🤯 Real Talk: The Triple Threat of Burnout on my life through my eyes.

Tonight I want to have an incredibly important conversation about Burnout, btw, if you are experiencing something similar, please know you are far from alone in feeling this strain. Now, some of this may be triggering, but this is my raw, untapped insight into burnout and how it affects me in my life at times.

As you are aware, if you know me or have had the chance to look at my other blog posts and my socials. I am juggling the demands of being an Enrolled Nurse (EN), a full-time Bachelor of Nursing student, managing the pressures of my degree and the effects of unpaid placements, having ADHD, and dealing with an autoimmune condition. My God has created me a perfect storm to experience the sometimes severe and chronic burnout.

Welcome to the first point of the triple threats, The Grind: When the Tank empties way too fast.

Omg, can we take a moment to talk about the grind, I’m effectively working two highly demanding jobs while pursuing a degree that adds constant academic and emotional pressure. BAM and BELLE is down for the count and just like that I have taken the first major hit.

The Impossible Combination:

I’m an Enrolled Nurse (EN), which means I deal with acute stress, emotional weight, and physical demand every time I clock on and often these pressures continue to keep you on the clock as you lay in bed trying to switch off after your shift. But then I have to pivot to being a full-time Bachelor of Nursing student, cramming my brain with complex theory and deadlines. There is no downtime.  

The Cruelty of Unpaid Placements:

Let’s talk about the elephant in the room: unpaid clinical placements. They require my full time, my energy, and often include disruptive shift work and long commutes, all while I’m being graded.

Because I’m not getting paid for this critical work, I have to keep my EN job to pay the bills. This simply eliminates any free time I might have for sleep, family, or even just sitting down. I’m giving my absolute all to a system that demands my sacrifice but offers zero financial Incentives or support for my time ( before you say placements are paid in Aus, no, they aren’t unless you qualify)

The Cynicism Creeps In:

Honestly, when I'm on placement, it never ceases to surprise me that I am truly expected to perform like staff, yet I don't have the autonomy, support, or pay to be there. That tension between the expectation and the reality is where the compassion fatigue and cynicism, the hallmark feelings of burnout, really start to take root.

Point 2 of the triple threat, My Brain: The ADHD Accelerator

This is a piece of my reality that often goes unacknowledged. Living with ADHD means my brain is already running a marathon just to stand still.

Executive Function Overload:

My ADHD makes planning, time management, and organisation a constant conscious effort. When you’re burned out, those are the first cognitive functions to completely break down. The energy I spend just trying to keep my nursing notes straight, remember deadlines, and organise my shifts is enormous. That chronic strain sets in and depletes my mental fuel faster than that of my neurotypical peers.

The Hyper-Burn Cycle:

I often find that I fall into a cycle of overexertion. I’ll hyperfocus, push myself to an extreme limit to “keep up,” and then crash and baby do I fucking crash. That crash is the burnout. It’s not laziness; it’s a total resource collapse.

The cruel part is that when I hit that level of exhaustion and mental fog, my core ADHD symptoms worsen, making the basic tasks I need to do (like studying or focusing on handover) feel so damn near utterly impossible. Some days I just want to scream.

Everything is Loud:

The nursing environments are often so full of noise, lights, and constant stimuli. For my ADHD brain, this is a recipe for sensory overload, especially when the effects of burnout are starting to take hold, which leaves me feeling frazzled and totally exhausted long before my shift is over.

Point 3 of the triple threat of Burnout,  My Body: The Autoimmune Backlash

 This is the non-negotiable factor. Having an autoimmune condition means my burnout is a literal, physical threat. It’s a direct communication from my body that I have gone too far.

Stress is My Enemy:

 Every nurse knows stress is bad, but for me, chronic, unrelieved stress is often a direct trigger for a flare-up. When I push through, I am actively and sometimes immediately making my condition worse, which often makes me get a cute, fun trip to ED. Burnout stops being just a feeling; it becomes systemic inflammation and physical sickness.

The Smaller Energy Budget:

My body is already using a huge amount of energy just to keep the inflammation down and manage my immune system. And lets be real my body hardly does that. I start every day with a smaller energy reserve than everyone else. This means I hit the point of non-restorative fatigue much faster. That deep tiredness I feel isn't just a bad night's sleep; it’s my immune system on overdrive, combined with zero to little recovery.

The Guilt of the Flare: When a flare hits and forces me to stop, the guilt is immense. The worry of leaving the ward short or the feelings of guilt taking up a bed space in ED when I am, in fact, a nurse and should be helping look after patients, not becoming one, is honestly one of the hardest things to deal with and trying to talk myself down from the ledge when I feel like that is so difficult at times. The nursing culture is all about sacrificing for others, but I’ve learned the hard way that self-sacrifice in this scenario is self-destruction. Prioritising my health is no longer an option; it’s a clinical necessity to survive this degree and stay in the profession I love.

I’m sharing this to be honest about the impossible standards we face. This isn't about being weak; it’s about acknowledging that the system we operate in is sometimes set up for us to fail.

If you’re reading this and feeling the weight of any of these factors, please know that you are valid. You are not lazy, and you are not a failure. You are a human being operating under extraordinary, compounding pressure.

My challenge to myself—and to you—is this: We must treat our own health with the same urgency and compassion we show our patients.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. Which of these three "threats"—the Grind, the ADHD Accelerator, or the Autoimmune Backlash

You relate to the Most, if any at all, or what do you think are your Burnout/ struggles?