When You Stop Doing the Things That Saved You (and Forget Why You Started)

Earlier this year I was completely burnt out.

I was finishing a demanding study path, doing long days of repetitive work, juggling family stress and money stress… and I got to a point where I genuinely thought about checking myself into a hospital just to rest.

I was overeating, chain-smoking, exhausted, and my brain felt like it was wrapped in fog.

Then I stumbled on a Jordan B. Peterson interview.

He talked about his depression and how changing his diet helped clear things up. I recognised a lot of my own struggles in what he described and thought:

“I’ve tried everything else. I have nothing to lose.”

So I changed my diet.

Within about six weeks my head cleared. The fog lifted. I started to feel like myself again.

(Not medical advice, just my experience.)

From there I rebuilt my routines:

listening to long-form conversations & lectures (Peterson, psychology, philosophy)
going to church — not from pressure, but because it forced my restless brain to sit still and reflect
winter swimming to reset my nervous system
mobility / stability workouts to get the “feel good” chemicals without addictions

I’ve always been obsessed with human behaviour and psychology, so I turned that same curiosity onto myself:

What patterns am I stuck in?
What am I escaping from?
What actually keeps me stable?

And it worked… For a while.

How I Went Off the Rails

If you read my “Emotional Guardrails for Overthinkers” post, that was about one concrete moment where I let a story in my head blow up a good connection.

This post is about the slow road that led there.

Bit by bit, I stopped doing the things that were keeping me grounded.

Instead of:

podcasts & lectures during those “automatic” work hours
intentional reflection
my grounding routines

…I slipped into:

looping certain songs on repeat
daydreaming instead of thinking
using fantasy to escape a painful reality at home (lack of support, family stress, illness, grief)

My brain is very vivid and very fast.

When I feed it the wrong inputs and remove the stabilisers, it doesn’t just “relax”. It starts building stories.

Not just normal imagination – full alternative realities about:

who likes me,
what they “really” mean,
what’s secretly happening behind the scenes.

Combine that with no sleep, old trauma and stress… and it’s very easy to damage something real in your life because of a fantasy that only exists in your head.

That’s basically what happened.

The Hard Lesson

I realised:

It’s not enough to find routines that work.
You have to keep them, especially when life gets hard.
Dropping them because “I’m fine now” is just ego.

And another hard truth:

If your home base (marriage, kids, finances) is unstable,

you can’t use fantasy, online connections, or “the mission” as a shortcut.

First you fix:

yourself
your relationship with your family
the basics of your life

Then you try to fix the world or build big systems.

Right now, as I write this, I’m listening again to Jordan B. Peterson’s The Call to Abraham podcast on Spotify. It’s a good reminder that what matters most isn’t money or fame — it’s inner work, alignment, and responsibility.

If you want something deep but practical, the whole “Introduction to the Idea of God” (or ”Maps Of Meaning”) series is worth your time, whether you’re religious or not.

My Reset (v2)

I’m not perfect at any of this. I’m literally in the middle of learning it.

But I refuse to stay stuck in the same pattern.

So I’m going back to what worked: