Her Travel Memories

What Burnout Feels Like in Your Body Before You Have a Name For It

If you’re trying to understand what burnout feels like from the inside — not the clinical definition, but the lived experience — this is that.
What it actually felt like, the building up.

For me, burnout didn’t come all at once.
It was quiet. Subtle. Easy to dismiss.

I was tired — but that was normal.
Stressed — also normal.
Overworked — expected, even.

So I didn’t question it.

Mornings became harder.
My alarm would go off, and I’d feel like I hadn’t slept at all.
I would just lie there, staring at nothing, trying to gather enough energy to move.
Trying to gather my blank and exhausted mind into cooperating one more day.

It started like that.

I think it really began around March 2024.
Right in the middle of peak season.

We were supposed to be a team of four.
We were two.
And then my colleague got sick.
So I was left alone.

Like I said in the previous article – I wasn’t just doing the work anymore — I was responsible for everything.
The deadlines.
The analysis.
The organization.
The client.
All of it.

In practice, it meant spending my days at the client’s office, going through an entire year of financial records alone — trying to make sense of everything, trying not to fall behind, trying to act like everything was under control.
Even when it wasn’t.

There’s something strange that happens when you start burning out.
You don’t stop.

Even when it becomes too much, you just… adapt.

So I worked during the days.
And then I worked at nights too.
Trying to catch up. Trying to keep things from slipping.

Sometimes, I would just stare at my screen, completely blank, unable to remember what I was doing or where I was supposed to start.

I did speak up.
I said we were behind.
I said the workload was too much.
I said we wouldn’t meet the deadlines.
Going from a team of 4, to a team of 1,5 (my colleague was sick half the job), it was expected. At least I thought so.
And I remember being told:

“One Liz is worth two of your former colleagues.”

Meaning I had to make it happen.
I didn’t know what to do with that.
So I kept going.

That’s when the physical signs started showing up.
Migraines.
A constant heaviness in my chest.
A knot between my shoulder and my neck.
That anxiety spike every time I heard a Teams notification.

Sometimes, I would just start crying at my desk — for no clear reason.
And still, I told myself:

It’s just a phase.
It will pass.
I just need to push a little longer

I really believed that.
I thought it was just one bad season.
That things would go back to normal after.

I was wrong.