the first six months of 2026
First half of the year has passed, only half of the year left.
2026 is a difficult year for me so far. At the end of 2025, I wished for more rest this year. I didn’t do that yet. I pushed harder in different ways and I just can’t keep doing that.
For 1.5 years now, I have been going extra hard in everything I do - I asked for more work at work, I created new opportunities and roles for me there, I blogged longer informative posts that took a lot of my knowledge and research, I completed more exams in my part time degree than ever before, I started and finished the certificate to be a data protection consultant, I attended conferences, I started volunteering, I went harder on my fitness, and so on. I do that to make up for my severe illness in 2024 and because of how a chronic illness turns everything into a pressing matter (fear of relapse, fear of no longer getting to do something, urge to maximize good times etc); and I can no longer keep it up. I need a longer break where I can just exist.
I need to allow myself to do less in my part time degree and accept that it will postpone my graduation, I need to stop doing court case summaries for a month for noyb, I need to stop blogging for a while so I am not always working on some big essays and reading sources and running to keep up with articles and papers, and so I don’t always have a full inbox with like 50 emails to answer. I need to stop reading my web reader (RSS) and the Discover page. I can’t scale back work, so it has to be everything else.
I want to enjoy life for a while and not always feel like I got something to prove, something to chase, something to keep up, something to get back to as soon as possible.
And the thing is, I had so much fun stuff planned the first half of this year. I didn’t build those experiences up in my head and I didn’t have unrealistic standards, yet all of them kinda left a bad taste in my mouth when they happened. Travels, courses, conferences, restaurants, whatever. Everything I looked forward to had something difficult and disappointing about it, or had this Monkey’s Paw thing I mentioned in my other post. So I no longer feel like even planning nice things for myself and my wife. I’d rather save the energy, time and money. And that's sad, so I need to take some time to change that.
It adds to the general burnout.
I notice my impatience is worse, I get snappier, less forgiving, feeling more like someone’s fault or error is done in malice rather than accidental or born out of cluelessness/obliviousness.
I no longer want to explain anything, elaborate, or help people, because I feel like I have to conserve my energy and efforts, as most interactions with others have a severe imbalance where I do most of the work. This would be the opposite if I wasn’t feeling burnt out.
I react more defensively than usual if you point out small, irrelevant, inconsequential mistakes or make small requests for things I don’t care about changing.
I retreat, I wanna be alone more, I wanna focus even more on personal projects that only involve me in isolation (and no other people, location, etc.) because those don’t let me down. I crave social interaction, yet listening to people or reading what they write is like nails on a chalk board.
It’s a confusing time to be in, because I more or less get everything I want with some exceptions, but in a warped way where it doesn’t make me happy and is always accompanied with some annoying twist or extra price (figuratively). Nothing just flows. I have to micromanage everything and deal with ridiculous hurdles.
I have stress “dreams” where I am half asleep, having hypnagogic hallucinations how it’s my turn in something (usually a board or card game happening on my bed) and I can’t figure out what people want me to do and they get impatient and urge me to finally hurry up, so I flee (sleepwalk around the apartment) before waking up and walking back to bed. In other such dreams, I am convinced I forgot to do something I promised I would do in a different reality/parallel world (?), but I can’t quite understand what I owe and how to do that thing, it’s incredibly vague and confusing, and I walk away from the bed to avoid the harassment by these dream people about it until I wake up and walk back as well. Those two repeat so often. Probably once a week. The feelings don’t leave me after I wake up, like I genuinely feel guilty and stressed even when awake and my brain still tries to decipher what I forgot to do and what I owe and that I’m running out of time?
I haven’t bored myself purposefully nearly as much as I want to, need to and used to. There is always a blog post I want to write or continue; an article, book, blog post or paper to read; a video to watch; something to study; work; gym. I notice I'm desperately craving to do these things, and do them, yet also feel like I have to force myself through it. Like it takes an intense amount of energy and focus. I need a lot more time to do them, lots of micro breaks and distractions, and it all feels so difficult internally. I feel exhausted. Even when stuff is very easy and I want to do it. It’s like my brain is full, nauseous, sick. It screams at me to stop. My memory/retention is so shit, too. I have never said "I don't remember that." ever as much in my life as I did this month.
What adds to me not being able to stop is that it all feels mundane and harmless. Just one more thing. And they’re all things I do all the time, and things I am expecting myself to do, that are standard function, default. I understand when others burn out because bad timing of horrific events, like their house burned down while the pet is sick and grandma died and they just lost your job or something. Or: Insanely stressful high stakes job working 50-70 hours a week. But none of that applies to me. I just do normal things. And I don’t wanna be someone who does less. I want to do it all.
My chronic illnesses play into it. You can be chronically ill, but you are supposed to work and act like everyone else and achieve things and work on yourself. You cannot be visibly ill, you cannot do markedly less, you cannot struggle with a basic task or workload. You cannot let yourself go. You cannot waste yourself. Otherwise you are giving in, you’re a lost cause, you do nothing to help yourself, you make your illness your personality, you use your illness as an excuse. You’re not an inspiration, and that’s kinda all you’re good for if you are forever sick. You are supposed to reassure everyone that chronic illness doesn’t alter life much and that life can go on unchanged and you can totally achieve everything you would have if you weren’t sick. If you cannot be used for this cause, you are discarded by society. There is a pressure to not let that happen to me, especially when my wife depends on me.
Anyway, before I end up in the kind of burnout that makes you completely unable to work a job for most of your life, I have to change things. Just putting some self care things on my todo list doesn’t help, as it is just another obligation and doesn’t make me feel better. I just put it on the list because it is supposed to be good for me and a productive way to deal with stress.
Like, what sounds better in our current society: That you slept all day to rest and watched some Simpsons, or that you did some yoga and then had a bath with 5 products to make you prettier and then journaled and then went on a walk? But I actually need to do the former for once. Which is what I have been doing a lot the past week. Lounging around, letting my mind wander, napping, just existing and breathing, like a cat sprawled on the sofa.
I need to do things freely, and not do straining things all day, and let myself not do things that you can be measurably good or bad at. No care about consistency.
I feel like I arrived at small versions of this burnout every now and then over the years, did something to help it for a while, and then experienced it again. And every time, it took a shorter while to relapse, and it felt worse, and it felt like I needed more rest and relaxation than I could realistically give. I only ever gave enough to function again, to make it work, to take the edge off, delay the worst. Like a day here and there doing little to nothing. Nothing more, no changed behavior moving forward.
Something has to change permanently so I don't always run into this same issue over and over again, risking my mental health and my ability to do my hobbies and work. :) I still have to figure out where my sweet spot is between my ambition and what my body can give. I don't mind giving 200% for a time, just not forever. It seems like 1.5 years is my limit.
With that said, I am gone the entirety of July. I won't blog 1, I won't reply to emails until August, I won't read your posts. Friends can still reach me via Matrix and Signal.
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There is one announcement that I'll likely publish, that's it.↩