Burnout or severe strain, why do I suffer from it?

When your personality starts to notice that he can no longer control your world the way he wanted to, a burnout is at stake. More and more situations are seen as threatening, and because you cannot "solve" it, your reactions will become more and more extreme, like panic, remaining silent, not being able to handle, sleeplessness, repeating thought patterns in your head, etc. That is why you may read that people that are perfectionists are likely to be more vulnerable to this, because their interpretations are likely to be negative by nature. But there are all kinds of situations in which a process like this can happen.

It usually is a process, you are not burnout "at once". It builds up over time, with lots of little things where your personality keeps repeating his standard patterns to do things "good". For example work harder or longer, take over from others, hide behind busy-busy-busy, looking for safety in as much situations that you feel that you can more or less control etc. Your performance will be less than optimal, and your extra input is likely to lead to an opposite effect, because now the response from the people around you is no longer what you expected either. And at a certain point in time this whole system collapses, your personality cannot create a safe and pleasant environment anymore, and a more radical approach is needed: you withdraw from these situations and are burnout.

Especially in a world in which there are a lot of "have to's": you have to be busy, a lot of demands seem to be made on you, your personality does not have too much possibilities to be in control. So it can be an option to withdraw into a situation where no or little demands are made upon you, build a new world that has the familiar safety patterns for your personality, and move on. Now this is some form of a time bomb, because you have not changed the cause, the only thing that you did is changed the circumstances according to the needs of your personality in order to be in control again.

There is another choice here:; you can become more aware of the aspects of your personality, and choose to no longer strengthen them. Your personality can never offer you the safety and control that you are looking for. Because the world of personality always judges and interprets, and this will lead to feelings of unpleasantness. What you are really looking for, is within you already, it is your inner Self. Unconditional acceptation without judgment. Peace. Knowing that it is right the way it is, regardless of the situation that you are in or what it is that you are doing.

This is a very practical and down-to-earth process, and this site contains lots of tips and information for you to become more aware of it. There is nothing wrong with you, because everybody has a personality that has a likewise reaction pattern. Only now you are ready to face it, let go and move on.