Rebuilding My Life After Burnout

A quick note: I am not a licensed mental health professional, and this post is intended to share my personal recovery process. If you are struggling with burnout or any other mental health issue, please speak to a licensed mental health professional. Please also consult a licensed healthcare provider before making any changes to your diet or exercise routine. 

Six months ago, I was working remotely in marketing for an large company and freelance writing on the side. I travelled all over the US while I worked from my laptop. I had supportive friends and family, money in my savings account, and a successful career in front of me. 

“You’re living the dream.”

It was a phrase I heard a lot—from friends, coworkers, even strangers—and it gave me knots in my stomach. Because looking like I had it all only made it harder to admit how miserable I actually was. 

The truth was, I was suffering. For over two years, I’d been unbearably stressed and unfulfilled at work. Traveling was exciting, but my environment was consistently unstable. My physical health was suffering due to unhealthy eating, lack of exercise, and not enough sleep. 

All I wanted to do was stop, but I felt like I couldn’t. 

No matter how bad it got, I couldn’t shake the guilt of feeling like I should be happy because I was “living the dream”. So I just kept pushing, until one day I couldn’t push any more.

A Decade of Perfectionism

Looking back, I realize my breakdown and burnout were years in the making. I felt a lot of pressure growing up, and in my early teens I developed an obsessive, perfectionistic mentality that influenced nearly all of my choices and beliefs. This mindset morphed from one mental health problem to the next, following me from high school into college, and then on to my early adult life. 

My values at the time led me to pursue corporate marketing. I wanted to be ‘successful’ in society, to prove my worth with my paycheck, to make other people proud of me—and the job I chose would help me do just that. Motivated entirely by insecurity and fear of failure, I ignored my intuition and put these values above everything else in my life.

As you’d probably expect, the work environment of my job was high-stress, competitive, and centered around profit. The ‘bottom line’ took precedent over kindness and ethics. 60 hour weeks were the norm, and there was an unspoken expectation that if your job wasn’t the main focus of your life, you simply weren’t doing enough.

Over the past two years, the additional stressors of adulthood and major life changes pushed me over the edge. It was a gradual process, but when my burnout reached a boiling point last fall, there was nothing I could do to stop it.

After over a decade of self-neglect and perfectionism, my body and mind were finally saying “no”—and I had no choice but to listen.

Reaching a Breaking Point

One particularly stressful day, it happened.

I knew something was wrong. It seemed like my brain had shut off. Even the smallest task or decision felt too overwhelming, like brushing my teeth or deciding what to eat.

It continued like this for weeks. I suffered from panic attacks, dizziness, and intense exhaustion. I couldn’t handle any form of interpersonal conflict, and my relationships suffered as a result.

I went to the doctor, convinced I had bad asthma, due to chronic shortness of breath. When the inhaler and allergy medicine didn’t work, I began to realize my breathing problems were stress-related. 

For two months, I experienced this period of severe anxiety, trying my best to work, travel, and maintain the baseline of everything that needed to be done. I would finish a full day of work, then break down into uncontrollable sobbing in my car.

Looking back, I know I should have listened to my body and quit right then and there, but my mental health was too poor at the time to make any rational decisions.

Time for a Change

When I went home to visit my parents for the holidays last year, I finally had a small break and I started to catch up on sleep. This small boost in my mental health gave me the energy I needed to realize things needed to change. 

Above all, I knew needed some serious downtime. So I made a plan to save as much money as possible and keep my living expenses low in order to take time off. I was incredibly fortunate to be making enough money from my job at the time in order to save for this. 

I knew I wanted to find a new apartment surrounded by nature, where I could work toward creating a positive environment for myself to heal, so I made the jump to move to Oregon in February. 

And finally, I gave my notice at my job. 

For so long, I’d been waiting for the perfect moment to quit—the perfect excuse to escape. Maybe one really bad day at work. Maybe one more physical symptom of anxiety. Maybe a breakdown to the point where I needed to be hospitalized. As horrible as these thoughts were, they reflected the workaholic mindset I couldn’t let go of. 

My burnout, though painful, led me to finally understand the importance of mental health, and to rearrange my life to make wellbeing a top priority. 

We shouldn’t need to undergo a traumatic event or a health crisis to justify a life change. Mental illness, no matter the severity, is more than a good enough reason to leave and unhealthy situation of any kind.

Starting Recovery

Today, for the first time I can remember, I’m allowing myself to rest. I’m beginning the difficult process of recovering and rebuilding my life after burnout.

I had to take a good look at the values that led me to a breakdown and ask, “Why do I want these things so much when they’re destroying me? Is my perfectionism actually serving me? Who am I really doing this for?”

I realized that the values that had brought me into my job were external ideas I adopted during adolescence—not my own. As I grew, I realized I was living a life that was not my own.

Now, I’m working rebuild my life from a place of joy and positivity instead of anxiety and fear. 

I’m letting go of my toxic standards of “success” and replacing them with healthier, happier ones. This includes trusting my intuition, and looking for a career that aligns with my new values and supports my physical and mental health.

I’m still in the very early stages of my recovery, but I’ll continue to try different approaches and share what works for me. Right now, I’m making rest my number one priority and choosing what I truly, intuitively want to do, not what I feel like I should do. 

I’m consciously choosing to do things that will help me recover, like journaling, limiting social media, sleeping, eating healthy, drinking water, and getting some mild exercise. 

Burnout affects each of us differently, and if you think you might be struggling with it yourself, you can read more about burnout symptoms, risk factors, and treatment here. If you feel like you may be struggling with any type of mental health issue, please contact a mental health professional or helpline.

I’m excited to share this process with you as I work toward creating a happier and healthier life, and I hope some of these things will work for you too.

I know burnout and anxiety can make us feel very alone, but we’re not. Trust your intuition, validate your feelings, and the healing will follow.