You look at the dishes piling up, let out a sigh, having all the best intentions, and every desire to tackle the grime filled mountain, but instead you order out or eat hot pockets for the third time this week, and settle onto the couch--or worse-- your bed.
You complain to yourself that you feel lonely, that it feels like no one cares, that you're no one special, yet when the texts, voice messages, and reels come across your screen the thought of opening them feels more like walking barefoot across hot ashes than it does a warm hug.
You can't seem to put your phone down because for whatever reason scrolling feels like the only thing that offers some reprieve from it all, even though you notice that it's literally making you feel worse.
...too far? Okay, Okay, I'll stop with the attacks.
Last week we took a look at 10 ways to tell if you've found yourself in burnout, and differentiating between a nerudoviergent experience of burnout and a neurotypical one. If you missed those you can find them here: https://valley-highcounseling.com/blog?categories=burnout
Today we're taking a dive into 10 types of burnout, which will hopefully give you a better understanding of what might be contributing to your burnout if you find yourself experiencing it.
1. Professional Burnout
This generally stems from a number of things. Feeling overwhelmed at work due to unrealistic expectations, competing priorities in the work place, stressful deadlines can contribute to burnout.
A toxic work environment, poor leadership, engaging in tasks or projects that feel unfulfilling or do not align with one's values, and a lack of autonomy in the work place can also quickly burn a person out.
A poor work-life balance is positively a one way ticket to burnout. Not having time for things like hobbies, family, friends, or personal interests makes it difficult to maintain a good work-life balance. Additionally, having blurred boundaries around work and home can make it challenging (like responding to work e-mails when spending time with your family or spouse).
Symptoms of professional burnout can be: emotional exhaustion, detachment from work, lack of motivation, decreased productivity, feeling overwhelmed or undervalued.
2. Parental Burnout
Parental burnout is especially common in parents with young children who require a lot of attention and help in their day to day life. Kids require a lot, and the less independent a child is, the more a parent needs to do for them meaning the more attentive a parent needs to be. Translation: there is no being "off" with young kids.
Feeling alone in parenthood is one of the greatest contributors to parental burnout. This could be due to single parenthood, conflicting work schedules, chronic illness, mental illness, addiction, or a number of reasons.
Whatever the reason, a parent needs support and needs a tribe. The saying it takes a village didn't sprout up from no where, and it doesn't just apply to children. Children are not the only ones who need support. Parents need to be able to rely on others to tend to their kids, yes, but they also need to vent, they need a shoulder to lean on, they need people who see them.
Fellowship and Community can help combat parental burnout. Balance, and having time to engage in person interests and hobbies is also important in warding off burnout in this area.
Symptoms of parental burnout can be: extreme and chronic fatigue, irritability, feeling like a failure as a parent, emotional exhaustion, and a sense of disconnection from children.
3. Caregiver Burnout
Similar to parental burnout, caregiver burnout stems from taking care of someone who relies on you to get their needs met. This could be an elderly parent or relative, a child with special needs, or a loved one with chronic illness or a disability. Having someone who needs large amounts of support in their daily living takes a toll on a person, and it's easy for the person to burnout if they don't have a good balance between caretaking, selfcare, personal interests, and a the support of others.
Symptoms of caregiver burnout can be: Physical and emotional exhaustion, anxiety, irritability, and a sense of neglect toward one’s own needs.
4. Compassion Fatigue
Compassion fatigue is a type of burnout that stems from being in a caring position and tapping into one's empathy reserves often and for long periods of time. Emotionally connecting with others can be extremely rewarding and fulfilling, however without proper balance it can be easy for a person to burnout.
Symptoms of compassion fatigue can be: emotional depletion, feelings of helplessness, difficulty empathizing/ feeling jaded, or experiencing secondary trauma as a result of helping others who are suffering.
5. Social Burnout
Social burnout stems from feeling overwhelmed by demands in relationships. A person can feel overly responsible in their relationships when they're not showing up authentically, when they give in to people-pleasing tendencies, and when they struggle to set boundaries and assert their wants and needs.
Symptoms of social burnout can include: Emotional exhaustion from social interactions, irritability, social withdrawal, and a desire to isolate from others.
6. Academic Burnout
Academic burnout might occur when a person feels unrelenting pressure from academic responsiblities, perhaps related to maintaining high standards, balancing competing deadlines, studying for long hours without taking a break, and not having any free time to decompress.
Symptoms of academic burnout can be: Anxiety, fatigue, lack of focus, irritability, and disengagement from studies or activities that once felt rewarding.
7. Tech Burnout
Tech burnout can stem from being constantly connected to technology, feeling demands of remaining available at all times, overexposure to screens and electronics, and feeling always "on".
Some symptoms of tech burnout can be: Mental fatigue/ brain fog, feeling overwhelmed by the constant flow of information, irritability from constant notifications, sleep disturbances.
8. Entrapreneurial Burnout
This type of burnout can stem from owning a business and being one's own boss. The demands of balancing the pull to grow one's business while being responsible for one's own work-life balance can be overwhelming. Often being an entrapreneur means wearing multiple hats and having multiple roles in a business and it can be overwhelming to manage time wisely while also being sure to make time for personal interests, family, friends, mental and physical health.
Symptoms of this kind of burnout can be: Exhaustion, lack of enthusiasm for the business, feelings of isolation, and stress related to balancing work-life responsibilities.
9. Creative Burnout
Creative burnout often stems from needing to be creative for prolonged periods of time, having to meet deadlines on creative projects, being required to engage in repetitive creative work, and not being given creative freedom on projects. It can also stem from a lack of balance in life, limited opportunities for finding inspiration or not engaging in things that evoke real emotion.
Symptoms of creative burnout can include: mental fatigue, lack of motivation, creative block, icnreased self-doubt, and loss of passion.
10. Phyiscal Burnout
The last type of burnout we're covering today is physical burnout which stems from prolonged periods of engaging in physically demanding tasks. This is commonly occuring to folx who work in a labor field who might work long hours, stand on their feet all day, and do heavy lifting or push their body to its limits. This can also happen for other reasons too though, like for caretakers or when living with chronic illness.
Some Symptoms of physical burnout can be: physical fatigue, exhaustion, sleep disturbances, muscle aches, headaches, and appetite disturbances.
While these are only some types of burnout, understanding this list above will give you a better ability to see burnout in any form showing up in your day to day life.
Often the first step to resolving an issue is to recognize the issue for what it is. If you or someone you know is experiencing burnout, and you're having trouble resolving it on your own that's okay. Call or e-mail me today and schedule to appointment. I offer telehealth therapy to anyone in South Carolina dealing with these issues, and you do not have deal with them alone.