This probably seems really stupid but I’m not sure what to do at this point. The entirety of my summer break has been spent working on personal projects, I was supposed to have a great time but instead I burned myself out on art, programming and more to the point I kinda dread those things I liked before. Now, I’m not a complete idiot, so I saw that I needed to cool it a bit with everything going on, and focus on myself for a little while.
It didn’t work though, because all the time I spent dedicated to myself instead of my personal projects was actually spent trying to relax while thinking of all the things I could be doing for instead, so I still feel tense after my supposed breaks.
I hope this doesn’t come across as pathetic…
You’ve already had several good suggestions here.
I learned that when rest no longer leads to recovery, that is burnout and maybe even depression. Pay attention to this feeling and take it seriously. Good luck.
If you’re thinking about what you could be doing, you might have some unhelpful conditioning related to “being productive” and other such myths of how to live “correctly”. You might be able to think your way out of that way of being and you might need to talk to someone to do this, such as a therapist.
If you’re worried about forgetting something that you need to do later or about some deadline sneaking up on you, then writing things down and setting reminders could help. I did a lot of this and it trained me to literally forget things that I didn’t yet need to start working on without risking missing deadlines. I found it very freeing. Something like that might help you.
I hope you find some peace from something in these replies.