Emotional Exhaustion

Emotional exhaustion is read as the collapse that follows a long, unwinnable struggle to realise an ideal. Devoted and perfectionist, one spends so much of oneself trying to force a true, lasting change - at work, in the family, in a relationship - that one burns the candle at both ends and empties out. Underneath is a sense of fighting against everyone, of a world that runs counter to one's deepest convictions, until "why continue? it's too much" takes over, with a heavy powerlessness before an ideal that will not come. The short explanation's "excessive mental and/or emotional stress" is that depletion. Relief is described as releasing the unwinnable fight and the perfectionist demand, and restoring oneself rather than spending the last of one's energy.

Example from the findings: the exhaustion is read as giving up a draining struggle for an ideal one could not force into being.