She believes that this burnout can be brought on by “over-expectations from parents, careers, and society”. It’s exacerbated by social media because of the constant pressure to be living your best life, which “leads to a fear of failure and, conversely, a fear of success: 'If I achieve all that, how can I possibly keep it up? I may as well not even try'."
In extreme situations, she says it can even lead to depression or suicidal thoughts, and urges people experiencing millennial burnout to seek medical help like counselling.
For me, one of the hardest parts about millennial burnout is that I don’t feel I’m ‘allowed’ to be this tired. I don’t think I’ve earned it or done enough to warrant having burnout. I always compare myself to my mum, who was a single mother working two or three jobs at a time to raise me and my siblings in Wales. I always think, 'How could my mum work all these jobs, cook for us, clean, have all our school uniforms ironed and never complain?' Then I feel worse for whining.
But, at the same time, things have changed for our generation. We've internalised the idea that we need to be working all the time, and that being average is no longer enough; we have to always be achieving. Plus, our lives are a lot more 'out there' for everyone to see with social media. My mum had no one to prove to on a daily basis that she was keeping us alive, and that we had the latest toy or computer game. She’s really sympathetic to what I’m going through, and obviously worried about me, but sometimes talking to her makes me feel worse because I can’t help comparing myself unfavourably to her.
The idea of what a successful career should look like has also changed for my generation. It used to be about earning a decent salary, but now it feels like we need to do that as well as have a cool, exciting job you’re passionate about. It’s the same with being healthy. For my mum, that meant eating three balanced meals and having clean clothes. For us, that means going to the gym at 5am, doing a run post-work to get cardio in, eating kale at every possible opportunity, and cleansing my skin all the time or I’ll get wrinkles. It’s all about being hyper-healthy, hyper-clued-up, hyper-fashionable - and it’s exhausting.
Last year, I felt so bad that I thought I was going to have a breakdown. I’d been feeling burnt out for months, and with my to-do list growing as much as my stress levels, I wasn’t coping well. I could barely get out of bed or motivate myself to do the simplest of tasks. I was constantly stressed, and I didn’t feel like myself at all. I was snapping at my boyfriend, because I had no emotional energy left to give – I was so focused on trying to get through the day. He was worried about me because I wasn’t myself, and I even had physical symptoms: my skin broke out with acne for the first time and became flushed with the skin condition rosacea.
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