Friday, October 6, 2023

Today's Burnout Symptoms

I can get a good indication of how heavy my daily burnout is by how my feet feel when I first wake up. I can't do a 1 to 10 scale. I can only determine firstly, if my feet hurt, yes or no.
Next question that follows is how far up my foot is the pain. Sometimes if it is only the sole, the bottom part of my foot that hurts, I can be close to huhh functioning with minor modifications. If the pain is in the ankle or above, my activities are much more limited.
This morning my legs hurt heavy clear past my knee. This is the most serious type of indicator. Not only does it hurt but it means I am mostly in bed or on the couch for the day. All activities are restricted to the most basic functional ones of eating and caring for the doggie.
I did take an ibuprofen and an acetaminophen to help combat the pain, the raging pain. Sometime late afternoon, around dinner 6 or 7 pm, I was feeling better and able to empty the dishwasher and take doggie for a very short walk. It was a relief to feel even a little, well, relief.
I had to remind myself not to do much because that part of me that likes a clean kitchen, baking biscuits and doing dishes wanted to do all those things. Had that occurred, I would have had another morning of waking up in heavy leg pain shutdown style.
I made it through the day.
I was able to paint for a total of ten or fifteen minutes. Made it to the kitchen to heat up food 3x which was great. The lessening of the pain and discomfort near evening was such a blessing. It reminds me Burnout does not last forever. It's a lifelong condition, true, but it isn't every day and I can still manage enough functionality to call my life Good.
Always hopeful that I'll wake up tomorrow and be able to go for a short walk or run an errand.
Sleep well

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