Is your partner suffering from burnout?
Would you know if your partner or someone close to you was suffering from burnout and would you know what to do to support them?
I’m going to explain to you what burnout is, how burnout happens, what the signs and symptoms are to look out for, and how you can support someone who is burnt out.
What is burnout?
There are different definitions of what burnout is, but I’m going to use my own, which comes from personal experience of having had two burnouts.
Burnout is when you have got nothing left to give, physically, mentally or emotionally.
PHYSICALLY, you are utterly exhausted. It’s a struggle to get through the day, every day.
MENTALLY, you just can’t take anything else in. You feel like you can’t take anything else on. You just can’t take any more information, you’re just utterly overwhelmed.
EMOTIONALLY, you don’t feel much about anything or anyone. You feel a bit numb to life around you.
What causes burnout?
Burnout doesn’t just happen. It occurs when we have been exposed to stress for a long period of time (chronic stress). It can be stress from a job, from life in general, with all the things that you have to do every day, juggling of work and family life.
It can be stress from finances, relationships, there’s a whole host of things that can cause us stress and it could be that there’s one thing causing you stress or it could be that it’s a combination of many things.
What happens is, that when we’re stressed, we get all these different signs and symptoms of stress which quite often we can dismiss as being down to something else.
We ignore them, we think they’ll go away or we think they’ll get better on their own. But what actually happens with chronic stress is that if we don’t do anything to address the cause of stress or we don’t do anything to manage our stress then these symptoms, they just layer up, one thing after another until it all just becomes too much and you just can’t take any more.
This is when BURNOUT HITS.
Signs that someone is suffering from burnout?
They may be:
- Irritable, snappy, more angry than normal.
- Distant and detached.
- More negative – their outlook on life generally.
- Isolating themselves, becoming withdrawn, no longer socialising, not wanting to see family, friends and no longer enjoying doing things that they once did enjoy.
They could be
- Struggling to sleep, even though they’re utterly exhausted
- Sleeping too much.
- Drinking more alcohol.
- Eating more or eating less
Their level of exhaustion is so bad that nothing can make it better. So no amount of rest, no amount of early nights and even taking a holiday, nothing will ease that exhaustion.
What can you do to support someone who’s suffering from burnout?
Awareness
Help them create awareness around the fact that they are burnt out because they may not actually know. So guiding them towards information on the different signs and symptoms of stress because it’s those signs and symptoms of stress that have built up that have led to the burnout.
There’s some links below that you might find helpful.
Listen
Listen without judgement. For somebody who’s burnt out, there’s a lot of emotion tied up in that. They feel like a failure, they feel like they’re not coping when they should be coping. They’re questioning, why can’t I cope when everybody else is?
They may feel a bit embarrassed. They don’t want to ask for help. So, listening without judgment is really important.
Understanding
Understanding them even if you don’t get how they’re feeling, because to be quite honest, unless you’ve experienced burnout, you’ll never know how it feels. And I’m speaking from personal experience!
Encouragement
Encouraging them to prioritise self care and rest. And you can do that by being more supportive.
Support
Asking them what they’d like help with, as opposed to telling them what you can do.
Finally, encouraging them to seek additional support because burnout takes a really long time to recover from. It can be quite complex and having that additional support, whether it’s through counselling therapy or coaching, can make a huge difference in how quickly that person recovers from burnout.
Other information you may find useful:
How is stress affecting you? Take the quiz to find out