'm interested not only in what someone is doing but also in the internal rules that make it difficult for them to stop.

I shouldn't let people down. I need to be useful. If I don't do it, nobody else will. Resting is wasting time. I should be able to manage this. I'll take care of myself once everything else is done.

The difficulty with that last rule, of course, is that everything else is never done.

Sometimes these rules have been with us for a very long time. Perhaps being helpful brought approval. Maybe achievement became connected with self-worth. Perhaps you learned early that other people's needs came first, or that being competent was how you stayed safe and in control. For some people, slowing down can actually produce anxiety because being busy has become their normal state.

This is where I find the idea of protective “parts” from Internal Family Systems useful again. The part that keeps pushing isn't necessarily trying to hurt us. It may genuinely believe that slowing down would lead to failure, criticism, financial trouble, disappointing someone or losing control.

Understanding that doesn't mean we simply accept burnout. It helps us understand why changing it can be considerably harder than taking a weekend off.

Burnout Isn't Just Being Tired

Ordinary tiredness usually responds reasonably well to rest. Burnout can be more complicated. People sometimes describe a kind of depletion that affects not only energy but also motivation, concentration, patience and their sense of connection with what they're doing.

Things that once felt meaningful can begin to feel mechanical. Work becomes something to survive. People may withdraw socially because conversation feels like another demand. They can become unusually emotional or, at the other extreme, feel almost nothing at all.

The body may begin sending messages too—muscle tension, headaches, disrupted sleep, digestive problems, changes in appetite, feeling constantly “wired,” or becoming exhausted while somehow still unable to relax.

Not every symptom is burnout, of course, and persistent fatigue or significant physical changes deserve appropriate medical attention. We shouldn't assume every exhausted person simply needs better boundaries or more sleep. Physical health, medication, hormonal changes, chronic illness, depression, anxiety, ADHD and many other factors can be part of the picture.

Good therapy should remain curious about all of them.

When Rest Doesn't Feel Restful

One of the paradoxes of burnout is that people can finally get time off and discover they don't know how to use it.

They sit down and immediately think about what they should be doing. They take a vacation and check work email. They have an empty Saturday and fill it with twelve errands. Even enjoyable activities become projects.

Sometimes the nervous system has been activated for so long that stopping can initially feel uncomfortable rather than relaxing. There may even be guilt attached to it.

This is why I think recovery from burnout involves more than scheduling “self-care.” A bubble bath or a weekend away may be lovely, but they can't compensate indefinitely for a life that is chronically asking more from us than we have available.

Eventually we need to look at the equation itself.

ADHD Can Make Burnout More Complicated

ADHD deserves particular mention because adults with ADHD sometimes spend enormous amounts of energy compensating for difficulties that other people never see. Staying organized, remembering everything, shifting attention, starting uninteresting tasks, managing time and regulating emotions can require considerable effort.

Some people become extremely successful precisely because they've developed elaborate systems to compensate. Perfectionism, anxiety and working at the last minute under enormous pressure can all become ways of getting things done.

They work—but they can be expensive strategies.

A person may therefore arrive saying, “I don't understand. I used to be able to do all of this.” Sometimes the answer isn't that they've suddenly become less capable. They may simply have reached the point where compensation is consuming more energy than they have available.

What Is Actually Draining You?

When someone is burned out, the obvious answer is often “everything,” and sometimes that's not far from the truth. But it can still be useful to become more specific.

What takes energy from you? What restores it? Which responsibilities are genuinely necessary? Which ones have you inherited or volunteered for without ever reconsidering them? Which relationships leave you feeling replenished, and which leave you depleted? Where are you doing things because you want to, and where are you operating almost entirely from obligation?

I also like to ask: What are you carrying that perhaps isn't actually yours to carry?

That can lead to some interesting conversations.

Recovery Isn't Another Performance Goal

There is a temptation—particularly among high-achieving people—to approach recovery with exactly the same mindset that contributed to the problem. Now we will optimize sleep, exercise perfectly, meditate every morning, improve nutrition, establish seven boundaries and become exceptionally good at relaxing.

Suddenly recovery has become another job.

I think it can be gentler than that. Sometimes we begin by simply noticing the signals earlier. We become more realistic about capacity. We practise disappointing somebody occasionally. We leave something unfinished. We ask for help. We begin separating important from urgent and ours from not ours.

And perhaps we begin questioning the idea that our worth is measured by how much we can carry.

The goal isn't to become less capable. It's to stop requiring ourselves to operate permanently at the edge of our capacity.

If you're exhausted but still pushing, the most useful question may not be, “How can I make myself keep going?” It might be:

“What has this pace been costing me—and what would have to change for my life to become sustainable again?”

That's often a much better place to begin.

— Rory Batchilder, M.Ed., RP, CCC
Registered Psychotherapist & Canadian Certified Counsellor