Burnt Out
December 2025
Blackened trunks, auburn tassels of leaves, the charred dirt. All is quiet but not calmly so. Everything I had to give has been burnt away. Each drip of nurturing dried from my branch tips. I hate everything and everyone. I hear the jostling of birds for fruits elsewhere. The burnt smell deters them. The roasted flowers signalling spent and redundant plants. I’m not good enough. Sorry broken trunks sprawl here and there. Dead saplings droop waiting wind and rain to decompose them alongside the dead insects silent in the hollowed logs. I have nothing left. The humans avoid me, avert their eyes at my ugliness, rush past. No one wants to be near my burnt-out ugliness. I am unwanted.
Before, the life I was supporting was insatiable. Under-brush sucking nutrients from trees, seeds unfertilised rotting where they fall, saplings jostled for space, their branches tangled in vines as they struggle upwards competing for the canopy. So much spent energy and yet everything was weak. Lacking purpose and direction. Spreading resources thinly so no singular plant can thrive. The demands for air, water, sunshine outstripped the supply. And now it’s all gone. Nothing to give, nothing being taken. Alone. Quiet. Blackened.
I always avoided looking at this burnt part of the local bushland walk. I would just keep walking concentrating on the path and aware of the flat silence. The emptiness. The deadness. But then at end of the year as I dragged myself through the Christmas and New Year “holidays”, I realised that this is the part of the bush that I had most to learn from.
I felt completely depleted and emotionally burnt out. For several months, I had taken from my own personal care resources to give to others. I am a parent and respite foster carer who also works in a caring profession which is incredibly stressful and demanding. By Christmas evening I became sick with a virus which seemed to evolve into various symptoms that lasted through to the New Year. I was so fatigued, I couldn’t read, walk my dog, prepare healthy meals for myself. I couldn’t stop thinking about other people. I had no interest in exploring nature. No energy for seeing friends. My plants were either wilting from pests or other afflictions. All I wanted to do was watch tv or play an idle clicking game on my phone until I fell asleep in a stupor. I had been on holidays for a couple of weeks, but the thought of my work still filled me with dread.
The most distressing part was that I had felt like this several times over recent years. I had also seen friends and colleagues go through similar and worse burn out symptoms. It was the norm. I’m a 45-year-old woman caring for adolescent and adult children, striving to meet high performance expectations in my career, while managing my own health challenges and managing perimenopause symptoms. Although my aging family members don’t need my direct support right now, I know that this is on the horizon for me. I am surrounded by other women who are balancing similar concerns and more – it is not just me, but when it is everyone, no one is able to support each other!
I don’t want to feel like this again. I don’t want to risk burning so much away that all that is left is a wasteland. No creativity, no dreams, no softness, just brittle wood and bitter words. I see this happen to other women, people who didn’t have options or support or capacity to figure out another way.
I want something different for myself. I am going to have to find a way to make this burn-out the last one. To make the life changes needed to grow back a healthy strong intentional life with each tree, vine and log strategically and consciously chosen within the limits and aspirations of my own capacity to support it. All I know is that the only time I feel strong, nurtured and fulfilled is when I am immersed in nature. So, I am going to pursue those experiences to find the guidance and wisdom I need to go on this journey.
