Just Because You Don't Experience Something, Doesn't Mean It's Not Real

So, the other day I was mindlessly scrolling facebook, instead of working. I came across a post someone shared in one of those "groups" you're never really sure how you ended up in? It was about Danielle Steele and her eighty bajillion novels, sleeping 4 hours and working TWENTY HOURS A DAY, and how she thinks burnout is a myth. The person who shared the article prefaced it with "What do you think? Is burnout just a millennial...." then I rage blacked out because the easiest way to push me over the edge is to blame anything on us as a generation. I didn't read the article, because I wasn't going to give traffic to some clickbait shit that made me mad. So here we are, halfway through Mental Health Awareness month, and we're saying this documented and studied form of stress, depression, and anxiety is a "millennial affliction"

this blog is about burnout, so here are some flowers to make it better.

This made me mad, so in true "millennial fashion" I'm going to blog about it. Just because you, Danielle Steele, don't experience something, doesn't make it a made up thing. I don't suffer from multiple personality disorder, but that doesn't mean it's not real. I've never experienced Postpartum Depression, but that doesn't mean it's not real. If you've made it through your career and you've never experienced burnout or impostor syndrome, that is GREAT for you. Really, kudos, congratulations! That doesn't give you the right to belittle someone else's experience, let alone something that nearly an entire generation of people are suffering from. 

This may be a "millennial affliction" because we're hyper aware of the way things are, thanks to our good friend the Internet. We're living in a 24 hour news cycle of just bad stuff all the time, then we're told that our opinions don't matter. That we're entitled, lazy, oversensitive, dramatic, have no work ethic, etc. We're told that we can't buy houses because we eat avocado toast. Blatantly ignoring the crippling student loan debt and wage stagnancy we're trapped under. Asking to be paid better, have affordable health care, that's just our entitlement talking. We're a generation of grown ass people and anytime we express any kind of emotion, be it passion or anger, it's our entitlement. This paragraph took a turn I wasn't expecting. I JUST HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS ABOUT THIS OKAY. 

We are sensitive, overall, as a generation. That's not a weakness. Empathy is not a weakness. Wanting to make the world a better place is not a character flaw. So if you're suffering from burnout, because I know I have, don't let the muggles get you down. Wanting to be able to clock out, and enjoy your life is not a flaw. This is something every generation has struggled with, we've just put words to it. If saying "hey, this isn't how this should be" is entitlement, then fine. We're entitled. It's not our fault, we were raised to believe we could do anything we set our minds to. 

This is a very stream of consciousness post. I rage-typed some stuff and deleted it, you know since the Internet is forever. I just feel like we have enough to deal with right now, let's not add some bullshit narrative on top of it. Don't say "oh millennials are killing restaurants" and then ALSO say "you're entitled if you think that you should be able to afford to spend money on cable bills or eating out at restaurants as a twenty something. You have to work 40 years to be comfortable" You can't have it both ways, sorry. 

In summary: your feeling of exhaustion, depression, anxiety from overworking and overstressing yourself is valid. Take whatever kind of break you can. If you don't feel valued or appreciated at work, and you can move to a different job, by all means, DO IT. Let them call us entitled. Let them call us lazy. We're out here doing our best and that's all we can do. If you made it this far, thanks for reading my typical millennial rant. I appreciate ya.