u/Weasel_Town

If you use the name of a serious or chronic condition to describe being briefly out of sorts, you make it harder for people experiencing the genuine article to communicate about it or be taken seriously. Certain conditions seem to be especially prone to this exaggeration.

1. Heatstroke. Real heatstroke is a life-threatening emergency where a person's body temperature goes over 40C/104F. If you got a little loopy from the heat, but then you sat in the shade and had a cool drink and felt fine again, that was not heatstroke. Nobody says they had hypothermia when they actually just had goose bumps, but for some reason they love to claim they had heatstroke.
2. Burnout. Burnout is a chronic and serious mental health condition. It can derail careers and cause heart attacks. It's commonly seen in people with all-consuming careers and people with heavy caregiving responsibilities. You are not "burned out" after 20 minutes on the treadmill at the gym. Bored, maybe. Physically fatigued, possibly. But not burned out.
3. Gaslighting. Gaslighting is a form of psychological control where the perpetrator causes their victim to doubt their memory or sanity. If someone declines your party invitation because they "have plans", but actually they didn't have plans, that's a white lie, not gaslighting. Nor can you "gaslight yourself", outside of a Memento type situation.

Words mean things! Let's use the right words for the right things!

I have been on the wait list since January, and I finally got to borrow it. I actually own the physical book, but I know I’ll never get through it without the help of an audiobook. I’m not sure who all the other people are who want a giant book about oil, but they are legion. I’ll let you all know how it goes!