I engage with them no matter what. My reasons being: if I can handle it, I get a gauge on what mood they’re in and how to talk to them that day, which makes things easier for me since I don’t have to guess. If I can’t handle caring about their response, at least it gets them talking and I don’t have to offer up anything about my life. Just keep steering the conversation back to theirs and they basically handle all the heavy lifting until I can find an out.
Obviously this does not work perfectly all the time but it usually gets me to the finish line.
I think a month or two ago I’d have said the same thing, but I’ve recently hit the worst burnout I’ve ever experienced… There’s been days where I can only get a few words out before my brain just shuts down. Absolutely night and day difference from where I was…sooo now I’m in ultra recovery mode and really focusing on building my battery back up 😓
I engage with them no matter what. My reasons being: if I can handle it, I get a gauge on what mood they’re in and how to talk to them that day, which makes things easier for me since I don’t have to guess. If I can’t handle caring about their response, at least it gets them talking and I don’t have to offer up anything about my life. Just keep steering the conversation back to theirs and they basically handle all the heavy lifting until I can find an out.
Obviously this does not work perfectly all the time but it usually gets me to the finish line.
I think a month or two ago I’d have said the same thing, but I’ve recently hit the worst burnout I’ve ever experienced… There’s been days where I can only get a few words out before my brain just shuts down. Absolutely night and day difference from where I was…sooo now I’m in ultra recovery mode and really focusing on building my battery back up 😓
Oooofff I am sorry. Hopefully you can recharge and you have some reliable ways to extract yourself from dealing with the energy vampires.
It’s wild how fast your defences can fail once you get to a certain point.