You don’t exactly think of yourself as a “stressed” person.

If anything, you’d probably say that you’re perfectly happy with your life.

But every once in a while, you just snap and catch yourself by surprise.

This might be a sign that you’re actually emotionally burnt out, but you bottle up your emotions so well that you never realized it.

So how do you know for sure?

Here are 10 signs to look for:

1) The littlest things piss you off

It doesn’t take much to push you over the edge.

Having to sit near a crying baby or seeing someone cut into the line ahead of you is enough to test your patience.

You know you used to be more patient than this. But lately, you simply don’t have the energy to deal with anything that remotely annoys you.

And that’s precisely what burnout is—it’s emotional and physical exhaustion.

Someone whose body is sore from carrying bags all day isn’t going to be happy if you make them carry one more bag. 

It’s the same deal with burnout and emotional stress.

2) Nothing excites you anymore

You used to be a dreamer. 

You used to have plenty of hobbies to keep you amused.

But now those dreams no longer excite you, and your hobbies simply aren’t rewarding anymore no matter how hard you try to enjoy them.

Unfortunately, this is something that a lot of people experience when they get burnt out.

So before you throw away your dreams and hobbies, try stepping back and consider the possibility that you might just be emotionally exhausted.

Sort your problems out and give yourself time to heal, and you might just find yourself enjoying life again.

3) You have digestive issues

You might not be aware that you’re struggling emotionally…but your body knows!

And your gut is often going to be the first to feel that stress.

A lot of short-term stress can easily kill your appetite, make it hard for you to digest anything, or even make you vomit. 

This is usually harmless in the short term. But it can end up causing permanent issues if your stresses last for too long—such as what happens when you’re emotionally burnt out.

Have you been burping a lot?

Have you been suffering from constipation or diarrhea?

Do you have GERD symptoms?

Then this might be a sign that you’re emotionally burnt out.

4) You’re easily exhausted 

It’s only 10 in the morning. You’ve just woken up.

But you’re so tired that you just want to do nothing but lie down and sleep all day.

Emotional exhaustion by itself is enough to cause chronic fatigue.

It’s not always a sudden thing either. Burnout happens slowly as stress builds up day after day.

You might be completely energetic at the start of the year only to end up dragging your feet at the end of it.

Left unchecked, this can lead to actual medical issues.

So you might want to take a step back and try to see what might be stressing you out so that you can do something about it.

5) A sitcom might drive you to tears…

Or maybe the sight of a mother cat sleeping with her kittens gets you all choked up.

It’s easy enough to think that you’re just being “dramatic”, and you likely had people call you exactly that.

But the thing with repressed emotions is that while you can usually hide them pretty well at first, at some point they simply become too much to handle.

And so you’ll find yourself randomly crying at things you shouldn’t be crying over.

I remember when my aunt was at her lowest. She had just come out of a divorce then, and by all accounts she was perfectly happy to be finally out of that marriage.

But for over a year, she would randomly cry or get mad over tiny things. 

When she got better, she said that she was just emotionally burnt out for having to start over at 40.

6) You get annoyed at happy people

Whenever you see someone enthusiastic, the cynical part of you goes “what’s there to be happy about?” or “ugh, this is so cringe.”

And whenever someone talks about their happiness—like a mother gushing about her kids or lovers doting on their partners—you roll your eyes and think they’re just faking it.

It’s almost like you’ve become the Grinch!

And that’s because you just have so much frustration and hurt bottled up that you simply can’t believe that people can actually BE that happy.

7) You want to be left alone

You get frustrated whenever you hear someone calling your name or knocking on your door. You groan every time someone calls on the phone.

Somehow you just don’t want to bother spending time with other people.

And the funny thing is that you still don’t want to be bothered no matter how lonely you get.

But if you think about what burnout is, it makes perfect sense why you’d act this way.

You’re too emotionally exhausted to deal with people!

You don’t want them asking you questions and saying things that could trigger you to get even more emotionally exhausted.

8) You start to become a little self-centered

It’s hard to give a damn about others when you’re emotionally burnt out.

Especially if the reason why you’re burnt out is because you’ve been trying too hard to accommodate others.

You can’t bring yourself to show up and give people your support— to be caring, or to even read their messages.

You (and everyone around you) would think you’re being too self-centered.

But the fact is that when you’re burnt out, you quite literally have nothing to give, and you becoming “selfish” and “self-centered” is a reflection of that.

9) You simply can’t concentrate

As someone who has experienced burnout time and time again, I can confirm that one of the things you’re bound to struggle with is the inability to concentrate.

You can spend hours trying to focus on something that you know needs your full attention, but somehow end up unable to organize your thoughts. 

Trying to get anything done is like trying to grab sand and keep it from slipping between your fingers.

You will hate yourself, thinking “This is so easy! Why am I such a scatterbrain?”

Taking your time and making sure you’re rested will help…

But ultimately, if you want to regain your clarity of mind, you need to deal with your emotional burnout.

10) You couldn’t care less about the world

I mentioned earlier that random things can sometimes send you crying. 

But at the same time, emotional fatigue can also make you NOT feel anything when you know you should.

You can hear news about your best friends fighting or a shootout across the street, but remain completely stone-faced.

You can hear news about how a country is being swallowed up by the sea, or how the price of bread has doubled since last year and… shrug.

It’s almost like you’ve taken anesthesia for emotional pain. 

You might feel depressed and hopeless at worst, but nothing more.

Apathy and depression are both signs of burnout. 

And as easy as it would be to say that you simply grew  into a person who “couldn’t care less”, chances are that once you get better emotionally, you’ll start caring again.

Final thoughts

Can you relate to almost all of the signs I mentioned?

Then you’re definitely emotionally burnt out!

You’ve accumulated emotional stress over the years and now it’s become something you really can’t ignore.

There are so many reasons why you’re experiencing this. 

The most common reasons are financial stress, relationship problems, and unrealistic expectations—both from others and yourself.

The good news is that you can crawl your way out of it the moment you stop ignoring it.

So take a moment to ask yourself this simple question: “What’s something that’s been bothering me for a while now?”, and patiently wait for the answer.