I didn’t realise I was burnt out until it was too late.

Everything was going fine… until it wasn’t.

My whole life had blown up at once, it wasn’t just that I stopped showing up for shift… I’d also started self destructing again. Old habits, long put to rest had resurfaced and I was on a spiral.

In retrospect it’s so obvious, but while in it I couldn’t have seen what was coming.

1. My relationships started falling apart.

I never thought to connect my volunteer work with my personal relationships.

As far as I could tell, they had nothing to do with one another. My friends and family didn’t even ask or want to know about my volunteer work (and that was ok with me!). Yet looking back at it all… I can see how my relationships blowing up were an important sign about the quality I showed up to life with.

My relationships were kind of like the canary in the coal mine of my life and I hardly got out in time.

2. Addictions and bad habits ramp up.

I thought I had overcome drug and substance abuse.

It’s not that I wanted to (or even saw it as) self destruct… I just wanted to feel better. I wanted to cope and with such low resilience, this was how I chose to do it.

Now days when I feel burnout approaching, my habits are a lot more tame. I might: doom-scroll on social media, binge read science fiction or watch hours of Minecraft videos (it’s so calming!). So while my destructive habits seem much more chill, I’m still vigilant about keeping an eye out.

Burnout is a creeper, it sneaks up to you very slowly and before you know it – it’s too late to get away.