Status update! (Patreon)

Don't panic. The tl;dr is that I'm in a short break period to recover, and optimistic about our next steps. There's no game talk in this post either- next time I'll get back to normal progress updates.

So I've been experiencing burnout for most of my adult life apparently. The thing is, burnout has stages. I've been getting much better at recognizing and avoiding the end stage: literal incapacitation. Previous posts have talked about the lessons I've learned around that. But... I've been unknowingly hanging out in the second-to-last stage: habitual burnout.

It's not about work on the game, really. I'm expending immense amounts of effort on everything. When I take time off, I fill that time with stressing about all the things I should be doing, or stressing about relaxing enough to justify taking that time off. I fill every spare second I can with housework or doing stuff for others. Then I crash and do unproductive things to try to recover, and stress the whole time under the mounting pressure of not being productive enough.

Relaxing is so much more complicated than I ever realized.

A result of the burnout is that I overwork but underperform. Even on days where I accomplish very little, I end up exhausted and pushing myself to squeeze out a little more productivity. Seeing this, I try to take breaks and create a healthier life balance. But that is hardly helpful if all my non-work time is filled with exhausting stress.

I live with my partner now. They immediately pointed out how clearly my mental abilities degrade when I'm exhausted, and how my attempts to "relax" were causing me more stress than trying to be productive. 

So over the past couple of weeks I've been on detox, having to force myself to put everything down. To do activities I know should be relaxing despite not feeling relaxed or getting any joy from them. It's been a genuinely shocking experience. I'm consistently filled with panic and anxiety. Those feelings only abate when I relapse and start doing housework or being "productive", thus pushing myself back into burnout. I knew I had a problem... but I had no idea how deeply emotionally ingrained it was. 

When I try to relax, my brain panics like I'm slowly lowering myself into a wood chipper.

For fuck's sake.

These new efforts are showing great results though. My memory and physical well-being have improved drastically. I can focus and engage with tasks again instead of having to force my brain through them. 

I'm nervous about the lack of productivity, my lack of posts on here, and how all of this might come across as red flags to people who have supported me for all this time. But honestly, I think this is the best possible news for the future of my projects on here. Ever since I started posting my games for others, I've lamented about how unproductive I feel. I went through cycles of major productivity, then I'd crash, then I'd try again. The symptoms of my overwhelm and burnout have been public since the beginning. It's not that obvious if you don't know what to look for, but it's been there for years. 

Taking this seriously is hard. One of the hardest things I've ever done. But I feel better now than I ever have. I feel more capable and clear, though not ready to dive into full-time work on the game again yet. I'm excited to find out what I'll be capable of when I do. Plus I get to not be exhausted every day, all the time, so that'll be neat.

Progress on the game will resume soon, as well as regularly-timed posts.

Thanks for reading y'all <3