Also took a break from Medium a while back for similar reasons (except my thousands were $10s that suddenly turned to cents). Though I may not be making any more money than usual, I've changed the reason why I use Medium (a place to connect and write things that don't fit into my blog or freelancing, rather than just trying to make money) and it's made the experience all the more enjoyable. Jury is still out on whether or not I'll continue, but it's nice to have as the background.

I love that you mentioned the two sentence obsession - I thought I was the only one who hated it!