Ask TV Scholar: Help, I'm burnt out
Starting over? Consider these shows.
Dear TV Scholar:
I've just accepted I'm experiencing burnout, and have decided to leave London after a beautiful few years and go back home to Scotland. I feel like I'm starting again and feel pretty clueless about where to go next, how to work out what I want, and how to be proud of myself and be the person my loved ones think I am! I realise it's a pretty cliché quarter-life crisis, but part of me also believes I'm the first person ever to go through something like this lol.
-So Long London
Dear So Long London:
You’re not alone. It was 2020 when I realized I was experiencing burnout. I had just started the second semester of my PhD program in Toronto, and a few weeks of enthusiasm quickly waned when I realized I couldn’t stomach writing another fucking academic paper. I used to start the semester feeling refreshed and excited by new material; I would make a list of all of my assignments and flag the readings that seemed most interesting, make study plans with friends, colour-code my calendar. This time around, I could barely stomach looking at a syllabus. I zoned out in class. I DON’T WANT TO BE HERE, my mind screamed. I was not okay, like at all. I was smoking a lot of weed, I had suicidal thoughts. My therapist could only do so much. But one thing I neglected to consider at the time is the context in which my burnout occurred.
It didn’t make sense in the moment, though: I had spent my entire young adulthood strategically planning for a PhD, for a future in academia. I was decently funded, had research opportunities, a great supportive supervisor, but it didn’t matter. When you’re burnt out, you need space and distance. The word itself tells us all we need to know: Burning is an irreversible chemical reaction. You can’t unburn a slice of toast. I took a leave of absence, and a few weeks later, the pandemic hit. I made the split decision to move in with my parents temporarily back in my hometown on the other side of Canada. In the moment, it felt like failure. I didn’t want my family and friends to see me through that lens. The pandemic was a convenient excuse, but I’m almost certain things would have led there regardless (I had already been dreaming of the lush greenery of British Columbia in my very cement life in Toronto).
I ended up getting totally absorbed into ER in those lockdown weeks. Looking back now, I think I was grappling with a sense of purposelessness. I had all of those big existential questions: Who am I without academia? What function do I serve my community? The medical staff on ER know exactly what their purpose is. If you’re watching The Pitt, it evokes a similar feeling: That they are meant to be there, right at that moment, to save that specific patient. I hungered for that feeling, to matter, for my life to feel aligned again.
I ended up signing up for a class on human physiology as a potential prerequisite for nursing, just to try it out. I got a job doing admin work for the public health system. I began grocery shopping weekly, packing lunches, taking the bus to work every day (I was considered an essential worker), answering calls and processing faxes in a windowless room, getting paid every two weeks. Somehow, even though this job wasn’t at all what I envisioned for myself, I started to feel okay again. The structure helped. By the time I got to the series finale of ER, 331 episodes later, I was feeling like myself again. It’s right around that time when I interviewed my first actor and tvscholar really started to take off. Evidently, I did not become a nurse, but I don’t regret exploring it.
I’m vulnerabilitymaxxing here to say: Many, many quarter-life crises have led to a reinvention and a new era. Satya Doyle Byock wrote a really good book about it, by the way. You are currently in the rebuilding phase. It’s time to honour what you’ve really been feeling instead of turning away from it. For me, that’s where the burnout brewed: That deep down knowing that you are not aligned with who you truly want to be. Fuck what anyone else might be thinking, that’s none of your business. What is your business is doing the internal work needed to get back to yourself. As you rebuild that internal okayness, you’ll start trying new things and pursuing opportunities. I’m not religious, but I do think the universe/life finds a way to guide you. Eventually, you’ll wake up, like I do on most days, and realize you made the right choice—especially, as you mention, with a sense of pride over what you actually accomplished in your life there.
By far the best burnout representation I still think about all the time is Enlightened (HBO). I am always surprised by how many people still haven’t seen this gem, which was a collaboration between Mike White (of The White Lotus fame) and Laura Dern (I don’t need to explain who that legend is). The series opens on Amy Jellicoe’s (Dern) worst day. After a massive and very public breakdown at work (a scene that should have won her an Emmy right then and there), she leaves for a wellness retreat in Hawaii, and returns not too long after in a state of enlightenment. She’s ready to make a change in the world! She gets banished to a basement data processing centre but tries to stay present and optimistic through it all, while also wanting to burn everything to the ground. The show is a stark reminder of how shifting your mindset and reframing things can only do so much. Context is important. You can’t change oppressive structures by being more present (I wish). Sometimes, enough is enough. You already know, So Long London, that you’ve hit your capacity (nonetheless, Enlightened would be cathartic and fun to watch). I think there is value in that realization—considering how many of us try to grind it out at the risk of our sanity and health.
In the spirit of starting over, consider watching Somebody Somewhere (HBO). Sam (Bridget Everett) is experiencing more of a mid-life crisis, but she moves back to her hometown after the death of her sister to rebuild, and ends up finding unexpected grace in building community with a gay friend (Jeff Hiller) from high school. It’s one of the softest, most lovable series I’ve ever watched. If you’ve watched it already, watch it again—I took the first season for granted. You might also find some solace in The Dry (Sundance/Britbox/ITVX), in which Shiv (Roisin Gallagher) moves back home to Dublin from London at 35 after losing her job and feeling she didn’t fit into her life there in sobriety. Finally, justice for Too Much! Lena Dunham’s Netflix show is like the more grounded Emily in Paris. Have you ever heard of the saying, wherever you go, there you are? Jessica’s (Meg Stalter) emotional baggage follows her physical one, and it all comes up when she’s in a new relationship with Felix (Will Sharpe), an indie musician. This might be triggering because it’s all London-based, or could be comforting to know you’re not in that world anymore.
My final recommendation would be to watch something that fills your cup, regardless of its themes. Restart Sex and the City for the fourth time (a rewatch always hits for me). Relax into the comfortable rhythms of a procedural (The Good Wife is a game-changer). Click play on something so ridiculous it’ll make you cackle through any lingering regrets or emotions you might be having about starting over (The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City or Search Party). Trust me, as you pick up the pieces of the life you’ve left behind, you'll be okay. TV’s got your back.
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