The Great Burnout of 2022
The other day, April 30, 2022, was the one year anniversary of the release of my Skylines Shawl pattern, and the beginning of the most productive 9 months of my life. (Save maybe school? I was quite the studybug in school, but none of that felt as right as designing does. I realize now that I’m immensely glad I didn’t go into academia the way I thought I would. Young computer-science-and-math-major Cy would not have made good life decisions.)
In those 9 months, I would also come out with the Calamity Shawl, the Scrivener Shawl, the Oakland Avenue Shawl, and the Verisimilitude Shawl. I would see growth on social media that I only dreamed possible, gain yarn support from brands I admired, and start to figure out my path in life. Not only did I finish those designs, but, almost as if driven by a force beyond my control, I would start many, many other crochet and knit designs - notebooks filled with them, some of which I still want to make.
It felt amazing, all of this work. It hardly felt like work. All this creativity flew through my fingers like electricity.
Until suddenly, it didn’t. Enter burnout.
I didn’t realize it at first. I received yarn support for my Verisimilitude Shawl and, instead of excitement, I was horribly nervous, like I had to live up to the yarn company’s sky-high expectations that, to be fair, they never asked of me. I wanted to prove I was worthy of the yarn I’d been given. And when I started the shawl, I didn’t feel that was the case. I started a knit version, didn’t like it, frogged it - knit up a different version, didn’t like it, frogged it - knit up a different version, didn’t like it… Nothing I knit seemed good enough, even though, looking back, the pattern was perfectly fine.
I took a break from it when it got to the point where even looking at the yarn made me feel physically ill. The Oakland Avenue Shawl was born in this break (much easier when I bought the yarn myself - no expectations!), and quickly became one of my favorite designs. But I’d given the yarn company a deadline. I had to get back to Verisimilitude.
Being a slow knitter, I wasn’t going to have time to knit a shawl and finish a pattern by the deadline I’d set for myself. I had to switch to crochet; therefore, I had to start from scratch.
The anxiety came back, a tsunami of nerves every time I picked up the crochet hook. I wasn’t enjoying myself. It was a job, one I felt like I was failing at. I had to force myself to finish it and put out the pattern.
After that, depression hit hard. I didn’t want to work on anything. It seemed like that electricity had fizzled out completely, leaving a void behind it. I’d pick up a hook, work two or three stitches, and set it down again, without feeling the excitement and joy those 9 months had brought me. Instead, it just brought me dread. What if I never enjoyed it again? What if my talent had just up and left?
I didn’t think of it as burnout at first, since I don’t consider crafting my job, but you have to admit - the mental distance I took from my crafting, the anxiety at the thought of it, the all-around negativity? Sounds a lot like burnout to me.
I barely crafted for the first 3 months of 2022. It felt like I barely existed.
I’m on the other side of a medication change now, and slowly but surely getting back to crafting and designing. I’m learning my limits: designing on my own terms, which means no yarn support or collaborations for a while until I learn to better handle them along with my mental health. Very few if any commissions, mostly selfish knitting. But more importantly? I’m simply enjoying crafting again. I’m crocheting every day, even if it’s just a little bit. I’m working with colors and fibers that excite me. I’m reveling in the community I’ve found through my “little hobbies.”
And that’s what it’s going to take to get fully out of this state of burnout. Remembering why I craft in the first place. Working for joy, not status or social media clicks. And above all: rest, rest, rest.
