7 Things to Do When Your Tank Is Empty

“Resilience burnout” is real

Karen Nimmo
Forge
Published in
5 min readSep 7, 2021

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Photo: Sean De Burca/Getty Images

You’re running on empty.

You’re fatigued. You’re lethargic. You have things you’d like to do — or you should do — but you can’t get fired up about them. Or anything.

You’ve had low patches before and you’ve always been able to find your way back. But now it feels like you have no resilience left. It’s like the plug’s still in the wall but someone flipped the power switch off.

What to do?

No surprises here

Every therapist hears stories like this, but never more so than during the past 18 months, as we’ve struggled with a global pandemic and its tentacles.

Many people are saying they’re depleted, they don’t have the resilience to cope with the stress, the anxiety, the roller-coaster uncertainties, another round of Zoom drinks, all the restrictions on their freedom.

Beyond the obvious stressors — like job losses, financial pressure, working from home, home-schooling, health/mental health worries, conflict, missing out on weddings, funerals and other key events — there’s been the loss of all the things that brighten everyday life. Looking forward to that trip of a lifetime, studying overseas, taking up retirement plans. Or the little things…

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Published in Forge

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Karen Nimmo
Karen Nimmo

Written by Karen Nimmo

Clinical psychologist, author of 4 books. Editor of On the Couch: Practical psychology for health and happiness. karen@onthecouch.co.nz

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