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Is This Burnout?

18

I am normally extremely determined (to the point of neglecting self-care until I have finished a project), but at the moment I can not stick to anything that I have decided on.

I feel that I have to achieve this thing before I can move on to anything else, but I keep failing and restarting, failing and restarting.

I keep getting stuck feelings, where I feel that something has been messed up or I have to work something out before I can move on. They last 4-6 hours. I sit on the floor (sometimes getting up to move/stretch but not leaving the room/area) until I have worked out / decided on something that allows me to move on.

My mind is really busy. It is normally busy, but at the moment it is more busy and it is constantly running lots of different things in the background and I can not turn it off. There are so many thoughts swirling around my head that I can not actually think.

I can not work anything out, except for my numbers and patterns, where all my start dates for things and number of days doing things have to add up to certain numbers and patterns, numerically and astrologically, which I have to keep re-calculating each time I restart. (I did not always have these rigid patterns, only since the trauma.) I do not know what I want or anything else and can not think properly about ideas and concepts.

The change of plans each time that I have to restart and re-calculate is distressing.

I keep wanting to melt down and feel upset and that I do not know what to do anymore.

I feel unable to cope with life and want to go back to being a little child: to go back to when things were simpler and let mum sort everything out for me (although things have never been simple with me and I always used to and was happy to sort out my own problems when I was a child and my lack of trust stops me from letting other people help me now). I think this is from two traumatic experiences when I was 13 (nearly 14) and when I was 16.

I am tired. (More than normal.)  Each time after I fail I feel exhausted, like I could sleep for days, but also my mind is too busy too sleep and I need to distract from my distressing thoughts of failure and self-hatred.

I have had low self-esteem since I was 13, but it got better between 14 1/2 and 15 1/2. After more trauma when I was 16 (a few years ago) and failing most of my GCSEs (passed 3 out of 7 with significantly lower grades than the ones that I had been pressured to get by the school since year 7) my self-esteem and self-confidence has been really bad.

My OCD from the trauma has varied since I was 13. It was only 5/10 minuets a day, then I was doing it constantly, then it was only 5/10 minuets a day, now I can not do anything (go out, get a job (I live with my mum still and she sorts out food shopping, washing, and my parents support me financially) anything that is a "productive" activity that I normally do for fun) until I have achieved doing set activities for a set number of days perfectly, because I hate myself and then I can be a "good" person. 

I feel trapped.

  • There is  lot going on here and I think to try to tackle it all in one reply is going to be counterproductive.

    First things first - we need to get your mind to slow down a bit so you can try re-organising your thoughts and see if there is a way forward. If there isn't a way to do this easily then you really need to get a therapist to work with you on this.

    My recommendation for the first thing is to try calming the mind. Try the following.

    Clear any schedule for the day / evening or whatever time works best for you. Find somewhere relaxing to sit with a notepad and have something to drink and a few nibbles in easy reach.

    Now dump the things you are thinking about onto the notepad. Don't use a computer - old fashioned pen and paper works best for this. Don't worry about it being right or making mistakes - just get the info captured.

    After the initial dump of thoughts, take a break, have something to eat and drink to keep your blood sugar up and go back to it - tear out that page and start organising the thoughts into their own section,

    I start by creating a circle in the middle of the page with the subject in the bubble and then draw satellite bubbles around with everything that relates to the subject. Draw lines connecting the ones that are inter-related, If there are dates or requirements, write these outside the bubbles they relate to.

    This may take a few iterations to get it looking like something meaningful, but when you stop you will see that all the thoughts that were bouncing about in your head are captured, displayed and you can come back to them at any time, so just let them out of your head - they don't need to be remembered at this time as you have them safe and sound.

    Now take something to help you get a good nights sleep - I tend to use antihystimine.

    When you wake up, you should find the mind is quieter - never fully at peace but quiet enough to let you get on with some of the other tasks you have to deal with.

    If this works then let me know and I'll help you manage some of the bigger projects. This is remarkably easy once you see how to do it.

    If you haven't already had therapy for your trauma then please do so - it has a nasty habit of festering and dragging you down over time if left unresolved.