What's blocking
your return?

I'm sure the others have given as much as me or more, so I have to give even more just to make sure it's fair.

If I'm not doing the most, I'm not doing enough.

Because I am the rock, the one who handles it all, who doesn't let it drop. I can't see myself stopping until I know it got done.

Stopping would mean becoming someone I don't recognize.

Because people need me, and knowing I've let them down is a worse feeling than the fatigue I carry right now.

Their disappointment is harder to live with than my own depletion.

Because I could feel how much others wanted me to keep going — even though they didn't say that, I could tell this is what they were expecting.

The pull to keep going wasn't really a choice — it felt like gravity.

Honestly, I'm not sure. I just put my head down, keep going, and stop when it's done. Then I'll either check out or collapse at home later.

I don't think about it much until I'm already empty.

Into accomplishing something. I have really high standards for myself, and it has to be done twice as good in half the time. I need to know I was successful.

There's always a bar, and I'm always measuring myself against it.

Into doing the job. My job, followed by their job, then maybe someone else's job. It needs to get done, and no one will do it the way I do anyway.

The work always gets first access to me.

I don't focus on my energy. I focus on how my partner, or coworker, or friend is doing. It matters more to me that they are doing okay.

I check on the relationship before I check on myself.

I don't know where my energy goes. It feels like it just seeps from my pores, and in its place I'll pick up on the energy of others around me.

I walk into a room and I'm already reading everyone in it.

I don't know where it goes. I don't even remember having it. I don't know why I feel this way.

It's less like giving and more like it was never there to begin with.

"You can't take a break yet. You haven't finished what you need to."

"What else would I do with my time if I wasn't working?"

"[Other person] is my priority right now. I'm focusing on them first."

"Ugh, I could cut the tension in that room with a knife. The vibes were all wrong."

"I'm so tired I don't even know where to begin, so I just check out."

Like I'm always behind. Like I can't ever get to the place where I need to be. I can't stop until I achieve the goal, but it feels like that never actually happens.

There's a finish line, and it keeps moving.

Like an engine that's run out of gas, but I'm going to drive on fumes anyway. I don't have the luxury of falling apart, so I just keep going.

I know I'm tired. I just don't know how to stop.

I care deeply about this person and how they are doing. I will give my last breath, if I need to, to make sure they're okay. I don't know what else I'd do if I wasn't caring for them.

My energy and their wellbeing are the same thing in my mind.

I take on the pain and struggle of my patients, one after the other. By the end of the day, it feels like I'm buried in cement.

I leave work carrying things I didn't arrive with.

Like I'm in a hole and it's dark, and maybe there's a glimpse of light — but it never quite comes into vision. So I focus my attention elsewhere.

It's easier to look away than to sit with it.

A few weeks — something shifted recently and I'm feeling the effects.

Several months — it's been building and I've been managing it.

A year or more — this is my baseline now and I barely remember anything different.

I honestly can't remember feeling any other way. This might just be who I am.