Lex Croucher reveals her personal experiences with occupational burnout, shining a light upon a rarely discussed health hazard.
Known for her outspoken views on animal rights, feminism, and Sex Education, Lex Croucher’s social activism has seen her become one of the loudest progressive voices in the YouTube community. Recently, she precipitated a discussion about occupational burnout – a widespread but not commonly talked about health problem.
She begins the discussion by revealing her personal struggles and experiences with the health condition, and explaining that her stress originated from overwork.
“I was working my full-time job, I was launching a new pin badge business, I was trying to make YouTube happen again, I was starting a band with my friend, I was going to events and hanging out with my friends and my boyfriend, and then I was working on a giant secret project,” Lex explains. “I was doing about a year’s worth of stuff in a few months, so I developed the worst anxiety of my life.”
Occupational burnout is a major problem in the UK, with 51% of full-time employees saying that they have suffered from the condition, and is thought to be the result of long-term, unrelinquishing job stress. Sometimes indistinguishable from depression, the symptoms of burnout can include impaired job performance and coronary heart disease, as well as a myriad of mental health problems.
Lex’s experiences with burnout paint a vivid picture of the debilitating effects it can have on one’s mental health. “I struggled to make it through a day of work without hiding in the toilets and crying,” she says. “Seeing, like, three or four bright colours next to each other would have been enough to completely overstimulate and overwhelm me.”
From her experience, she advises sufferers to actively listen to people who know and love them when they say they’re doing a little too much, because “it’s extremely hard to know your limits if you haven’t reached them yet”.
She expands on this point with a metaphor: “It’s like swimming to an end of a pool with your eyes shut claiming that you’ll know when it’s time to stop because you’ve reached the end, but actually with no frame of reference to have any idea where that point is.”
Admitting that it’s difficult in a fast-paced world where you want to do and achieve a lot and you’re not willing to compromise on your ambitions, she nevertheless concludes that “it is seriously not worth your health and your brain if you can’t gauge where the limit is”.
Lex is putting her pin business on hold for the time being, and we applaud her for putting her mental health first and spreading awareness about occupational burnout.
Want more?
Find out what Carrie Hope Fletcher had to say on the controversial “Punish Yourself Buff” advertisements, or have a look at Christopher Johnson‘s views on the recent changes to the YouTube Partner Programme.
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