“I feel numb. Absent. Like I'm not really here anymore.”
This is often how burnout first shows up in my office. People describe feeling disconnected from themselves and from their lives. And yet, strangely, they can't switch off from work. They check their emails late at night, reply to messages they wish they could ignore, and find their mind returning to work again and again.
The motivation is gone. The energy and the pull they once felt toward their work, a job they often used to like or even love, has disappeared. In its place, there's a heaviness. They feel tired all the time, as if they could sleep forever.
In their mind, they know they should be performing, achieving, finishing tasks. But the reality is that they just can't seem to get anything done. And that gap between what they expect of themselves and what they can actually do becomes its own source of pain.
If this sounds familiar, you may be experiencing burnout. In my practice as a therapist in Dubai, I see it often, especially in professionals with demanding roles who have been giving everything for a long time.
Common signs of burnout
- Feeling numb, absent or disconnected from yourself and your life
- Being unable to switch off from work: checking emails, answering messages, thinking about work constantly
- Losing motivation for work you once enjoyed, or even loved
- Feeling heavy and tired all the time, as if you could sleep forever
- Knowing what you “should” do, but being unable to get things done
- Finding that weekends and holidays no longer bring your energy back
Who tends to burn out
The people I see burning out most often are the high achievers. They usually have demanding jobs and many responsibilities, and they have always given 150% to their work.
Many of them feel they have to prove themselves constantly. Whatever they do, it rarely feels good enough. Often without realizing it, they look for external validation and approval, waiting for the next milestone: the promotion, the bonus, the ten-year mark, the next step up the ladder. They hope that once they get there, they will finally feel satisfied.
But that feeling never quite comes. The finish line keeps moving, and they keep running.
Burnout vs. tiredness: why it's more than being tired
Burnout is a state we reach after experiencing high levels of stress for a very long time. For months, sometimes years, the nervous system has been running in fight-or-flight mode: alert, pushing, coping. Eventually it becomes exhausted, and the body shifts into a state of freeze, or shutdown.
This is why burnout feels so different from ordinary tiredness. A weekend of rest doesn't give your energy back. Neither does a lovely holiday. You may not feel sad or depressed. You just feel flat. Two or three days off, even a week or two, doesn't seem to bring you back.
It can feel as if your body has decided that, from now on, it will choose for you what you need, what you can do, and what you cannot do. Many people feel completely out of control, even betrayed by a body that seems to be letting them down.
But your body isn't working against you. It's protecting the very small reserve of energy you have left, by reprioritizing. In its own way, it's asking you to stop.
What lies underneath
Burnout is rarely only about the workload or a stressful job. When we look beneath it, we often find:
- A harsh inner critic
- Difficulty saying no, and setting boundaries
- A strong sense of responsibility for supporting others
- A need for approval, and a need to perform
- Relentless standards
- A deep need to prove one's worth
Together, these place enormous pressure on the whole person. Long before the burnout became visible, they had been running on empty.
Why rest and pushing through don't work
By the time people come to see me, they are often quite upset with themselves. They've tried resting. They've been on holiday. They've kept pushing through. On the days when they still have a little energy, they try to make up for lost time and perform as much as they can.
And none of it is working.
It isn't working because there's no real understanding yet of what led to this state. And because, even while trying to recover, we are often still asking far too much of our body and our nervous system.
Recovery begins when we learn to properly care for ourselves. And when I say care, I don't mean taking a bath, lighting candles or booking a massage. I mean something deeper, and often harder.
How therapy helps you recover from burnout
In my work with people experiencing burnout, we start with understanding: your current state, your history, and the beliefs and behaviors that led you here.
From there, I teach my clients to:
- Be kinder to themselves. To meet their exhaustion with compassion instead of criticism.
- Slow down. Often the very thing high achievers hate most, and the very thing their body is asking for.
- Listen to themselves. To notice their signals and their limits, rather than overriding them.
- Do, but do differently. Not stopping life altogether, but acting from a different place, with new boundaries and new ways of responding to old pressures.
That's when we start to notice changes. Energy returns slowly. Work finds its place again, rather than taking up all the space. And the worth that was always tied to performance begins to rest on something steadier.
Your body isn't letting you down
If you're reading this feeling numb, heavy, and frustrated with yourself for not “bouncing back,” please hear this: nothing is wrong with you. Your body has been carrying too much, for too long, and it is doing its best to protect you.
The way out isn't to push harder. It's to understand, to slow down, and to learn, gently, a different way of living and working.