High functioning burnout

What it looks like:

• You can perform tasks, but only what’s barely needed. Anything bolder, dreamier, loftier, you struggle to muster even the strength to hold a pen.
• Everyone around you thinks you seem to be managing everything well. Successful even. You look productive and busy. But your internal experience is anything but. Yet, you continue to just smile, and say, “Just a little tired”. Nobody would believe you even if they knew. Most don’t want to know either – everyone’s busy with their own shit.
• You don’t know what to do, so you just keep working, keep going, keep digging the hole you made but forgot why. At some point you feel disconnected and numb, but lean on that to keep going some more.
• You get enough sleep, but you’re still tired for no reason. Any small crisis takes you out for days, or even weeks, to recover.
• You eat the same lunch every day. You wake up at the same time. Drink the same coffee. Do the same routines, day in day out. Because you’re so maxxed out that you can’t even get creative with activities of daily living. With such habits, at least you get fed, clean, get shit done. This is the most visibly “high functioning” part of the burnout.

It’s good to look back on how this had crept up on me in the past, but also a good checklist for now and future to prevent myself from going back.