Welcome to Prologs. My name is Mary, and when I get overwhelmed and start feeling behind, I find it helpful to zoom out and remind myself that I am still in the beginning of my story. I'm sharing all of my life's chapters, mental health, relationships, wellness, beauty, the chaos of being in my 20s, and all of life's unexpected turns. Prologs is the best way to start

your week, so join me every Monday morning for a new entry into my digital journal.

Hi, guys, welcome back to Prologs. I have a vulnerable episode for you today that really embodies

this idea that Prologs is my digital journal. This is very much an entry into a journal for me today,

kind of cataloging this point in my life and reflecting on the previous months and the previous

year, honestly, and trying to mark a change and trying to usher in a new chapter. So it's a pretty

vulnerable one. I'm going to be talking about emotional burnout, which is something I've been experiencing for quite a while now, and I've been a bit unaware of it until my therapist brought it up to me a couple of weeks ago. And I've spent a few weeks exploring it in therapy and thinking about it and reading about it because it was not a term I was familiar with. I've heard of burnout. Obviously, I've experienced burnout in the past, but specifically emotional fatigue,

emotional exhaustion. I hadn't really ever thought about that or given it much attention,

and I'd certainly never considered that it would be something I'd be experiencing. But that's

what today's episode is about. And I don't have answers for you. I've read so many articles about what it is and how to

deal with it and I've talked to my therapist about it for a couple of weeks. And so what I'm going to be

sharing is my experience and everything that I've learned from other people, but I'm definitely

not an expert in something like this. So I'm going to link everything that I've been reading down

in the show notes so that you can go and read it for yourself. I'm going to talk about my experience.

Like I said, I'm going to share what other people have told me and what I've read about it.

And I want this episode to serve as a changing point for me. I have really not been doing well for quite a while. And because I

struggle with mental health, I think I just assumed it was depression. I've spoken to you guys

in recent vlogs and episodes about feeling like I was going through executive dysfunction.

And I think I've just assumed that I've been just depressed,

just regular run-of-the-mill depression that I'm prone to. But through speaking to my therapist,

I think it's something much more specific than that. And so I need to make a change. I need to make

a really big change in my life. This isn't just a depressive episode. I've learned that I, you know, I take

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