[kelseyfrog]

That's a great example that I agree with. Also consider the "You haven't had a real fracture unless there's bone sticking out of your skin." to the person who has a hairline.

What I'm saying is that it's especially easy to get caught up in this mindset when discussing mental health topics. The existence of "real" burnout artificially introduces the concept of "fake" burnout.

Let's be clear, the concept of burnout and worn out is more compassionate, descriptive, and most importantly has the important consequence that I'm interested in avoiding: not turning into a who has it worse spiral that ultimately ends in people with burnout not being able to identify it because someone else has it worse.

It's this class of false negative that I believe is important to have a conversation about. These people often go unnoticed, because despite having burnout will not identify it as such because someone has it worse.

I get that you're interested in the false positive case, and that's fair. I understand that if too many people misidentify worn out as burnout that it can make burnt out people feel like people aren't able to understand their circumstances as severe, but I trust you'll consider both types of error as important and deserving the attention they do.

[Eddy_Viscosity2]

Another way of saying this is that burnout exists on a spectrum and that catching it early when you're on the worn-out side is way better then waiting till its gets to the full burn out side.