Burnout

Hello journal!

It's currently 9:32 P.M. on a Wednesday night. My surgery shelf exam is in 9 days, and I have yet to advance in my UWorld question bank. I had quite the rough day. After returning from volunteering, I did...nothing. I spent the day in bed, mindless scrolling in my phone. It was the classic feeling of not being able to quite start a task. To make matters worse, I know that even once I start a task, there is no guarantee that the ball will keep rolling. This is because I get distracted extremely easily; the lack of focus is real.

After a keen move in hindsight, I texted a very close friend living in another state about my troubles today. We had a great conversation and he suggested that I might be experiencing symptoms of burnout. I realized he was right: I am burnt out. The feeling is definitely familiar, but now I can say why. The not being able to get out of bed, the wasting the day on the phone, they self-torture of knowing I need to work but for some reason cannot bring myself to do it: all part of the burnout.

I know looking at studying through a different lens would help address the burnout. Seeing studying as an opportunity to expand my medical knowledge instead of as work might help me actually enjoy being a medical student as opposed to dreading and resenting it when the going gets tough. Of course, easier said than done.

Yesterday I helped my boyfriend make mole and rice. When things weren't going the way he had planned, I erroneously proposed solutions when I should have spent time validating his experience of frustration. Apparently I had made things worse by offering help and giving advice. It's funny to me as I say this because I typically think I am good at recognizing, listening, and even feeling the emotions of others. However, I definitely have tried to fix problems before listening first; thus I can see how and why my actions were in fact unhelpful. I am sad that an immediate thought I had was considering what would happen if we were to break up, why he isn't someone I want to choose as a life partner, and so on. I know one of my toxic traits is distancing myself from people and exhibiting hyperindependence. The thing is, I wasn't feeling close to him last night. In fact, I was pretty uncomfortable. However, I don't know if my discomfort stemmed from him as a partner or if it was because of my own unease and panic when people around me are stressed and there's nothing I can do to help, fix, remedy, or give a solution to address the problem. The fact that he didn't even really want me to help me go through his feelings made me feel pretty useless as a partner. I know I have the problem of wanting to "fix" things for people, but I also don't think it's unreasonable for partners to be there emotionally for each other, which I can honestly say has been missing from our relationship. Does this whole situation highlight the incompatibility between us? I don't know. I want to lean yes and consider other reasons for breaking up. However, I've done this before and later regretted. Just a couple weeks ago, my boyfriend and I were the closest we had ever been, romantically speaking at least. It's odd to me how fast feelings might change. I dislike that about myself. I'm also realizing my low self-worth pops out a lot as a recurrent or ever-present theme in my writing. Sigh.

I actually feel a tad worse after this post. This makes me sad as I was thinking blogging would have the opposite effect. Maybe this is all good reflection for my therapy appointment I have in two days.