The People Who Look Fine

When functioning looks like wellness, it can be easy to miss how much you're actually carrying.

Sometimes the people carrying the most are the ones who have become exceptionally good at carrying it.

Some of the people who are struggling the most are remarkably good at looking fine.

They go to work.

They answer emails.

They solve problems.

They remember birthdays. They show up for other people. They laugh. They make plans. They meet deadlines. If you ask them how they're doing, they'll probably tell you they're fine.

I know because I was one of them.

And here's the part I don't think we talk about enough:

I wasn't pretending to be okay.

I thought I was okay.

I Thought Functioning Meant I Was Fine

There was a period of my life when I worked constantly.

I had a commute into New York City that took roughly four hours out of every day. I would get up around four in the morning so I could get into the office. I'd work all day, commute home, eat dinner late, work some more, sleep very little, wake up and do it again.

My phone was practically another body part.

Eventually, I became so aware of how much anxiety that phone created that there were times I deliberately left it at work.

And still, I kept going.

That's the thing about high-functioning burnout that can be so difficult to recognize. You may still be doing everything you're supposed to do. Your calendar is moving. The bills are getting paid. People are getting answers from you.

Your life still looks operational.

But functioning and being well are not the same thing.

I know that now.

I didn't know it then.

My Life Became a List of Things I Had to Do

I was depressed. I was exhausted. Mostly, though, I was numb.

Work became a distraction, even though work was also one of the things causing me tremendous stress.

I remember walking toward my job and feeling the anxiety increase. When I left, some of that anxiety would begin to ease.

But I would go back the next morning.

Because that's what you do, right?

You get up.

You go to work.

You handle your responsibilities.

You power through.

Except somewhere along the way, I stopped doing the things that didn't have to be done.

I stopped taking my Sunday drives.

I stopped going places just because I wanted to go.

I stopped doing things that were simply for me.

There wasn't some dramatic moment when I announced, "I no longer enjoy my life."

Those pieces just quietly disappeared.

And I think that's worth paying attention to.

Sometimes we look for the big breakdown as evidence that something is wrong. We imagine that if we're truly overwhelmed, we'll stop functioning.

Sometimes we don't.

Sometimes the first things to disappear are the things nobody is expecting from us.

Joy.

Curiosity.

Rest.

A drive with nowhere in particular to go.

The parts of ourselves that don't produce anything.

Then Someone Really Looked at Me

Around this time, I started seeing a new therapist.

Years later, the way she described the woman who first walked into her office has stayed with me.

My skin looked gray. My eyes were sunken. My spirit seemed gone.

She could see something I hadn't been able to see because I was living inside of it.

I looked like the soul had left my body.

And somehow, I was still going to work.

Still doing my job.

Still handling things.

That was probably the beginning of my understanding that something was genuinely wrong.

My body had been trying to tell me for a while.

I was tired constantly. Not I could use a vacation tired. I mean the kind of tired that settles into your bones. There was a general malaise I couldn't really explain. I knew something wasn't right, but every symptom seemed like its own individual problem.

And I had doctors looking at those individual problems.

My Body Was Telling a Story I Hadn't Put Together Yet

One doctor was watching one thing. Another doctor was watching something else.

My white blood cell count remained elevated enough that I was repeatedly having blood drawn and there was discussion of additional testing if it continued. There were abnormal cervical cells that needed medical attention. Bloodwork raised autoimmune concerns, although I wasn't diagnosed with lupus. There were metabolic concerns. Nutritional deficiencies. Heart concerns. I was dealing with PCOS. I was eventually diagnosed with PTSD.

I was seeing good doctors.

The problem wasn't that nobody was paying attention.

The problem was that, initially, everyone had a piece.

It took time before the larger picture of what was happening in my life and body began to emerge.

An integrative medicine doctor eventually did extensive bloodwork. My medical team began putting more of the pieces together.

And eventually I was sat down and confronted with a choice that, in my memory, was essentially this:

You can keep saying you work for this wonderful company, or you can be alive.

There are sentences you hear and forget five minutes later.

And then there are sentences that divide your life into before and after.

Two days later, I applied for short-term disability.

I stayed out of work for approximately a year.

What Happened When I Stopped

Sometimes the first things we lose are the things that existed only because they brought us joy.

Within a few months, I began noticing changes.

The ashen, yellow-brown color I had gotten used to seeing in my skin began disappearing. My normal undertones started coming back.

I lost approximately 40 pounds.

I started feeling better.

I started looking more like myself.

And then something happened that, even now, feels almost absurdly perfect for this story.

At around the same time all of this was happening, I had been applying for life insurance.

My application was denied.

One of the concerns was that I had lost so much weight so quickly and there wasn't a clear explanation for the change. And understandably, unexplained rapid weight loss can raise medical concerns.

But I remember the irony of it.

When I was waking up at four in the morning, barely sleeping, commuting for hours, working constantly, living with anxiety, and watching the parts of myself that existed purely for joy quietly disappear...

I looked functional.

Then I stopped.

I rested.

My body changed.

I began feeling more like myself.

And that was the moment that looked alarming on paper.

It taught me something I wouldn't have had the words for then.

Looking well and being well are not always the same thing.

What Does High-Functioning Burnout Look Like?

I hesitate sometimes when we put neat labels on messy human experiences.

But I understand why people search for things like signs of high-functioning burnout or ask, Can I be burned out if I'm still functioning?

Because sometimes you need language before you can recognize yourself.

For me, it didn't look like lying in bed unable to move.

It looked like getting up at four in the morning.

It looked like answering the phone.

It looked like solving the next problem.

It looked like being dependable.

It looked like being tired all the time and treating exhaustion as the admission price for being successful.

It looked like slowly eliminating everything from my life that wasn't necessary.

And it looked like telling myself I was handling everything because technically, I was.

Until I wasn't.

That doesn't mean every exhausted person has the same experience I did, and physical symptoms deserve appropriate medical care rather than being automatically attributed to stress or burnout.

My story is simply my story.

But I tell it because I wonder how many people are waiting for some unmistakable collapse before they'll give themselves permission to acknowledge that they're not okay.

You Don't Have to Fall Apart to Need Rest

Rest doesn't have to be earned by reaching the point of collapse.

Maybe you are the person everybody depends on.

Maybe you're excellent at your job.

Maybe your children are taken care of, your meetings are attended, your inbox is answered, and nobody looking at you would think anything is wrong.

Maybe you're grieving.

Maybe you're caregiving.

Maybe you're heartbroken.

Maybe you're overwhelmed.

Maybe you've been carrying anxiety for so long that you no longer remember what your body feels like without it.

Or maybe you can't even point to one particular thing.

You're just tired.

And because you're still getting everything done, you keep telling yourself you're fine.

I understand that.

But I want you to know something I had to learn the hard way:

Your ability to carry something does not tell you how heavy it is.

And being able to function while carrying too much doesn't mean carrying too much isn't affecting you.

Sometimes our bodies whisper.

Sometimes our lives get smaller.

Sometimes the Sunday drives disappear.

And sometimes we become so accustomed to surviving that survival starts looking like wellness.

Pay Attention to What Has Quietly Disappeared

I think about those Sunday drives more than you might expect.

Of everything happening to me medically and emotionally during that period, why remember something so small?

Because they were mine.

Nobody paid me to take them.

Nobody needed anything from me while I was driving.

There was no deliverable at the end.

I went because I enjoyed going.

And somewhere along the way, I became too tired even for that.

So maybe that's one of the questions we should ask ourselves occasionally.

Not simply:

Am I getting everything done?

But:

What has quietly disappeared from my life while I've been busy getting everything done?

When did you stop reading?

When did you stop calling that friend?

When did you stop cooking because you enjoyed it?

When did you stop sitting outside?

When did music become background noise instead of something you actually heard?

When did every moment of your life begin to require a purpose?

I don't think wellness is about constructing a perfectly balanced life. I certainly haven't figured that out.

I still know how to work too much.

I still know how to power through.

I still know how easy it is to confuse being capable with being okay.

The difference is that now I know they're not the same thing.

And I'm learning to listen sooner.

Maybe you can, too.

Not because something terrible is definitely going to happen if you don't.

Not because you need another person telling you what you should be doing.

But because you are allowed to have a life that contains more than the things you manage to survive.

You are allowed to notice that you're tired before you collapse.

You are allowed to ask for help while you're still functioning.

You are allowed to rest before your body demands it.

And you are allowed to bring back the things that belong only to you.

Even something as simple as a Sunday drive.

Because sometimes being a light in the chaos doesn't mean pushing harder through the darkness.

Sometimes it means finally noticing how long you've been walking without rest.