Can Anybody Hear Me?
This week, I unfortunately came down with a bad case of severe burnout. It’s my own fault, ultimately, for not having kept my work-life-school-organizations balance in check, the 10-50-20-30 that I let become 20-0-30-50 due to – frankly – negligence. I spent all weekend studying for my Operating Systems midterm on Monday, and spent every last minute up until the midterm Monday afternoon studying for it as well. During the midterm, I noticed a huge headache coming in. After the midterm, I met with my partner for one of my groups and we worked together on a design document, and then I went home.
I didn’t take my bike, because I felt too physically nauseous and exhausted to pedal. I took the bus home instead, and stumbled my way down my street. The moment my head hit the pillow, it was lights out. All of my cumulative stress was coming down on me – the consequences of what I had failed to manage were about to come in full swing.
That night, I suffered from intense night terrors. I woke up in nervous cold sweat, drenched and in confused and panicked fear, probably dozens of times that night. My head was pounding, pounding, pounding, my blood cold. I’d later learned that I’d been screaming and moaning in pain during what little moments of sleep I did end up getting in-between my nervous and scared states. I ended up having to call off from work. This was was the first week in my entire working life where I’ve had to do that.
I think my mental state has been rapidly deteriorating over the span of the past few weeks. It’s all this collective stress from having to do so, so much. It’s overwork, burnout, exhaustion, and so much more. It’s frustration and unmanaged emotions manifesting as an inwards collapse. Frankly, it’s been quite a lonely journey these past few weeks as well. What’s worse than being surrounded by people yet feeling so, so utterly alone? This has had a long time coming.
I’m taking it easy for now. Today’s my rest day before my team’s big event, “Hack the Power!” on Saturday. I’m really excited for that, and I know the others are too. I deserve a bit of rest. After all, there’s only one of me. Sometimes it’s encouraging, at least comforting, to know that there are truly people who care about me. I have a support system, but my head has been somewhere else these past few years that I guess I don’t really know who they are.
A few friends snatched me and we went to get Dutch Bros and some food together. Iota Mu had a good point: how can my body take care of me when I don’t take care of my body?
At the very minimum, I’m happy to know that there are people who care more about me than I care about myself.
Happy trails.