The Cost of Being Easy to Love
“The mask I wore was the one they loved. So I kept it on, until I couldn’t breathe.” — Unknown
I didn’t notice it was happening.
I still made coffee.
Still laughed at jokes I didn’t understand.
Still folded clothes I no longer wanted to wear.
Somewhere between saying
“I’m just tired”
and “I don’t want to talk about it,”
I stopped recognizing my own tone.
I kept showing up.
To work.
To birthdays.
To the role of myself.
Even my loneliness started using manners.
It smiled at company.
It asked how they were.
It never interrupted.
No one noticed when I slipped out the side door.
Not even me.
“Some burnouts don’t feel like fire. They feel like the slow leak of identity through polite smiles and unmet needs.”
Some burnouts don’t announce themselves. They don’t arrive with sirens or smoke. They move in quietly, one boundary dropped, one need unmet, one “I’m okay” too many. You keep functioning, which makes it easier to miss. You keep being agreeable, which makes it easier to dismiss.
Emotional disappearance often looks like good behavior. You become low-maintenance. Accommodating. Predictable. People appreciate your lightness without realizing it’s hollowed out from years of compression. You teach yourself not to be a burden and then forget that you were ever allowed to take up space.
The burnout doesn’t always feel like collapse. Sometimes it’s the absence of hunger. The absence of voice. The absence of refusal. You don’t rage. You don’t rest. You smile because it takes less explanation than honesty. And over time, the smile starts answering for you.
Recovery doesn’t begin with recharging. It begins with reentering. With telling the truth without apologizing for it. With making noise again. Not because it’s dramatic, but because it’s yours. Because somewhere in the silence, a version of you got tired of being good at vanishing.
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