Burnout. Positivity (t). Languish

Threshold Bar Raiser is the name of the game I have been playing for over two years now.

Every time something happens outside my locus of control, I bring up my toxic positive self and immediately start counting my blessings. I don't stop there. I write down all the things I am grateful for. On top of that, I call upon my pathetic empathetic self and give myself a pep talk around how someone else is suffering more and how I should not make a big deal out of things even if I felt Meh about it. By doing this in a cyclical manner, I raised my threshold bar consistently. The bar kept going up and I kept going on for almost 25 months.

There was a point where the bar didn't raise but just exploded. Nothing made sense to me. I wasn't depressed nor lonely nor energetic. I was just there languishing. I didn't have any clinical symptoms of stress but I just lost all grip over things I built with all my heart and soul for the past decade and was ready to throw it in the bin. In all this, I started giving rationale and logical explanation to why I should do what I am thinking of doing (that is crushing everything to rubbles). Self-care, relaxation, walks, talks, caring community, supportive family, nothing mattered. I just want to burn everything down for no reason. I could not take any more loss or grief or even a small event.

If you feel like running away from everything, if you feel like resigning from your job, if you feel like just binge-watching Game of Thrones again, if you feel like eating a tub of ice-creams at 11 in the night and the caring one in you pops out to give you some gyan (aka advice) you might be going through a combination of burnout, languish and self toxic positivity.

I don't have any tips, tricks or techniques for you right now. If I find I will let you know. This rant is just to let you know, you are not alone and don't beat yourself up with gratitude or self-care or relaxation or even a numbing tight schedule. It doesn't help 🤷‍♀️ Just knowing that you are going through this is liberating! Hang in there ✨

The realisation is slowly settling in me as the virus is slowly going away (down with covid for a week now).

🥂 to rants!