BURNOUT on Autopilot: Why We Disconnect and How to Reconnect
Have you ever felt like you’re running on autopilot, going through your day as if detached from your own life?
Perhaps you arrive home from work with no memory of the drive, or you find yourself blankly scrolling emails, realising you haven’t actually “read” the last few messages. You’re exhausted but strangely numb – like part of you has checked out.
If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone and you’re not broken. What you’re experiencing could be a form of dissociation related to Burnout – in simpler terms, your mind’s way of coping with overwhelming stress by disconnecting.
In this blog (a much longer one than normal), I’ll explore the fascinating link between Burnout and dissociation (feeling detached or “not present”).
I’ll break down what dissociation actually is, why our brains resort to this weird autopilot mode when we’re on the brink of Burnout, and most importantly, how to recognise it in yourself and find your way back to feeling present and engaged.
By the end (hopefully), you’ll have a clear understanding of why you might feel “here but not here” and some practical tools to help you reconnect with yourself, even in the midst of a busy, stressful life.
Let’s dive in – mindfully and gently – to figure out what’s going on and how to heal from living life on autopilot.
What Exactly Is Dissociation? (And Have I Felt It?)
Dissociation is a big word for something surprisingly common: it basically means a disconnection or separation in your experience. In everyday life, mild dissociation might look like daydreaming or “zoning out.” For example, you read a page of a book and suddenly realise you didn’t absorb a single word – your eyes were scanning, but your mind was elsewhere.
In more intense forms, dissociation can mean feeling emotionally numb or even feeling detached from your body or surroundings.
Ever hear people describe an out-of-body experience or say “I felt like I was watching myself in a movie”? That’s dissociation.
It can show up in a few ways:
Cognitively: Your thoughts disengage. You might feel in a fog, have trouble concentrating, or experience memory lapses (like “losing” chunks of time because you were checked out).
Emotionally: You go numb. Emotions that should register just…don’t. You know you love your work or your family, but right now you can’t feel it. High highs and low lows get flattened into a neutral blah. This emotional blunting is a hallmark of dissociation (and in fact, one of the classic signs of burnout is “depersonalisation,” a fancy term for feeling indifferent or distant toward what you normally care about).
Physically: You feel disconnected from your body or environment. This can be as subtle as not feeling hunger or pain as acutely (one reason people in dissociative states might work through lunch and not notice), or as striking as feeling like you’re outside your body looking at yourself. Some people describe the world around them as “unreal” or dream-like when they dissociate.
So yes – if you’ve ever driven on autopilot, spaced out in a meeting, or felt strangely numb during a period of intense stress – you’ve tasted dissociation. It’s on a spectrum; at one end it’s harmless (who hasn’t mentally escaped a boring meeting?), and at the other end it can be distressing, like not feeling in control of your own life.
And yes, I’ve been there - for how long I can’t tell you, but at least seven months of my life, daily, whilst Burnout took hold. And the fact I was so able to disconnect my body and my brain, like the physical shutdown was happening to someone else whilst my head just carried on working, even from my hospital bed - as I look back now, was so much worse than I could ever have realised.
Burnout: When Stress Becomes Too Much
Now let’s talk Burnout for a moment, because it’s the backdrop to this autopilot phenomenon.
Burnout isn’t just being tired after a busy week. It’s a deeper state of chronic stress overload. Think of a smartphone that’s running too many apps at once – eventually it overheats and lags, or the battery drains to zero. YOU ARE NOT A SMARTPHONE! A simple recharge won’t be enough to fix Burnout when it takes hold.
Burnout is your mind-body system overheating. It often (but not always) comes from prolonged work stress, caregiving, or any situation where you’re under intense pressure without enough rest or reward.
Classic signs of Burnout include:
Exhaustion – not just sleepiness, but soul-deep fatigue. You wake up as tired as you were when you went to bed.
Cynicism or detachment – you’ve lost your earlier passion or care. (This is where that dissociation slides in; you start to feel estranged from your job or the people around you, almost as if you’re an observer more than a participant.)
Reduced efficacy – you’re struggling to perform at your normal level. Maybe mistakes are creeping in, or you have the sense of “I can’t do this anymore.”
Burnout creeps up on you. In the early stages, you might just feel a bit more tired and anxious. But over time, as you keep pushing, your system starts to protect itself in a drastic way. And one of those ways is by dissociating. It’s as if your mind says, “I can’t escape this workload, but I can escape mentally.” Enter: autopilot mode.
If you’ve been here for a while, you’ll know that toxic workplaces are still the number one cause of Burnout globally, and that you don’t need to be working, or employed to experience Burnout.
You’ll also know, that in the decade that I’ve been doing this work, I talk a a lot about the Burnout Equation, and how Burnout is caused my toxicity and our less of self.
Why Do We Dissociate When We’re At Burnout?
It sounds counterintuitive – if you’re overwhelmed, wouldn’t you be hyper-alert and stressed out (fight or flight mode)? Sometimes, yes.
But when stress is high and inescapable, the human body often opts for a different response: freeze. Picture a deer in headlights – too frightened to run, it just freezes. On the savannah, a prey animal that can’t outrun a predator might play dead, hoping the predator loses interest. We have a version of that hardwired in us. When you can’t fight the stress and you can’t flee from it, a primal circuit in your brain kicks in to freeze or “play dead.”
Dissociation is essentially the mental side of the freeze response.
It’s your brain’s way of saying: “This is too much. I’m going to shut down feelings and step away so we can survive this.” In a less dramatic context: imagine you’re on hour 12 of an extreme workday, or it’s the 10th day in a row of dealing with intense caregiving for a sick relative. At some point, you might stop feeling the stress in the usual anxious way. Instead, you go numb and robotically do what you have to do. That is a form of protective dissociation.
There are a few layers to why this happens:
Psychological Protection: Our psyches have clever defence mechanisms. If caring deeply is too painful (because you’re too exhausted to meet expectations, or you’re empathising so much it hurts), the psyche puts up an emotional shield. Numbness, in the short term, is easier than pain. Many professionals in high-trauma fields (ER doctors, humanitarian aid workers, etc.) report that they survive the chaos by “shutting off” their emotions. In Burnout, even if your job isn’t life-or-death, your mind can use the same trick to get you through relentless pressure. It’s not conscious; you don’t wake up and decide “I won’t feel today,” but one day you notice you have stopped feeling as a way to cope.
Neurological Overload: Let’s get a bit brainy. The brain has an area called the prefrontal cortex right behind your forehead – this is your thinking, reasoning, “adult in the room” brain. In the back and deeper in the brain, you have the amygdala, kind of like a fire alarm for fear and stress. Normally, the prefrontal cortex and amygdala balance each other – the alarm goes off, and the thinker brain responds appropriately (like, “Okay, that email from the boss is stressful but not a tiger attack, we can handle it.”). Under chronic stress, though, research shows that the prefrontal cortex starts to lose its grip. It’s like a muscle that gets tired . Meanwhile, the amygdala (the alarm) gets hyperactive. Eventually, the balance tips: the alarm runs the show, and the thinking brain is on a smoke break. In evolutionary terms, your brain has reverted to a more primitive mode – survival mode. In this mode, complex things like self-reflection, planning, and nuanced emotions are considered non-essential and get dialed down. Ever notice how in times of extreme stress you might feel less emotionally complex (maybe just blank or irritable) and you can’t think straight? That’s the biology of dissociation kicking in.
Hormones and the Body’s “Crash”: Burnout often means you’ve been marinating in stress hormones (cortisol, adrenaline) for too long. Initially, those hormones keep you going – they’re the reason you can pull a series of all-nighters or handle an emergency. But our bodies aren’t meant for red-alert 24/7. Eventually, the stress hormone system can crash, leading to what some call adrenal fatigue (or more clinically, HPA axis dysregulation). This is when your body just can’t produce the same stress response anymore – you might feel utterly exhausted, perhaps depressed, and notably, you might not even react strongly to new stress because you’re tapped out. This physiological state can feel a lot like dissociation: low energy, low emotion, almost a shutdown. In essence, Burnout can push your nervous system into a “freeze or collapse” state to protect you from literally burning out your circuits.
In short, we dissociate during Burnout because it’s a last-ditch coping mechanism. Your mind-body system is saying, “If I keep feeling this level of stress continuously, it will break me. So I’ll unplug feeling for now.” It’s important to emphasise that this is not a character flaw or someone being “dramatic.” It’s an automatic, hard-wired response to overwhelm. In many ways, it’s the mind trying to save itself.
The Brain’s Role: What Neuroscience Reveals
Peeking a bit more into neuroscience (in a friendly way, I promise): studies of people undergoing extreme stress or with stress-related conditions like PTSD have shown distinct brain changes during dissociation.
One finding is that certain networks in the brain “dis-connect” during dissociative states. For example, the communication between the prefrontal cortex (thinking brain) and the limbic system (emotional brain) might weaken. This makes sense – if the thinking brain is dimming and the emotional brain is either blaring (panic) or being suppressed (numbness), those parts aren’t chatting like they normally do.
Interestingly, in some cases of dissociation, the brain’s fear centre (amygdala) actually calms down, and instead, parts of the frontal brain that can inhibit emotion light up. It’s like an emergency brake on feeling. This has been observed in people with a dissociative subtype of PTSD – their brains seem to show a mechanism of cutting off emotion to protect themselves.
Now, Burnout-related dissociation hasn’t been studied as specifically (yet watch this space), but it likely shares elements of this.
Your brain may essentially be pressing the “mute button” on emotional input.
Another angle: brain scans of individuals at Burnout (like healthcare workers or executives under chronic stress) often show reduced activity in areas related to executive function (planning, focus) and changes in the way different regions connect, (something else I’ll be researching from September). There’s even research suggesting long-term occupational stress can lead to a sort of “wear and tear” in the brain (some studies found slight shrinkage in parts of the prefrontal cortex or changes in the amygdala). The good news is, many of these changes can reverse with recovery and stress reduction. The brain is plastic – it can bounce back (neuroplasticity).
But during the height of Burnout, your brain is functionally behaving differently – more on instinct, less on thoughtful engagement. And dissociation is the subjective feeling that comes from that different brain state.
To put it more simply: in Burnout, your brain goes into survival mode.
The priority becomes “get through the day with minimal damage.” So the brain might shut off the parts that make you feel present and self-aware, because being deeply present to your pain or fatigue would actually make it harder to slog on. It’s like your brain says, “Let’s automate the tasks and numb the feelings, so we don’t have to consciously experience how bad this is right now.” Understanding this can be a relief for some – there is a real, physical reason you feel spacey and detached; it’s not just “in your head” (even though, ironically, it is happening in your head, just not your imagination!).
Living on Autopilot: How We Function While Disconnected
One of the strangest things about dissociating due to Burnout is that you might still be high-functioning in many ways. You might be hitting your work deadlines, taking care of the kids, maintaining basic routines (this was me) – all while feeling like a zombie or a shell of yourself. People around you might not realise anything is wrong (they didn’t with me).
In fact, sometimes you might not fully realise how bad it is until something jolts you into awareness (like you break down crying one day, or you make a serious error at work because you were checked out).
How is it possible to continue functioning, even excelling, while being mentally and emotionally detached? Here are a few reasons:
Habit & Muscle Memory: Humans are creatures of habit. When you’ve done something for a long time (your job tasks, your daily chores), your brain builds efficient pathways to do those things with less conscious effort. Think of when you first learned to drive – it was all conscious effort. Now you can drive while thinking about dinner plans. In a state of dissociation, you lean heavily on these automatic routines. You can go through your email, attend meetings, cook dinner, all on autopilot mode. You’re physically there and your well-practiced “scripts” are running. It’s almost like sleepwalking through familiar actions. This can fool everyone – including you – into thinking “okay, I’m managing.” The problem is, you’re managing in a very narrow, brittle way; any novelty or additional demand might throw you because your conscious mind isn’t fully engaged.
The Protective Numbness = Less Distress (Short-Term): One cruel irony is that when you’re dissociated and numb, you might actually feel less anxiety about your workload than you did before. That numbness acts as an anaesthetic. So outwardly, you might seem calmer under pressure. Coworkers could even praise how you handle crises so calmly – not knowing that you’re calm because you’re not really there emotionally. Some people become known for being the rock in emergencies, which is great, except if it’s because they’ve dissociated as a way to cope. So, the person pushes on, not feeling the immediate panic, which allows continued performance… until later the effects show up (like health issues, severe depression, or a sudden crash).
Identity and Duty: Many of us have a strong sense of responsibility. You might keep functioning because deep down, your identity is tied to being a good worker, parent, friend, etc. That sense of duty can operate even when you’re emotionally spent. It’s like an autopilot directive: “Must keep going, people rely on me.” This can override the internal signals to stop. People with high-achieving or people-pleasing personalities are really prone to this. They’ll deliver excellent results at work while privately feeling empty or secretly crying in the bathroom. They continue to function, outwardly, because slowing down or stopping feels not like an option. The dissociation actually helps them achieve this superhuman consistency – they’ve divorced their actions from their exhausting feelings (again me - although I should probably say this was ALL me)
To paint a picture though of someone else: imagine you’re a nurse in month 18 of the pandemic, working endless shifts.
Initially, you were running on adrenaline and anxiety. But eventually, you hit a wall where the emotions shut off. You still go to work, start IVs, fill out charts, talk to patients. You smile and say the right things, but you feel like a robot. You might not even empathise strongly with patients anymore (I saw this with all of the NHS staff I coached during the pandemic) – you catch yourself thinking of them as tasks or numbers. Yet your performance reviews are fine; you’re never late, you do what’s needed. This is high-functioning dissociation in action.
The danger, of course, is that this isn’t sustainable.
It’s like carrying on with a serious injury because it’s numbed – you can worsen the injury. People in prolonged dissociative Burnout may eventually experience a collapse: maybe they suddenly can’t get out of bed one day, or they develop serious health issues (migraines, autoimmune flares, etc.), or they have what some call a “nervous breakdown.” It’s the body’s way of enforcing the rest and processing that were delayed by dissociation.
But short-term, yes, people can impressively maintain outward life. Some even say they were more productive in a weird way because they turned into a sort of machine. If you’re reading this and recognising yourself as having been in that machine state, take it as a sign not of your invincibility, but of how much pressure you must have been under for your brain to flip that switch. It’s a sign that you deserve rest and care, even if you think you’re “handling it” on the surface.
Does Past Trauma Make It More Likely?
In a word, yes. If you have a history of trauma – especially complex or childhood trauma – your system might be more primed to use dissociation as a coping tool.
It makes sense: dissociation often first appears as a response to trauma.
Children who endure abuse or neglect often dissociate because they can’t escape the situation; the only escape is in their mind. That pattern can become ingrained. Fast forward to adulthood: under extreme stress (like an abusive boss, or just relentless life pressure that echoes that sense of helplessness), that same dissociative response can kick in, almost reflexively.
Also, trauma can make the experience of Burnout more intense. Someone with a trauma history might find workplace stress more triggering – for instance, a hypercritical work environment might bring up feelings of childhood emotional abuse, sending their nervous system into a tailspin faster than someone without that background.
Trauma survivors sometimes end up in “freeze” mode (dissociation) more quickly or frequently because their baseline safety wiring was damaged early on.
It’s worth noting that not everyone with Burnout has trauma, and not everyone with trauma will dissociate during Burnout – but there is often an overlap.
If you find yourself dissociating a lot and you have unresolved trauma, it could be very beneficial to seek therapy that addresses that trauma. Healing those old wounds can reduce the need for your brain to go into lockdown every time life gets hard. Many people find that once they work through trauma, they respond to stress in healthier ways – maybe they get anxious or sad, but they don’t completely shut down like before. They can stay present and deal with things more directly.
Think of it this way: Burnout might be the spark, but trauma can be the gasoline that makes the fire burn hotter. It’s a factor that can amplify the dissociative aspect of Burnout. The hopeful angle is that trauma-informed strategies (like somatic experiencing, EMDR, or even just very compassionate self-care) can significantly help someone prone to dissociation.
Finding Your Way Back: How to Reconnect and Recover
Okay, so if you’ve identified with any of this, you might be wondering: What do I do about it? How do you get your mind back online and your feelings back (assuming you want them back – even if they’re painful, feeling is living, and it’s also where the good stuff is like joy and love)?
The journey back from dissociation and Burnout is usually gradual, but here are some concrete strategies:
Name It to Tame It: One of the most powerful first steps is simply recognising when you’re dissociating. It might sound almost too simple, but awareness is key. Start paying gentle attention to your states. Maybe set a few alarms through the day that say “Pause: How present am I right now?” When you notice “I feel spaced out” or “I feel like nothing matters right now,” silently acknowledge it: “I might be dissociating because I’m overwhelmed.” This shifts you from inside the experience to an observer of it, which already lessens its grip a little. It also cues you to then do something about it (rather than just float along in autopilot for days). I STILL use alarms during the day to remind me to drink and pee!
Grounding Techniques: These are your go-to emergency tools when you catch yourself in a dissociative fog. The idea is to reconnect with the here and now by using your five senses or body. A few popular ones:
5-4-3-2-1 Senses Exercise: Wherever you are, mentally note 5 things you can see (the pattern of the floor tiles, a coffee mug, the clouds out the window, etc.), 4 things you can hear (the hum of the AC or fan for those of us in the UK currently sweltering in the summer heatwave, distant chatter, your own breathing…), 3 things you can feel/touch (your feet in your shoes, the desk under your hand, the temperature of the air on your skin), 2 things you can smell (or two scents you remember if nothing is obvious), and 1 thing you can taste (even just your saliva, or a sip of water) . It might feel trivial, but this exercise works. It pulls your mind out of the internal shut-down and plugs it back into reality, piece by piece. It’s like hitting the refresh button on your senses.
Deep Breathing or Breathwork: When you’re dissociated, your breathing might be shallow (or sometimes people actually hold their breath). Take control back by doing some intentional breaths. One simple method is the 4-7-8 breath: inhale for a count of 4, hold for 7, exhale for 8. If that’s too long, even 4-4-4 (box breathing) is fine . The counts matter less than the effect – slowing down and deepening your breath tells your nervous system “we’re safe enough to breathe deeply,” which can start to loosen the freeze response. After a minute of this, you often feel more embodied. One of the reasons I start every single session with breathing.
Cold Water or Sensation: This one’s a quick hack – splash cold water on your face or even hold a piece of ice for a few seconds. The intense sensation can jolt you back. It’s almost like a defibrillator for dissociation (minus the electricity!). You’re giving your body a strong sensory signal that helps you “wake up” to the present moment. And I know that ice baths are all the rage right now, and I do LOVE a cold plunge, but if you are already in a stress state, I do not recommend an ice bath - opt for something warm instead.
Create Micro-Routines of Self-Care: When at Burnout, you might think “I don’t have time or energy for self-care.” But self-care here isn’t spa days (though great if you can); it’s basic maintenance that prevents deeper shutdown. Tiny things help: eating regular meals (and actually tasting your food – maybe try noticing flavours to ground yourself), staying hydrated, stretching once every hour, stepping outside for 5 minutes to get natural light, even how you to talk yourself! These may seem unrelated to dissociation, but they aren’t – they are signals to your body that your well-being matters. They also break up the monotony of stress, giving you brief moments to check in with yourself.
Set Boundaries, Say No (if possible): Part of escaping the Burnout trap is reducing the input that’s overloading you. This can be really hard if you’re in a demanding job or life situation. But look for any levers you can pull. Can you delegate a task? Can you talk to HR or a manager about workload? Can you enlist a family member to help with caregiving one day a week? Even a small reduction in stressors can start to convince your brain that maybe, just maybe, it doesn’t need to be on 24/7 crisis footing. Remember, Burnout often comes from too much for too long – so to recover, we need to dial down the “too much.” It might involve difficult conversations or changes, but your health is worth it - and trust me, the unlearning on this one is still ongoing for me.
Reconnect in Low-Stakes Ways: If you’ve been numb, it might feel uncomfortable to “reconnect” – like an arm that fell asleep, the blood rushing back can tingle or hurt. So start small. Do something you used to enjoy, even if you don’t currently feel the enjoyment. Maybe you loved music – put on a song you used to have on repeat as a teenager and see if it evokes something (I love a car road Karaoke). Or if you used to be artistic, doodle aimlessly with no pressure for the result. The goal is to give yourself opportunities to feel something in a gentle, safe context. Sometimes watching a movie that you know makes you laugh or cry can help thaw emotional numbness. It’s okay if you don’t immediately feel like your old passionate self – think of it as gradually warming up a frostbitten limb.
Talk to Someone You Trust: Dissociation thrives in isolation. Talking about how you’re feeling (or not feeling) with a trusted friend, family member, or therapist can be incredibly grounding. It reminds you that you’re not alone and provides external perspective. Sometimes just hearing someone say, “I’ve noticed you seem distant, are you okay?” can snap us into realising, wow I have been far away. If you don’t have the energy to explain everything, even just telling a friend, “I’m done, and I don’t feel like myself. Can we just hang out quietly? I might not be very talkative, but I’d love some company,” can help. Human connection is pretty magical for our nervous system – safe, supportive presence of another can start to bring you back “online.”
Professional Help (There’s No Shame): If dissociation or Burnout is severely impacting you – like you really can’t function or it scares you – seeking professional help is wise. Therapists are well-versed in these concepts (with a Burnout Aware professional). In therapy, you can learn deeper grounding techniques, uncover if there are underlying traumas fueling your dissociation, and create a step-by-step recovery plan. Even a short stint in therapy for stress management could give you long-term tools. If therapy’s not an option, look for support groups (there are burnout support communities, even online forums) where people share strategies and simply validate each other. And of course, the fabulous Alumni Burnout Aware Coaches, trained by me in the Burnout Academy.
Plan for Joy (Tiny Doses): This might sound odd when you’re numb, but make a practice of planning small enjoyable activities even if you’re not sure you’ll enjoy them right now. It could be as simple as “Every Sunday morning I’ll get a fancy coffee and sit in the park for 20 minutes.” Or “I will buy that bath bomb (LUSH ones are my favourite) and have a nice bath Wednesday night.” These positive experiences, however small, are invitations for your senses and emotions to re-engage. You might find at first you feel nothing or even annoyed (Burnout can make cynicism flare – like “Ugh, birds chirping, whatever”). But repetition helps. You’re essentially rehabilitating your ability to feel pleasure and relaxation. I’ll also add here, that the addiction to work and busyness, steals your ability to seem out joy a lot. You don’t understand why you should be enjoying yourself if there is all this work to be done. If that’s where your head is at - you DEFINITELY need more joy, and a lot less busyness, because, Burnout is likely a lot closer than you realise.
Preventing Burnout-Related Dissociation in the Future
Once you start to recover, it’s natural to think, “I never want to get that disconnected again.” Prevention is an ongoing practice, but here are a few guiding principles:
Watch Your “Stress Thermometer” or scale: Everyone should have an internal stress thermometer – where are you at today? If 0 is zen and 10 is melt-down, try to keep an eye on when you’re creeping above, say, a 6 for sustained periods. If you hit 8,9,10 – that’s when dissociation often kicks in. Learn what signs show up for you around level 7 (maybe you get migraines, or you start working late every night, or you withdraw socially). Those are your cues to intervene early. And, you also need to note that we can and do create a '“new normal'“ the longer we spend in in the higher numbers. So thinking you’re a 4, when you’re actually clinging on for deal life at 9, may have become your new norm, but it is NOT normal!
Regularly “Defrag” Your Brain: Just like a computer, we need defragmentation (breaks to reorganise and rest). Ideally, take small breaks daily (mini-walk, breathing, hobbies) and slightly bigger breaks weekly (a day off if you can, or a lighter day). Use vacation (holiday) time – it’s there for a reason. If you absolutely can’t take time off work in a given period, see if you can at least create an evening or morning routine that’s sacrosanct “you” time. These breaks prevent the continuous overload that leads to Burnout. My BIGGEST tip here - my breaks go into my annual, monthly, weekly, and daily planning before anything else. Week off? In the planner. Birthday? In the planner. Breaks first, otherwise your time will get swallowed up with work and you’ll never “find the time”. Bonus tip - STOP looking to find time. It will be like looking for a needle in a haystack. You need to CREATE the time!
Stay Connected with People: Isolation is both a cause and effect of Burnout. We withdraw when overwhelmed (or job demands crowd out our social life), but then we lose the very support that could buffer our stress. Make a point to talk to a friend or loved one regularly. Even quick text exchanges or a weekly coffee can remind you there’s life outside the grind and people who care. Plus, friends might notice you’re off and alert you (“Hey, you haven’t laughed at any of my jokes lately, you alright?”).
Address Little Traumas and Hurts: One reason things snowball is we ignore the small stuff. That comment from your boss that really hurt? If you bottle it up with all the others, a few months later you might be so stressed you start dissociating at work. If you have access to coaching, counselling, or even a mentor, process things as they come. Don’t accumulate wounds. The lighter you keep your emotional load, the more resilient you’ll be against Burnout. And of course, if there are big past traumas still affecting you, consider gentle steps towards healing those (through therapy, support groups, books on trauma recovery, etc.). It will pay off in future stress resilience.
Cultivate Meaning and Joy Outside of Work: Burnout often makes our world very small (just work, or just caregiving, etc.). To counter that, ensure you have at least one or two things in your week that are purely for you and make you feel alive. It could be creative (writing, painting), physical (dancing, biking), meditative (prayer, meditation, yoga), or social (game night with friends). These act as anchors to reality and self. They remind you, “I’m more than my stress. I’m a person who can laugh, create, relax.” That awareness can sometimes stop dissociation in its tracks – because you’re feeding your soul the good stuff regularly, so it doesn’t need to shut off from an all-bad environment.
Closing Thoughts:
Burnout and dissociation are a tough combo.
It can feel scary to realise you’ve been operating on autopilot, missing out on your own life experiences. But remember, this response came about to help you cope. Give yourself grace – you were doing the best you could under overwhelming circumstances. Now that you recognise it, you can gently tell your mind and body, “Hey, we don’t need to play dead anymore. Let’s come back.”
Recovery won’t happen overnight, and that’s okay. Little by little, sensation by sensation, you will thaw out. You’ll have days when you feel more present and think, “Oh wow, I actually laughed at that silly meme” – and you’ll realise that’s a sign of healing.
If you’re currently in the thick of it, start with something small from the tips above. Maybe right now go get a glass of water and really feel the coolness as you drink – congratulate yourself, you just practiced a grounding moment! Each small step is like a vote for your own life and well-being. Over time, those votes add up and you’ll find yourself back in the driver’s seat of your life, rather than on autopilot.
Lastly, don’t hesitate to lean on others and resources. Burnout and dissociation thrive in secrecy and silence.
By reading this and seeking to understand, you’ve already broken that silence.
Keep going – talk about it, get support, and know that many have been where you are and come out the other side, more self-aware and resilient than before.
You’re not alone on this journey out of the numbness and back into connection. Be patient and kind to yourself – you’re waking up from a survival mode that served a purpose, and now it’s time to gently embrace living fully again. You deserve nothing less.
Kelly
(If you found this article helpful, feel free to share it with someone who might be going through something similar. Burnout is so common, but we rarely talk about the dissociative aspect – and breaking that ice can be the first step toward change. Here’s to rejoining our own lives!)
I’m daring to imagine a world where Burnout no longer exists, and if you’re daring to imagine a world like that too, then come and join me.
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