I thought I was just tired. I had been tired before and pushed through. This didn't feel categorically different until my body made it categorically different.
February: I woke up one morning and could not make myself get out of bed to go to work. Not because I was sad. Not because anything specific had happened. I simply could not. I lay there for two hours and eventually called in sick for the first time in four years.
Looking back, the signs had been building for months. I had stopped caring about the quality of my work, which was never like me. I had become cynical about everything — colleagues, meetings, the company's stated values. I was irritable in ways I couldn't explain to my family. My body ached constantly with no physical cause.
I took two weeks off. It was not enough. I am now in therapy and taking a more serious restructure of how I work.
The thing about burnout is that it convinces you you're lazy or weak, when actually you ran something that should have had a limit too far past its limit. If you are reading this and recognising yourself — please take it seriously. Your body is telling you something your brain is too exhausted to hear.