I’ve started writing this post multiple times, inside and outside of my mind multiple times. I find it difficult to talk about personal stuff on a gaming blog but it’s my blog and therefore also my choice. I guess talking about why I’m not gaming is also a gaming post right?
Anyway. I’ve been struggling at work a lot the past few months. Ever since we had a reorganization our department has been a mess. Now, about 4-5 months later, people are finally finding their way and calming down a bit but the damage has already been done. Due to the reorganization I suddenly saw my workload skyrocket. Not only did I became responsible for more categories I also suddenly got dragged into way more meetings and projects. Out of my five days of work per week, 2 or 3 were usually comprised of meeting after meeting making it so that my work suffered. I felt like I was constantly not getting done and pushing things off till the next day and I would go home stressed and completely exhausted. The only thing I was holding onto was the fact that I’m moving in April and had requested three weeks off to make that go smoothly and so that I could enjoy my new house in peace. Two weeks ago I got told my request had been denied and instead I would only get one week off… It was my breaking point. I was already exhausted that day, I’d been thinking of calling in sick to work every day that week and something inside me just snapped. I broke down in tears and just couldn’t stop crying. Fortunately for me I have the best colleagues who immediatly came to talk to me and calm me down and gave me time to explain what’s going on. Eventually we worked out that I was simply overworked and teetering on the edge of a burnout. I have since delegated my tasks to a few coworkers and focused on the stuff that really needed to be done. My meetings have been cut down and I feel like I can sort of breathe again even though I’m still seriously exhausted.

In extension of this I’ve felt extremely disconnected from my personal life. I didn’t (and still don’t really) have the energy to do anything as I got home after work. I would just lie on bed playing a silly colour by number app on my phone or reading other people’s blogs or just fall asleep outright. The same was true for the time period after dinner where I would be lying on bed feeling exhausted and sleep or watch an episode of a show on Netflix while battling sleep. All of this has caused me to feel completely detached from gaming in general. I’ve been logging into WoW here and there because it’s comfortable and familiar but otherwise I’ve not been interested in starting up a game at all. I’ve not really touched FFXIV at all except to do the Valentione event. I’ve barely even looked at my Switch and my Playstation. It’s all fallen into “meh, I can’t be arsed” category the last few weeks. Which sucks. Even on the weekend I find myself mostly wanting to sleep and not do anything. It’s really impacted my plans for this month gaming wise and I’m not sure when this state of mind will let up.
On moments like these I can be very jealous of Belghast and Syp who seem to enjoy their hobbies even when life looks a bit more stressful than normal. For me it feels like it’s the first thing I’m dropping when I feel bad and the last thing I can really get back into when I start feeling better again. It doesn’t really help that I need to arrange a ton of stuff for my move still and that’s occupying my mind aswell.

All in all I feel very detached from my normal routines. I log into games only to log out a few minutes later again. I reinstalled Steam, hoping that maybe playing a game on there would help me get back into the groove but I just stared at my library for a solid fifteen minutes and then realized there’s nothing there that I want to be playing. I just don’t really want to think about picking up a new game and learning to play right now yet I also feel like I need to do something to get out of this rut. My brain just feels overexhausted and I’m not sure where to go from here. If I can’t even enjoy my games… I’m not sure how much deeper I can sink away into this gaping maw that is exhaustion and burnout.