u/Bhumika_1008_

When I first started in Big 4, I expected the hardest part to be the workload or the hours. And yeah, some weeks are rough. But honestly the thing that gets to me more now is feeling like my brain never fully switches off anymore.

Even after work I still feel mentally open somehow. I’ll sit down to relax and end up checking Teams again, opening Outlook without thinking, scrolling LinkedIn, checking random notifications, then suddenly I’m halfway back in work mode for no real reason.

The weird part is I’m not even always doing important things. It’s more like my attention got trained to constantly react to something.

During the day it already feels like nonstop switching. Calls, pings, review comments, random asks, fixing one thing before another message appears. By evening my head feels tired in a way that’s hard to explain because technically I’ve been sitting most of the day.

I noticed it started affecting smaller stuff too. Watching something without checking my phone every few minutes. Reading properly. Even conversations sometimes. My brain feels way less patient with slower things now.

Lately I’ve been trying to create a bit more separation after work instead of carrying the same reactive energy into the rest of the night. Nothing perfect honestly, still figuring it out.

If other people in Big 4 feel this too because I don’t think I understood how mentally “on” this kind of work keeps you until I was actually in it.

26f. Grew up coastal New England. Dressed preppy my entire life it was context-appropriate, what I understood, what I liked.

Six months in Georgia. Same clothes. Completely different reception.

I'm not being poorly received exactly. People are friendly. But the specific flavour of what I wear doesn't land the same way. In Connecticut a Barbour jacket and corduroys on a Tuesday is completely unremarkable. Here it reads as something  try-hard, or confused, or from somewhere else. Which I am, but I don't want to look it.

Southern preppy is a genuinely different thing. Brighter colours. More pattern. Different silhouettes. More pearl. I'm not fluent in it and it doesn't feel like mine, but the New England version isn't quite working here either.

For anyone who's navigated a regional preppy translation: what shifted, what stayed, what was worth holding onto?

For a while I kept thinking something was wrong with me because I couldn’t get myself to care about things the same way anymore. Stuff I normally liked doing felt heavier to start and I’d keep putting things off even when I knew they mattered.

I went through all the usual explanations in my head. Maybe I’m burned out. Maybe I’ve become lazy. Maybe my attention span is fried now and this is just normal.

What I didn’t really notice was how noisy my days had become.

I’d pick up my phone while deciding what to do next, fill every small break with scrolling, keep videos or music running in the background constantly. None of it felt serious enough to blame anything on. It just felt normal.

But after a while I started noticing this weird feeling whenever I sat down to actually focus on something. My brain already felt tired before I even began. Like I’d spent the whole day switching between things without realizing it.

So instead of trying to “fix motivation,” I just started cutting down some of the noise.

Not in some perfect detox way either. I just stopped reaching for my phone every single time there was a quiet moment. Tried sitting through boredom a bit longer instead of immediately escaping it.

At first it honestly felt uncomfortable. Kind of boring too. I kept wanting to grab my phone without even thinking.

But after some time things started feeling lighter again. Starting tasks didn’t feel like dragging myself uphill every time.

Looking back, I don’t think motivation disappeared. I think my brain was just overloaded all the time and I got so used to it that I stopped noticing it.

Edit/Update: Thankyou for all the replies and advices. One thing a bunch of people said that actually helped was to stop aiming for a full life reset and just do one small win early in the day. I also tried blocking real time slots on Google Calendar instead of guessing my day**.** I started using Jolt screen time and tried opening YouTube in the middle of work and the screen just STOPS me with a “You sure about this?” message. I swear I sat there for like 5 seconds having a mini life review about why I even picked up my phone. Then I checked the weekly usage stats and honestly I almost wanted to throw my phone across the room.

For a while I kept thinking something was wrong with me because I couldn’t get myself to care about things the same way anymore. Stuff I normally liked doing felt heavier to start and I’d keep putting things off even when I knew they mattered.

I went through all the usual explanations in my head. Maybe I’m burned out. Maybe I’ve become lazy. Maybe my attention span is fried now and this is just normal.

What I didn’t really notice was how noisy my days had become.

I’d pick up my phone while deciding what to do next, fill every small break with scrolling, keep videos or music running in the background constantly. None of it felt serious enough to blame anything on. It just felt normal.

But after a while I started noticing this weird feeling whenever I sat down to actually focus on something. My brain already felt tired before I even began. Like I’d spent the whole day switching between things without realizing it.

So instead of trying to “fix motivation,” I just started cutting down some of the noise.

Not in some perfect detox way either. I just stopped reaching for my phone every single time there was a quiet moment. Tried sitting through boredom a bit longer instead of immediately escaping it.

At first it honestly felt uncomfortable. Kind of boring too. I kept wanting to grab my phone without even thinking.

But after some time things started feeling lighter again. Starting tasks didn’t feel like dragging myself uphill every time.

Looking back, I don’t think motivation disappeared. I think my brain was just overloaded all the time and I got so used to it that I stopped noticing it.

Was punk/alt all through my 20s. Doc Martens, ripped everything, colored hair. it was my IDENTITY.

Now I'm 37, corporate job, mortgage, PTA meetings. but dressing "normal" makes me want to cry.