Return to site

Coming to Uganda

Extinguishing burnout

· Travel,Mental health,Planning

I bit off more than I could chew during my last week in the UK.

Nearly two years ago, Henry and I moved from London to Birmingham so I could undertake my PhD studies at Aston Business School. We spend a lot of our time moving between London and Birmingham, visiting family and friends, doing various bits of paid/unpaid freelance work and immersing ourselves in the rich social resource that London has to offer.

The week before heading out to Uganda, I tried to cram in wedding planning, my sister's parent's evening, bidding adieu to family and friends and countless trips to the shops (both physically and virtually - thank God for Amazon). All of this required some movement between London and Birmingham. Now, if you know me well, you'll know that staying busy is my guilty pleasure. I whine about being busy, but deep down, I wouldn't have it any other way. However, in my last week, I took 'busy' to another level. Pushing myself all week eventually took its toll.

For my troubles, I was adorned with a glorious stye in my right eye. I've had styes before, so I set about cleaning and compressing it with a warm towel. But this stye was different. The swelling was so bad that the vision in my right eye had been badly impaired. I brushed it off and continued running around Birmingham, finishing off the final items on my list. At this point I treated it as purely physical. I jumped between accusing "old make-up", "dust" or "a trapped eyelash" for my increasingly red, swollen and squinting eye.

I suddenly found myself in M&S, sobbing desperately at the rows of cotton underwear, unable to decide which ones to buy.

Decision-making is hard for me, but it's never reduced me to tears. Certainly not when deliberating whether to buy high briefs or girl boxers in white, nude or black. Thankfully, Henry made the decision for me and walked me home, tears pouring down my face. At this point I'd forgotten why I was crying (and which underwear Henry had bought in the end).

I would like to say it was because I was pre-emptively missing Henry. We were, after all, going to be apart a great deal for the next 6 months, in the year of our wedding. But it wasn't that. I was tired. No... I was exhausted. I sat on our sofa, both eyes now swollen and red from crying, and studied Henry's expression. The concerned expression that stretched across his face, was all too familiar.

It read "You've pushed yourself again. You've seen a brick wall and you've strapped weights to your ankles and tried to run through it. Again."

The only other time I've experienced burnout was during the first year of my PhD. Back then I was juggling my MSc dissertation, the inevitable challenges of buying a new property, quitting my London job, moving to Birmingham, and starting my doctoral studies. Two weeks before my MSc dissertation submission deadline, I woke up in a panic. Sinusitis galore, my living room became littered with discarded, snotty tissues and half-drunk cups of lemsip. I couldn't open my laptop. I couldn't write. All I wanted to do was stop time, crawl into bed for a few days and wake up with a fresh mind and body.

And that's what burnout feels like for me. Everything is bleak. Everything makes me cry. And nothing can console me. It's like the only thing that will make me feel better, is just doing the very thing that is making me unwell. The last thing I want to do, is take a break or rest. Because that generally makes me feel weak and pointless. But generally, that is exactly what I need to do.

Once I came to the realisation that my body was betraying the meticulously structured (and jam-packed) week I had planned, it was a little too late. The rule of burnout is 1) recognise it's happening and 2) create spaces to decompress. The only thing left on my agenda was "spend time with Henry". Frustratingly, that evening we cancelled Henry's dinner plans at a local Ethiopian restaurant we had been meaning to go to for some time. Instead, we sat in our living room, Deliveroo laid out on a wooden bench, with Martian (the film) projected onto our white walls. And even though I was sorely disappointed that the most important part of my week had to be compromised, it was exactly what I needed. Unstructured, open-ended time with the person I was bound to miss the most.

My top 3 pre-trip lessons:

  • Pack early! 

Even though I had already organised everything I needed for my trip, none of it was in a suitcase until the evening before. The chore of packing was a lingering concern in my mind all week. When people asked me if I was "all packed and set to go", I would feel a ball of anxiety build in my stomach. Had I packed a week in advance, those concerns wouldn't be there, and I could have been more present at gatherings with friends and family.

  • Accept that some things aren't in your control

I ended up writing 3 separate to-do lists. House admin, wedding admin, trip admin. I've always found lists helpful for clarifying ambiguity, and making abstract tasks, tangible and measurable tick-box activities. However, this experience has taught me that no amount of list-making and box-ticking will control for the unexpected that travelling overseas for 6 months inevitably brings. Yes, my lists were helpful. But they also became a stick to beat myself with, when things weren't going to plan. I now know that the best thing to do is to draw a line in the sand and "call it". Some things cannot be planned. And sometimes, plans and lists and schedules become a distraction from the things that really matter. Which brings me on to...

  • Make time for the things that really matter.
Cramming so much into my last week, meant that I couldn't spend quality time with Henry. And although we are pretty chilled out about the time we will be spending apart, there were better ways to spend our last evening together. And it's not just people that I will miss. The monthly membership at my local gym in Kampala is way beyond my budget. Being so busy, I had two very average gym days before I left for Uganda. And that's definitely something I'm already missing. So whatever it is you know you'll miss, make time for that. Because when you finally settle into your new surroundings, those are the things you'll wish you did more of.