How being Overworked will Drive you Insane
Being overworked has driven many people to insanity, even to suicide. But even before reaching such dramatic ends there are many ways that being overworked will damage your mental health.
The brain drain
Being overworked will lead to physical exhaustion, which will lead to mental exhaustion. You will have trouble concentrating, be it on a business task, on the oncoming traffic in the (hopefully) opposite lane on your commute, or that important piece of news your five year old daughter just has to tell you the moment you walk in the door. Being overworked makes it harder for you to focus.
The Scarecrow
Like Dorothy’s straw-minded companion you’ll begin to doubt whether or not you actually have a brain (and if not someone will likely suggest it for you). You will begin to miss obvious things, like the spelling mistake in size 36 font in the title of your report, or the giant inflatable gorilla someone has put on the roof of your building. Someone will question your mental acuity, citing your lack of quality work and the inability to pick up on things. It may be suggested that you have your eyes, ears or thyroid (yes, thyroid) checked, or even have a full physical done, just to make sure that there’s nothing actually wrong with you and that you are, in fact, just stupid.
The point of no return
Sooner or later you stop caring what other people say about you and simply soldier on in the misery of being overworked. You are now passing the point of no return, the point where your exhaustion begins to alter your mental faculties. This can manifest itself in a number of different ways, but one of the most frightening is when it causes you to feel indifference in the face of danger. If you don’t care that the ladder is teetering dangerously, or that the truck in the oncoming lane is now barrelling towards you or that you’ve been lying on the floor laughing like a criminal mastermind for the past five minutes straight over something that wasn’t even funny then being overworked has definitely taken its toll. This is the point where you begin to lose control of yourself, where you feel your sanity starting to slip through your fingers. This is the first step in the direction towards dramatic extremes.
This author has been overworked to this point a few times in his life, and knows first-hand how the march to insanity can be driven by exhaustion. It takes the physical end of whatever has led to the exhaustion as well as a sustained and conscious effort to heal before the impact of being overworked on your mental health can be reversed.
