Ask YC: Experiences with founder burnout?

One of the reasons I've started using this forum is because I'm burnt out. I've been in a product development startup in China for the past 10 months (as in the design and engineering of real, physical products to ship back to Canada/the US) and it's been the most exciting and learning-intensive time of my life, but I've hit a wall and now it looks like this means the end for all of us here. We were undertaking a pretty ambitious project (though we only learned of its true difficulty along-the-way), and it's still technically possible and definitely marketable -- but requires a lot more money and time than can be committed given my pretty-much-incapacitated state.

Burnout feels incredibly illogical, because you can't do what you tell yourself you want to do. You can have a conversation with someone and get right fired up about an idea in-the-moment, but when you try to execute, a blanket of fog comes over your brain and you sit there like a deer in headlights. You can hardly perform at the level of a 10-year-old, no matter how much you tell myself that you want to continue. You try to explain this state to someone else and you get a blank stare; how could you be so "disabled" when you still look reasonably healthy and vivid in conversation? It's tough for them to see this as anything other than a conscious choice, on your part, to quit. But, you know that you keep getting up and trying to hack away at things -- and you keep hitting the same wall. Thankfully, my partners and investor are being very understanding, and they are the ones with the most to lose.

This is really, really tough -- my amazing and talented staff, my dreams and plans, all the relationships we've built, my reputation -- all of it is now at the mercy of the buzzing of my neurons and the chemicals shooting through my veins, caused by the way I've handled myself over the past 10 months ("full steam ahead, I'm 24 and invincible!").

Has anyone here burnt out before, or seen it happen? Has YC learned of any warning signs?

I would guess that being a part of YC itself would help prevent this, because of the opportunity for social support -- it can be really tough not having friends who know what it's like to be where you are, doing what you are.

As for me, I am pretty confident that eventually I'll be able to put myself back together and start something new again -- but I won't be operating anywhere near 100% any time soon, even though I certainly can't sit still as there's still rent to pay and I'm dead broke from having no salary all year.