At the end of October 2023, I lightheartedly told one of our family friends at the dance studio, \u201cI just have to make it to February 1st. That\u2019s when my class ends.\u201d He looked at me sympathetically. \u201cIt\u2019s only October. That\u2019s a long time at your pace.\u201d I gave him the mantra I always used when I was overscheduled, \u201cIt\u2019s fine. I thrive in chaos.\u201d It wasn\u2019t fine though. Between my own schooling, homeschooling my kids, extracurricular commitments, and running my own business, I was at 60+ hours a week and that didn\u2019t even include cooking, cleaning, or self-care.\u00a0 I was drowning in chaos.
My own class ended on February 1st, but it seemed like every time I dropped something, competitions, dance performances, and promotional events for my business seemed to pick up. That pattern continued until June when all their activities ended. My Mom and Dad had heard my frantic energy on the phone throughout the spring and offered to take the kids on vacation for 2 weeks. At the end of the 2 weeks, I felt physically rested, but I was still mentally exhausted when I thought about tasks that felt like the things that had led to this exhaustion. Was I suffering from burnout?
Almost everything I read about burnout was related to careers. I wasn\u2019t feeling burnt out about coaching, specifically, but what about my role as a stay-at-home-mom? I don\u2019t have set hours or a boss setting expectations, but I\u2019m essentially on-call 24\/7 for the needs and wants of a family of 5. Maybe this is career-related burnout, just not in the traditionally defined sense. (Note: Stay-At-Home-Moms, I see you doing multiple full time jobs. You are totally valid in feeling burnout, even if others don’t recognize it.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Spoilers: It involves time blindness, people pleasing behaviors, and guilt. You know, the trifecta of ADHD, resulting from a lifetime of not being diagnosed or treated. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In a lot of articles about burnout, they talk about changing jobs or taking a vacation or leave of absence. That\u2019s not a possibility as a stay at home mom and homeschool 3 kids. First step, find a way to avoid this scenario in the future. All of these rules and guidelines are easy to implement when there’s nothing going on, but how is it working out in practice? Well, I guess I’ll have to let you know. Right now, the few one-off activities haven’t broken our schedule, but we also downsized the number of activities we’re working with. I\u2019m trying to pause before offering to help or taking on new duties, but impulsivity is something we ADHDers know well, so I\u2019ll take the progress I\u2019ve made and keep trying to grow. Are you struggling with Burnout? I’ve created a few worksheets to help you identify the sources of your burnout and a few resources to help you recover.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Time Blindness:<\/strong> Since I was agreeing to activities that were in the future, I couldn\u2019t really judge the amount of time available for new tasks. It wasn\u2019t until I had to do all of them that I realized that it wouldn\u2019t work. By that point, I felt obligated to continue. My daughter\u2019s dance teacher, Ashley, tells the kids all the time, \u201cJust because it fits in your physical schedule, that doesn\u2019t mean it fits in your mental and emotional schedule.\u201d I had planned to physically attend all of the activities scheduled, but I hadn\u2019t considered the mental cost of transitioning constantly throughout my day or the emotional toll of constant running.
People Pleasing:<\/strong> As a people pleaser, I tend to say yes to everything and then figure it out later. You can probably guess how that turns out. Sure, it feels great to tell someone I can do something for them, but it doesn\u2019t balance out the stress, as I try to make it work in a complex schedule, or the disappointment I feel when I can\u2019t follow through with my promise.
Guilt:<\/strong> Finally, I had to address the guilt from past COVID-impacted years that led to us committing to more than we could handle. We had really locked down during COVID, due to our interactions with an immunocompromised family member. This had occurred when my son was just getting old enough to really be involved in our social and academic enrichment programs. Once we started back into our extracurriculars, the kids and I were eager to make up for lost time and opportunities.
I want my kids to be educated, well-rounded, and compassionate human beings, but let\u2019s face it, opting out of any one activity isn\u2019t likely to prevent them from being successful or happy in life. We all have to make choices, based on our limited time, energy, and resources. This was my chance to model that balance for them and help them learn at a time when mistakes aren’t high risk.<\/p>\n\n\n\nRecovery<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
I asked my family to help design some guidelines for future activities and scheduling:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\nI also needed to take care of myself. <\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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