It sounds like you need more moderators. Think about it.

Hugs. Try to be gentle with yourself. <3

It's great that you've recognised the burnout and are taking steps to look after yourself. You've done a great job on here, as can be seen by the community that's sprung up here.

Take all the time you need

Thanks for the transparency. You're a great admin!

Well from the first day I joined it's been evident how much work you do.

Do whatever you need to do, you're much appreciated here. :)

alyaza (not tagging with the @ symbol as I don't want this to just become another notification in your inbox pestering you), you have been a true delight thus far in my time interacting with you. Spend as much time away as you need. This instance has a truly excellent administration team, and will be able to take care of beehaw.org for as long as you need to be away. If they can't, I'm sure there will be people willing to respond to a call to action for more people. Beehaw.org will be okay without you. And don't try to rush yourself back just because you feel like a couple of weeks should be enough time. I know what it feels like to think you should be able to expect yourself in some specified time window to come back and then when you do you realize it wasn't enough time. Instead of timeboxing your recovery time, I recommend picking some project that you really want to focus on and returning once that's done. Maybe it's drawing something, perhaps it's writing a short story, possibly it's hiking one of the triple crown trails in the United States. But let yourself focus on that thing and see how you feel after that project is done.

Anyway.

The point is.

Be good to yourself. Treat yourself with the same empathy you extend to others. You are valuable and worthy of love.

You've done awesome with this instance. It's great to hear you're taking a break and paying attention to burnout - it's not all on you, so take the time you need to center yourself and get your mojo back. We'll be waiting, but not in the creepy or stressful way hopefully ^^

Please take care of yourself. We seriously appreciate you and everything you've done, same goes for all other staff. This past week has immensely stressful across the lemmyverse and no one blames you at all for needing to tap out from all this. A lot of people are expecting lemmy and lemmy instances to be like reddit 2.0, but that's just not humanly possible. It also feels like lemmy as a software has had it personally out for beehaw... kind of like a murphy's law situation.

I've not been here long, but your comments have always been a joy to read. I'm a software engineer myself so I understand the burnout of having to manage all the things all the time. I'm thankful for all that you've done for the community, and hope you can come back and enjoy it once again whenever you're ready.

Mental health is extremely important and often overlooked.

Thank you for everything you've done to date.

Take your time and we'll all be here when you're ready ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜

Take time for yourself! You guys deserve it. You've had a lot on your plate that you didn't expect.

I commented on your chat thread the other day about getting over burnout myself, so I entirely get how quickly things add up and what that can do to you in addition to the context of daily life that keeps happening as well. You absolutely deserve a break and to just enjoy this thing that you have made massive contributions to on only your own terms for as long as you need. You are a huge part of why I am so enthusiastic about this instance because I identify with your passion for this project. I know how it can look when literally all you are interacting with on a daily basis are the problems (because that's my job in my career as well), but please know that from the user side this is an incredibly well run and respectful space. Your efforts in setting the tone at critical times is a big part of what we can enjoy now. You have accomplished major and important things here already, and you deserve all the time you need for yourself.

Internet hugs to you. Thank you for your work. Take all the time you need, and then some.🐝❤

Hey take however much time you need, relax properly and remember that your hard work has not gone unnoticed. You are probably one of the best admins i have seen on social media, ever. You are amazing and deserve some rest!

Gotta take care of yourself first, nobody is going to begrudge you of that. I know exactly how you feel, I've been through the same thing before ... like they say, don't light yourself on fire to keep others warm.

You've got a good group of volunteers, they're taking care of things, don't come back until you feel completely ready!

Will you make me an admin? I have several qualifications such as open PMs and being the first person to reply here.

Given the recent events as well as the general surge of new users joining Beehaw and the wider lemmyverse in general...I don't blame you.

Take as much time as you need to take care of yourself and recharge yourself. Self-care is important.

We need to pay our mods! I saw you all make a significant amount per month as an instance from donations, let’s make it go up! maybe you should put a $1/month minimum on the instance for users? This is what will make lemmy better than reddit for sure.

I've been in that exact same spot, running a community and experiencing that kind of burnout. Where something you enjoyed managing just felt draining and like work, when talking about it was a dreaded thing.

And really, taking a break is a good thing. Don't actively push yourself if you don't enjoy it right now, it will only hurt you in the long run. But I will say this, I realized all too quickly that when my motivation came back after my breaks, the burst of energy was short-lived before I was reminded why I burned out in the first place. After 2-3 times of that cycle repeating, the burst of energy never came again.

To give a piece of unwanted advice, I think you guys might be stretching yourselves too thin. You've got a considerably sized site at this point, and not many hands to run it. I can't speak for exactly what sort of help would alleviate it for you, maybe creating a barrier of a few community-level mods to help take on some of the bulk to leave the site admins with the sitewide issues. Maybe you could even look into getting another admin or two, if most of the issues are site-wide.

But I believe I can say without a doubt that the circumstances around the burnout will probably need to change before the joy of it is gone altogether.

I wish you guys the best.