Burn Out, Post-Exertional Malaise, and Why Pacing is Self Care

It’s easy to lose yourself when comparing one’s personal journey to another’s success. I have a habit of doing such. I would compare my writing to the likes of Cassie Whitt and Jessica Hopper or my photography to Ashley Osborne and Elliott Ingham. I envisioned myself following in the footsteps of Nick Major and Tori Kravitz, feeling devastated when I could not keep up with the high demand of the industry. If one is not always creating they must be failing, right? No. Absolutely not. Success is not measured by the quantity you produce, but rather by the quality of emotion you feel. Desperately I attempted to mimic someone else’s path when individually we come from different starting points. 

Perhaps it’s the ADHD in me, but my brain craves a creative outlet. The problem? There is such a high demand for constant content. Algorithms prefer quantity over quality. Anything that feeds the always starving content monster is considered a great choice, else you will drown in a whirlpool of lost opportunity. It’s easy to fall victim to the algorithm’s game. I’ve been there. And honestly? I would still be stuck in the depths of deep doubt, accepting defeat had it not been for a little thing called post-exertional malaise. 

It is no secret that I am chronically ill. At 16 I was clinically diagnosed with Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. An often serious multisystemic chronic illness where the body’s collagen is defective. On its own, hEDS is a handful. However, one simply does not have just one diagnosis. In a study conducted with candidates enrolled in the Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Genetic Evaluation Study (HEDGE), all but one respondent noted having one or more health conditions in addition to EDS. That’s 99.98% of the sample hEDS population. Concurring conditions such as Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (PoTS) and Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS) are nearly inevitable, adding on to the invisible weight invisible illness brings. Basically, being chronically ill is exhausting– no exaggeration, pun fully intended.

Recently, I gained the motivation to crawl out from the debris burnout had left me trapped in. It was a struggle to escape, yet hope was high and safety was near. I saw a window of opportunity, jumped through it, and had plans of not looking back. I went from working one stable job and a few one-off gigs to gaining a more frequent gig schedule, a day job at a restaurant, and an ever growing list of creative endeavors. One specific week I was found working a ten hour restaurant shift before waking up at the crack of dawn to drive three and a half hours North to work a concert, just to drive back to Massachusetts the following morning to work a street fair for the restaurant. Eventually, the exhaustion caught up with me; at one point I ended up pulling off the highway into an IHOP parking lot, unable to drive myself home. 

At the time, I still had the same mindset. If I wanted to find success I had to be constantly working towards my goals. Who needed sleep when caffeine existed as a pick-me-up? Sure, I was in pain and had the tendency to flare after long work shifts, but that was just part of the game. As long as I remembered ‘mind over matter’ I could accomplish anything. I finally had a taste of self-purpose and was unwilling to let go.  One amazing aspect about the human body is that when you ignore the warning lights that you’re pushing too hard your body will forcefully make you quit. 

It was the week of my Diagnosis Day. The previous weeks held a heavy and chaotic workload, yet despite pushing through moderate-to-severe pain and an unsteady sleep schedule I still had plans to celebrate. How ironic when I woke up September 18 with a massive flare. Still, I made an informational Instagram post, thinking all I would need is one day of rest. It was my day off, after all. A little bit of rest and surely I could bounce right back into gear.  Weeks of ignoring flashing warning signs from a multisystemic condition cannot be equalized with one day of bedrest. The following day was worse than before, forcing me to call out of work– something I desperately avoid doing. Forget celebrating nine years of having a diagnosis with friends; the only plans ahead were bound for my bed. 

Imagine feeling like your bone marrow was filled with angry fire ants planning their revenge. You’re too nauseated to eat, yet not eating is not an option. Mild flu-like symptoms begin to show. You wonder if you’ve come down with covid or some other viral illness. Anxiety sinks into your ribcage while the only things you can manage are sleep and the bare minimum of survival. Post-exertional malaise. It’s not contagious, yet a bitch nonetheless. According to John Hopkins, “Post-exertional malaise (PEM) is a delayed worsening of symptoms that occur after minimal physical or mental activity. The key feature of PEM is that the malaise (extreme fatigue and flu-like symptoms) and other symptoms are not in proportion to the amount of activity that has been done.” 

While most abled industry professionals could balance a day job and an industry career, my body was just not equipped for the grind; or so I thought. I am far from the only disabled professional in the industry. Surely there had to be a way to hack the system to adapt to my needs. The solution? Keeping at a steady pace that includes time slotted for rest after activity. Ehlers-Danlos Support UK advocates “Pacing can help you take control of your condition and enable you to become an expert in managing your illness.” They continue to quote the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) by defining pacing as “energy management, with the aim of maximizing cognitive and physical activity, while avoiding setbacks and relapses due to overexertion.” You can read more about pacing and chronic illness here. I overexerted myself for the grind just to make myself physically ill and unable to act on any creative endeavor. The only way for someone as myself to make it in this cut-throat industry was if I learned how to pause, plan my goals, and pace for success. 

I am not Tori Kravitz, nor am I Ashley Osborne. I am Hana Belanger, a chronically ill creative doing her best to keep up with the chaos the industry treads in. My biggest downfall was allowing myself to be consumed with the notion of numbers and constant output rather than let myself feel free with something I could be proud of. I let industry standards and societal expectations wear at me, dimming my flame. At one point I considered burning out completely, retiring my dreams and chasing a less passionate career choice. By publishing this article I am acknowledging the boundaries my body and mind sets while simultaneously soaring through glass ceilings with creativity and personal endeavors. I can do it all; I just need some extra time so I can move at the pace perfect for my body.