When even beginning feels like too much

The Notebook • Personal Essay • 06/04/2026

Note: This was written in October 2025

Burnout

‘A state of complete emotional exhaustion, physical fatigue and cognitive weariness’, as defined in an article by Khammissa et al., published in The National Library of Medicine.

The state of being ‘burnt out’ is one which many of us may experience throughout our lifetimes, but will simultaneously be unable to explain or even understand. Burnout is more than just tiredness, more than just needing a good night’s rest or a day off from school or work.

You cannot just massage it away like the knots in your sore neck. It won’t disappear like your morning bleariness after a few tentative sips of caffeine. Refusing to even melt away under the comforting pressure of the warm water running from your shower head; burnout is relentless. It lingers. It consumes.

There was once a point in my life where I was a chronic overachiever and malignant perfectionist. An A wasn’t a good enough grade; it had to be an A*; “this piece is good” felt like a slap in the face when I wanted to hear “this piece great!”, followed by gushing praise about the perfection of the writing.

Even a wrinkle on the page of an exercise sheet would cause that ever-present furrow in my brows to deepen as I tried to smooth the paper out with the edge of my ruler, hoping to somehow make it look as perfect as I wanted to be. In doing so, I overlooked its ability to still function as a piece of paper despite its singular wrinkle which was most likely imperceptible to all eyes but my own, in favour of returning it to a state of perfection.

It was a futile attempt obviously; once paper is wrinkled, it will never truly return to its original pristine state unless it is completely pulverised and reused to make a new sheet, one completely different to what it originally was.

So, was it really worth it to make such a fuss over a wrinkle in the paper?

The obvious answer was probably to just forget about it and carry on, the paper still functioned, and my work would still be completed.

What did I do, however?

Rip the paper up, toss it in the recycling and innocently put up my hand and act as if I never received a sheet.

“You’re lucky I’ve got a spare.”

Chronic overachiever and malignant perfectionist.

But what did I really achieve in doing this?

Time, effort and paper wasted in order to rectify an imperceptible imperfection?

Yes, exactly that.

As I thought about an anecdote to include in this piece, what I guess I’ll now coin the ‘Paper Story’ stands out as a rather unintentional metaphor. The same way I stubbornly tried to iron out that wrinkle in the paper, even going as far as to throw it in the bin when it did not return to perfection, mirrors how I fought, perhaps even more stubbornly, to iron out my own wrinkles, no matter how small or insignificant, until I was faced with the glaringly obvious truth.

The wrinkles don’t truly ever go away.

I learnt this about paper in a year 8 English classroom when I tore up my exercise sheet and asked for another, but I didn’t learn it about myself until much later in life. While I could tear up the paper and graciously accept the ‘spare’ handed to me by my teacher when I was 12 years old, it was in a small apartment in Liverpool, in my first year of university, during a global pandemic, at 19 years old where I was forced to confront the fact that I didn’t have a spare version of myself; I had to keep going with the original version, wrinkles and all.

And it was a rather devastating realisation to come to.

There were too many wrinkles in me and no matter how hard I tried, they would not iron out.

I studied architecture, not because I had a genuine passion for it but because, like most 17-year-olds, I had no idea what else to do. Despite excelling in nearly every subject (maths was my kryptonite), I only ever felt a deep passion and love for art and writing.

I chose art as my optional subject in secondary school despite being told that business would be the better choice.

“You’ll actually get somewhere in life with business”.

I chose it again at A-level, alongside English Literature and History.

“You’re not doing sciences or maths? The humanities and arts aren’t going to get you anywhere and you’re way too smart for that”.

And that started the spiral of trying to find something which would allow my creativity to blossom while making sure I would get “somewhere” at the end of it.

An English degree is futile. Perhaps history which I could later convert to law? A classmate’s sister had done that and succeeded. Criminal law was always an interest.

“Criminal law is one of the lowest paid and most thankless jobs in the law sector, are you sure?”

Okay, back to square one. I need to find something which will prove my intelligence, make people proud but still allow me some creativity.

“I’m doing architecture at university.”

“Oh wow! That’s such a prestigious degree! Architects make a lot of money; you’ll be set for life. I can’t wait until you design my house!”

And so there I sat, in my first online lecture, 18 years old, fresh-faced and ready to take on my newest venture.

That was when my lecturer showed us a picture of a young Leonardo DiCaprio.

It was a rather confusing sight: did he perhaps study architecture?

It was only when the next picture, along with the caption popped up that I realised what was going on. The first picture was a young, beautiful, starry-eyed Leo who represented us at the beginning of the degree; the second picture was a still of him from his movie ‘The Revenant’ which symbolised what we would look like at the end of our 7+ years of architecture study; tired, haggard and forced to feed on raw seal flesh to survive. We all laughed at the ridiculousness of it.

It was only ridiculous however, because it took about 7 months for me to feel like the after picture, not 7 years.

As I sat at my desk, only a few weeks after turning 19, staring vacantly at my blank word document, the cursor rapidly blinking as it awaited my instruction, I knew something had changed.

It’s not like the assignment was particularly challenging or impossibly difficult; it was a 1500-word essay analysing a piece of historic architecture.

1500 words was a laughably insignificant amount for the girl who needed extra paper during her English exams because she completely filled the pages of the exam booklet. Words flowed out of her like a river flowed into the sea, what do you mean she can’t write a 1500-word essay?

But that was just it, she couldn’t. It was like the engine that had kept her going for so many years just refused to turn over. There was gas in the tank; the desire to move, to write, to type, to do was there, as it had always been, but the silence in her mind was flat and heavy and it blanketed over the noise, not giving it a second to breathe.

Weeks dragged on as I continued to stare at the rapidly blinking cursor on the blank word document, my cups of coffee either growing cold and stale or watered down by the melting ice and yet nothing happened; no surge of urgency, no moment of motivation spurred on by anxiety, nothing at all.

I didn’t know it then, but in that moment when I was 19 and unable to start a very simple 1500-word essay, in that quiet, strange, almost unremarkable moment, I had reached a point of collapse. It wasn’t anything dramatic, there weren’t any tears or shouting, or a meltdown of any sort, it was just a silent, devastating personal realisation that I couldn’t make myself move, or do, or be as I once had.

I did end up writing the essay. It was 2 days before the deadline and I was once again sat at my desk, staring blankly out of the window as the sounds of a show I had watched countless times quietly bled from phone. My eyes flickered over to the date and time in the corner of my laptop, and it must’ve hit me in that moment that I had about 37 hours to do the research for and write an essay, as well as hand draw the plans, sections and elevations of the building I had chosen.

It was then that a sense of dread filled me, starting from the tips of my toes, inching up through my veins until it was clawing at my throat and forcing itself into my head.

I had made a mistake.

In the pursuit of validation; in the pursuit of praise; in the pursuit of the empty promise of a lucrative career; in the pursuit of proving my intelligence and worth as an academically excellent individual; in the pursuit of pleasing everyone else but myself, I tossed aside my passion and desires and chose a degree which, in that moment I had realised, I could not be paid enough money in the world to care about.

The dread was all consuming, almost deafening, so overwhelming that it even snatched away my ability to cry. The deep, shaky breaths did little to calm the panic, and the sips of water did nothing to quench the dryness that assaulted my throat. I somehow forced my hands to navigate me to google so I could search up how to leave a course at my university. And then I just sat there, mouse hovering over the ‘request a form for course termination’ button as I, for once in my academic career, contemplated my ability to not overachieve, but to just simply and plainly achieve.

And as quickly as the dread came, it went. It let go of my throat and seeped out of the wrinkles in my façade which, at that point, had turned into cracks, ones that I couldn’t even begin to identify, never mind try to mend. I crossed off the tab – not before downloading a copy of the form and keeping a filled in version of it ready to send on my desktop – and I spent the next 37 hours completing the assignment as best as I could.

I wasn’t proud of it; in fact, I was rather ashamed of my pathetic attempt as I submitted it 3 minutes before the deadline 2 days later. My efforts were rewarded with a 60% along with comments I don’t care to remember. And that was that; the start of a chain of choices which, as I sit here writing this now at 23, I would come to deeply regret.

‘I should’ve submitted that form’. 

I would think to myself at some point in my second year as I sat at my desk, a different desk this time but a desk nonetheless, delirious from reaching 4 days of no sleep, as I attempted to complete the semester-long design project which I should’ve been working on every day.

My second, second year might I add, after failing half of it the first-time round.

‘I should’ve submitted that form’. 

I would think to myself as I left the doctor’s office after being told that I seemed extremely burnt out, suffering with intense anxiety, depression and PTSD for which I should be medicated and should probably be in therapy for.

“You’ve gone through so much, you should really take a break. Maybe university isn’t for you right now, you can always come back to it.” The surprisingly nice GP with kind, warm brown eyes told me.

“If I leave now, I’ll never come back.”

She smiled. “And that’s okay too.”

But it wasn’t, not for me. Not for the chronic overachiever and malignant perfectionist who wasn’t so much of an achiever or perfectionist anymore but still had too much pride and too big of an ego to accept defeat. She had to prove she could at least finish, regardless of the grades.

So, she carried on dragging her feet through the thick mud with only a pair of flip flops to fight off the elements as she entered into her third year.

‘I should’ve submitted that damn form!’.

I probably screeched as the cycle of leaving things to the last second to avoid the responsibility of it continued on three years later, and I was once again on my 50^th hour of no sleep as I finished my dissertation.

“You just need to pass at this point.” I said to myself, not recognising the voice that would have once yelped in joy after obtaining an A*.

It was such a strange feeling; on one hand I could not care less about achieving anything or even completing my degree and yet on the other, the desire to leap out of bed, clean my studio apartment from floor to ceiling, write the most transformative, publication-worthy essay and then create an architectural design so innovative and outstanding that it would put me in the running for a Pritzker Architecture Prize pulled at my insides, stirring me, begging me to just GET THE HELL UP!

But I just, couldn’t.

My days were spent hiding away under the covers in bed because the thought of having to tackle the hundreds of piling up tasks was crippling. The exhaustion hit me like a freight train, bone deep and persistent. My decade of 4-hour, 2-hour or even sleepless nights had finally caught up to me, leaving my eyes constantly heavy with a sleep that I craved but could never enjoy.

Even caffeine had forsaken me; the multiple, sometimes painfully bitter coffees would do little to chase away the fatigue which hung over me like my own personal raincloud, committed to constantly drowning me in its grey wetness.

That was, of course, until that burst of adrenaline would slam into my system a few days before a deadline.

I swear I can feel the effects of my toxic relationship with sleep even now.

I graduated with a 2:1; no pride, no happiness, no positive emotion to be felt. I was just glad it was over.

You’ll never guess what I did next.

I applied for a masters. Clearly I had learnt absolutely nothing.

Determined to bring my spark back and return myself to my old glory days of overachieving, I ignored every fibre in my body that begged for rest and a reset, to heal myself from an, at that point, 4 year-long burnout and I began a masters in September of 2024.

It worked, I guess, for a few months.

I felt normal, almost like myself again. I had actually done it; I was back to enjoying academia and thriving off the validation I received from my lecturers. And then November came, and I crashed and burned and the cycle which I was sure I was so close to breaking, started again.

That numbness, that hollowness, that emptiness was back with a vengeance and it completely took over my mind, body and being. I couldn’t even be disappointed because I felt nothing, so detached from myself that I was once again a shell.

And that about brings us up to speed. It’s October 2025 and for the first time in 2 whole decades, I have not gone ‘back to school’. I spent my first September in 20 years not running around packing a pencil case and making sure my bag was ready for a day spent in an educational institution.

Instead, I have spent both September and the first 11 days of October reflecting.

I reflected on who I was when I was 22 and graduating with a degree that I hated; I reflected on who I was when I was 18 and starting university after being told my whole life that it is exactly where I should be after finishing school; I reflected on who I was at 16 when I was filling in the application for sixth forms, snatching the forms of the schools which I was told since year 7 are ‘the most prestigious and meant for intelligent kids like you’, I filled them forms in with a smile on my face and a swell of pride on my chest.

I reflected on who I was at 11 when I was entering high school, that wide-eyed little girl, with her chubby cheeks and a horrendously aggressive side-fringe situation, who was nervous but so excited to start her newest journey and then, in my walk down memory lane, I stumbled upon on a memory of when I was 10 years old.

It was in year 5 and I had just written a piece of creative writing accompanied by a painting that had my teacher wiping discreetly at her eyes. She immediately told me that she would be submitting it for publication in a book which I vaguely remember being called ‘Young Writers of 2011’ or something along those lines. I succeeded and it was published along with the painting, achieving a young artist’s award from Oxford University. My headteacher practically preened with pride as he showed it off to the whole school during an assembly.

“A kid from the North being recognised by the suits of Oxford? You’re putting us on the map.” He joked. I laughed, not really understanding what he meant by ‘the suits of Oxford’ but he seemed happy, so I was happy too.

Later on, my teacher came to me in class and said something which, until very recently, I had forgotten, and I rather despise my brain for keeping this from me for so many years.

“I know how much you love to write and draw, and I know I tell you off all the time for doodling in your books and writing stories in maths, but I never want you to forget how you feel when you do write and draw. And don’t let anyone ever tell you that it’ll get you nowhere in life. If you don’t try, you’ll never know.”

Such simple words said by a young teacher who was just starting out her career with our year 5 class, to a 10-year-old who wouldn’t understand the weight of them until over 13 years later.

Because I had forgotten how it felt to write and draw and I had let everyone in my life tell me that my passions would get me nowhere and I hadn’t tried, and I didn’t know.

I haven’t healed from my burnout. I don’t think I’ve ever healed from anything that’s ever happened to me in my life, and I think it’s because I never allowed myself to even accept that I needed healing at all.

It’s a part of being that chronic overachiever and malignant perfectionist isn’t it?

How could I overachieve and be perfect if I was actually broken and struggling inside?

The simple answer is, I couldn’t.

The answer I gave myself up until a couple weeks ago was ‘you’re fine, you just need to get a grip and keep going’.

I was somewhat right I guess, I do need to ‘get a grip’ and I will indeed ‘keep going’ but not without change.

Going from chronic overachiever and malignant perfectionist to burnt out and completely exhausted almost-mid-20s-I-don’t-even-know-whatist, has probably been one of the most prolonged, draining and devastating experiences of my life. The constant ping ponging between wanting to achieve and not even wanting to be, has left me with a mind and body that is often times too fatigued to even do simple tasks.

I really wish I could say that I woke up one day and felt whole again, that I regained the motivation to rush through life like an efficient Japanese bullet train, but that is simply not the case.

Instead, the truth and reality is quieter, slower even. I am learning that I need to, or better yet, I am allowed to rest.

I am learning that exhaustion is not an achievement and living by running myself into the ground is not a maintainable way to exist.

There are some days where I complete all the tasks on my to-do list and some days where I am unable to even form a list to begin with, but I am beginning to understand that both are okay.

There is an almost strange kind of grace in this, in allowing myself to exist without earning it, to stop feeling like peace is something that I have to deserve.

It’s okay to live with some wrinkles, you don’t have to spread yourself thin trying to smooth them out.

I have started writing again, as evidenced by this rather lengthy piece. I hadn’t written something that wasn’t an academic essay in so long, that I had actually forgotten the last time I had written just to write.

There have been many moments over the years where I had sat down with my laptop or with a piece of paper and a pen in hand; an idea in mind, a desire to do yet nothing to show for it.

Same with art; I went from being an art student who would paint and draw nearly every second of the day to forgetting how to hold a paintbrush. The thought that something that was a source of such comfort during some of my darkest and most unhappy moments, could become something that felt foreign, unknown and uncomfortable in my hand was overwhelming enough to reduce me to tears.

As I looked at the empty notebooks on my desk, my pot of fully-inked pens, the unused tubes of paint, my pristine, plain canvases and years old sketchbook which had an A* art student preserved in its colourful pages until one day, the colour stopped and the pages became blank, I was forced to confront what some people would refer to as the last stage of burnout; a loss of your sense of identity.

I too had lost myself over the course of my burnout, but I guess now, starting with a piece ironically titled ‘burnout’, without the pressure of an assignment looming over my head and no, okay fine, a lessening burden about proving myself and making everyone else proud, a sketchbook on order and an idea for a painting brewing in my mind, I shall start the journey of finding myself again.

Like I mentioned earlier, I have days where I do everything and I have days where I do nothing but now even the nothing feels like something because I am healing, I am resting and in those little moments when I feel a flicker of disappointment in myself and hear the voice of someone who had once expressed pride in my achievements saying “think of what you could’ve been!” in the back on my mind, I remind myself that resting is not futile and stopping is not failure.

And if none of this works out I think it will all still be okay because for once in my life, this is a choice that is all mine, mine to make, mine to own and mine to regret, if I ever should. But at least I’ll be able to regret it with a smile on my face because I’ll have tried and I’ll have known.

I am going to meet myself halfway or wherever she is, wrinkles and all, with a pen in hand and a sketchbook in my backpack and I am going to do it all at my own pace.

Because you know what? The hare didn’t win the race, the tortoise did.