(Edit: I read everything yall had to say and this convo has been more helpful and uplifting than any other conversation I’ve had about this. Thanks guys🥹)

After a bad break up, I moved back into my mom’s at 36 to focus on myself and get my shit teogether. I take better care of myself, and it really shows. I've lost weight and gained muscle. My skin looks better, my clothes fits better. My overall appearance overall has improved.

Now I'm 37. I'm hot now, but I am still unemployed, and still living at my mom’s. I get more attention when I'm outside, but at this low point of my life, attention is the last thing i want. Women are stopping me on the street just to talk. I'll be at the store and when I randomly look up, people are staring at me. I feel like a unicorn walking around.

It came to a head the other day when I went to a friend's event with his coworkers. As I go pay for my drink ticket, his boss goes “[Your friend] said you were broke, but he didn't tell me you were pretty”.

I feel like shit man. I know my financial status doesn't define my worth as a person, but it doesn’t make me feel good. (Also my friend sucks, but that's not the focus here). I feel like I can't talk about all the weirdness I'm experiencing. My job situation is embarrassing, and talking about my glow up sounds like bragging.

I’m just in a weird space right, and it’d be nice to hear from other men about it.

I just got the official notice from my boss that I've been let go due to performance reasons. This wasn't a surprise to either of us at this point, as I'd been struggling to improve without sufficient improvement for a while up to this point. Can't really even blame my boss, as she really did try to gently help me get back on track over the last year. I think the likely culprit has been burnout all along -- I've been feeling like a fly stuck to fly paper for months at this point. Before getting fired I got some burnout leave started with my GP (it's not super hard to get medical leave for burnout here in Germany) but I initiated the process too late for it to make a difference for this job.

Luckily between my severance pay and eventually unemployment benefits, I'm not in any financial risk due to this change (advantages of moving to a country with a real social safety net). I can even get some free job training courses paid for by the state while I'm on unemployment. But between now and when that sort of thing starts, I'm wondering whether I should do something specific to help myself rest and recover from burnout. I'm planning on going back to therapy and talking to a professional about this, of course, but I'm curious whether anyone else here on Tildes has advice for how to recover from burnout other than just "take time off", since I've got that bit covered.