Getting to the Root Cause of Burnout, and its Treatment

An article in the Economist from 2016 was making its way online again recently. In “Way Out of Burnout,” a psychoanalyst named Josh Cohen describes how his patient had scheduled a week off from work to rest and relax, but ended up scheduling his week full of social activities that left him with no recourse from his usual life. Indeed, it is important to address the fact that even on vacation, you might be bombarded with notifications on your phone from social media, or wellness apps. In his book, The Burnout Society, Byung-Chul Han also addresses how our technology-filled modern world exacerbates mental health problems such as ADHD and burnout syndrome. There is a screen economy controlling our attention and the way we use our time.

Last December, I caught a terrible cold that lasted over two-and-a-half weeks, and given its length and the fact that it didn’t show up in the Covid-19 tests from the penultimate strain of Covid, it was likely the newest strain of Covid. I was left with lingering fatigue and a strange feeling of dread answering my phone whenever a friend or acquaintance messaged me on Facebook or Instagram. I was completely exhausted for a few weeks and had no social energy left. I reluctantly answered my messages on a delay of a few hours, but I realized that my use of social media was no longer sustainable. Why is it that on social media these days, it is assumed we immediately owe strangers and casual acquaintances our time and attention and are compelled to answer them when they send us messages and comments online?

After the New Year, I deactivated first my Tiktok, and then my Twitter, which each had thousands of followers combined. I no longer feel compelled to use these platforms, as these are doom-scroll sites where millions of people are complaining, and I have concerns with the privacy policy and cybersecurity on certain social media platforms, especially after there was a recent data breach of user passwords and email addresses on the dark web from Twitter. My remaining social media accounts were locked, and the follower and friend lists more mindfully maintained to people I’m comfortable sharing life updates with.

It is good when you can use social media for networking, but building parasocial relationships and friendships with strangers on a one-sided basis is unhealthy. I will answer occasional messages from friends and acquaintances if there is a sense of mutual respect, but in the vast majority of cases with online strangers, it is because the other person wants something from you that is of value to them, that they can’t reciprocate. I found this happening with several acquaintances so I stopped answering their messages or asked them to cease messaging me. These acquaintances would just bombard me constantly with messages solely focused on their interests, using me as an emotional sponge and then as soon as I begin talking about myself they would go radio silent or offer an incredibly half-assed form of sympathy that shows they don’t care to fully understand what I’m going through. It also is a source of discomfort when strangers or acquaintances you have barely interacted with online (sometimes of the opposite gender) latch onto you or idealize you, forming a fixation based upon their own weak sense of self.

I’m currently finishing my lengthy translation of Baruzi’s magnum opus on Saint John of the Cross hopefully by April or May. I am doing a few side projects in editing, spiritual direction, and UI/UX design but I feel I don’t have much bandwidth for anything else. My final research project for my Master’s in Psychology is on contemplative treatments for anxiety.

A few days ago, the area in which I’m visiting my family was affected by a winter snowstorm that cut the power lines and cable lines for Internet. The 3 days I spent without Internet passed by quickly even though all I did was read books and rest.

I’m going into the rest of the year with a renewed sense of purpose, knowing exactly what I can tolerate in terms of mindless digital consumption and what I’m avoiding. I won’t go into too much depth about how we just had a New Moon in Capricorn, during Capricorn season, that is in my 12th house of inner mental life and spirituality as an Aquarius ascendant, so aspects of my life are completely buying into this theme.

References

Byung-Chul Han. (2015The Burnout Society. Stanford University Press.

Josh Cohen. July 28, 2016. “The Way out of Burnout.” The Economist.