You might want to read up on the concept of aversion, this might be what you are engaging in. If you recall from yesterday, I resonated with this statement, but for me aversion doesn’t fit. My need for company stems from another root.
Following your log, it’s quite clear that you are stressed. And have been for some time. I’m not necessarily well-equipped to offer any suggestions but perhaps it’d be beneficial for you to hear the musings of another person that is trying to learn to navigate stress after such a point where it has gotten to a point where we’ve, for the lack of a better phrase, suffered an injury.
To me, I view my tolerance towards stress through two lenses/analogies: as a (transient — hopefully) allergy/sensitivity & a muscle tear.
The first lens helps me frame why I have a problem dealing with ordinary stressors that pre-burnout would conceivably have me running at a higher RPM to “get things done” but now causes a much more adverse reaction. Furthermore, certain allergies/sensitivities can be combatted through exposure therapy. But it has to be gradual. I’ve heard that adults that didn’t have a lactose-allergy growing up but now have sensitivities to dairy can successively include lactose into their diet and over time the body will replenish the enzymes necessary to break lactose down. Usually you start with hard cheeses. Progressive overload.
The allergy analogy also aids me in not assigning blame or inadequacy to myself. Right now, the circumstances are such that there are things I cannot do despite wanting to do them. There’s no sense in beating myself up over that.
The second muscle tear analogy helps me realise that I need to engage in some form of rehabilitation work, and also maybe revisit my “movement patterns”. To further our dive into strained analogies what happened isn’t that I dropped a plate on my big toe and suffered a boo-boo, I metaphorically tore the mental equivalent of a pec, or a hamstring, or whatever. Why? Chronic acute overuse, potentially faulty form, poor programming or that supporting musculature isn’t firing. Or nutrition was off so recovery was poor.
That’s the mindset I’m in when I practice mindfulness exercises. That’s the mindset I’m in when I have bad thoughts, I equate the thoughts to being akin to physical pain. When I’m in the gym now and do an RDL for an example that does potentially cause my hamstring to hurt. I need a frame of mind that guides my actions in response to that pain. For instance, if the pain level is a 2/10 then I consider that to be acceptable and might even aid in my physical recovery as the tissue will be forced to remodel, it’ll be more sensitive to the actions of insulin, and so forth. 2/10 is good, continue doing the exercise.
If I’m at an 8/10 pain-level, that’s causing me to regress in my healing. That input demands another output. Another action. Namely, seizing with that exercise right there and then. I try not to think ahead that it means anything for the next upcoming weeks of training, I just focus on not causing further damage. Same with stressors. I expose myself to a stressor and depending on the severity of how my body responds I adjust my actions accordingly.
I really like this model, because I can continue to draw parallels from it. Like, at the moment I need to be judicious about my rehabilitation work. In the future, there are habits that I can engage in that will reduce the odds of a flare-up. For instance, I’m currently nursing a climber’s elbow. I do some stuff for that daily. In the future, it’d behoove me to continue to do these same things 2-3 times/wk as I have a pre-disposition for this type of injury now.
Everyone has to brush their teeth, or they’ll have poor dental health. Some of us, we have to be mindful of how our actions impact our stress. It’s not that we’re inadequate by comparison, it’s just that we have a different default behaviour that demands this upkeep.
It’s not as if you look at a perfectly healthy person and go “oh, wow, they do mindfulness exercises on their own and that’s why they never have any problems”. But, if you were to have complete insight into their life you’d find that maybe they are better adept at autoregulating. I see this with my current group of friends. I’ve observed two mates recently navigate a lot of work stress by realising that if work is demanding a certain piece of the pie, then other aspects in life can’t have the same pie slice as they normally do. Rather than overextend themselves, they cut back on other things, got the work done, and then reduced that pie slice in relation to everything else to have some much needed eustress.
Granted, part of the constellation that caused the stress and the burnout where also out of my control (arguably). So, really it’s not just an allergy and a muscle tear, but also a little bit of a freak accident (plate-dropping on toe). But, forging ahead in life the parts I can exercise any control over fall within the domains of the first two mental models.
With that in mind, to tie this back to your experiences. You’ve had a lot of stressors going on for years and you haven’t had much rest from them. Chronic acute overuse. I saw this picture yesterday and I can’t speak for you but I’ve spent a lot of time in this cycle
so of course you don’t have a vast reserve of excess energy to fall back on when life gives you shit. I try and view it as combat fatigue. What I must do, I can’t say what you need to do, is try and focus on getting some wins in to start building that reserve. Create the best circumstances I can to later try and live life as I want to. And that takes time, but it takes even longer when we get caught in a cycle of trying to do too much too soon.
Start with the (proverbial) barbell. Or bodyweight stuff.