December, when my brain just switched off

Amma woke me up at 7 on a Sunday and said, "Kavya, you've been sleeping since last night. Are you okay?" I was lying face down on my bed, still in my clothes from the day before, with a Chemistry book open next to me, upside down.

I remember what I felt. Not sad. Not scared. Nothing. It was like someone had turned my brain's volume down to zero. I looked at the ceiling fan going round and round and thought: I don't care about any of it. That scared me more than any mock result ever had.

This is a post about that December in my drop year. I'm writing it from a better place, and I want to be careful, because I'm not a doctor and this isn't a diagnosis of anything. I'm just telling you what happened to me, in case it sounds like something you're quietly going through too.

How it crept up

Here is the thing about burnout. It doesn't arrive in one dramatic night. It creeps.

By September I was studying ten hours a day. I felt strong. I wore my schedule like armour. I skipped two festivals because "I can't afford the time." I skipped phone calls home. I sat in the library until it closed. In October my mocks were up, and I took that as proof that more was better.

By November the cracks showed. I'd read a page and not remember a word. I got irritable at tiny things, like a roommate's phone ringing. I started getting headaches. I dreaded opening my books. I wasn't lazy: I was sitting at my desk for the same hours, but I was running on fumes. My mock scores started dropping a little, and my reaction was, of course, to study even more.

By December, I hit the wall.

What it looked like

What I told myself	What was actually happening
"I'm just tired"	I'd been tired for six weeks and sleep wasn't fixing it
"I need to push through"	Pushing was making everything worse
"Everyone's tired in December"	Maybe, but not everyone had stopped caring about things they loved
"Rest is for people who've earned it"	Rest isn't a reward. It's maintenance
"I'm fine"	I wasn't

I also noticed I'd stopped doing the small things that make me me. I stopped humming while I cooked. I stopped calling amma every night. I didn't laugh at my roommate's jokes. I wasn't really sad, it was more like colour had drained out of my days.

The day I asked for help

I wish I could say I figured it out on my own. I didn't. It was Amma, in the end, who said, "Come home for four days." I argued. I said I'd lose the momentum. She said, in her flat Kannada-accented-everything voice, "Momentum for what? You can't even lift your head."

I went home. On the first day I slept fourteen hours. Amma made me neer dosa and didn't talk about the exam once. On the second day, I cried in the kitchen for no reason I could name. On the third day, I told her everything: the ten hours, the headaches, the nothing-ness. She listened. Then she said, "We'll see a doctor, and we'll talk to your teacher, and you'll study less. It's decided."

We saw a family doctor, who asked me lots of questions about sleep and food and how long this had been going on. He did a few basic checks and said that I was quite run down, and he suggested I speak to a counsellor as well, which I did over the next few weeks. I'm not going to write about what they said, because it's personal and also because everyone's situation is different. I'll just say: it helped to have people who knew what they were doing take my "nothing" seriously.

That's the part I want you to take from here. If you feel numb, flat, or "switched off" for weeks, if you've lost interest in things you usually enjoy, if you can't sleep or you're sleeping all the time, if you feel hopeless, please tell someone who can help. A parent, a doctor, a counsellor. You don't need to prove it's "bad enough." If it's bothering you, it's enough.

What I changed (without throwing away the exam)

When I went back, I made a list of changes. Some were big, some were tiny.

• Cut hours, raised quality. From ten hours to about seven focused ones. My mock scores recovered in about a month. They weren't instantly better, but the dip stopped.
• One real day off a week. No books, no mock analysis, no guilt. I cook, I call people, I sometimes just lie on the terrace.
• Eating and sleeping first. Not after. I decided that eating and sleeping were part of the plan, not what I do if there's time left.
• A "stop time". Hard stop at 9:30 pm. After that, no studying, even if I'm in the middle of a chapter.
• Small joys back in. Humming. Chai with roommates. A 15-minute video call with amma every night. These felt like luxuries, but they were what kept me me.
• Telling my teacher. He rearranged my test series so I could skip a couple of heavy ones. I was so scared to ask, and he said "of course."

What I believe now

I used to think burnout was the story of people who gave up too early. Now I think it's the story of people who didn't know that they were allowed to stop.

Resting didn't make me weaker. My scores in the next two months were better than in the worst of December, and more importantly I started to feel like a person again. I can't promise you what rest will do for your exam. I can promise it's worth more than a sleepless week of "pushing through".

If you recognise yourself in this

You don't have to fix it alone. Try this, if it feels doable:

1. Take one honest look at your last two weeks. Sleep? Food? Joy? Energy?
2. Pick one person. Tell them one sentence: "I'm very tired and I'm not okay."
3. Take one day off. A whole one.
4. If it doesn't lift, or it gets worse, or you feel hopeless, please see a doctor or a counsellor.

I'm back at my desk now. Six hours before lunch, a walk, and then some more. The chemistry book isn't upside down anymore.