I had to stage an intervention for myself: a burnout recovery story

Back in April, I was having a really hard time.

I've been dealing with anxiety for most of my adult life - it's a fairly standard part of my life experience. Sometimes it's irritating, sometimes it's just a whisper and sometimes it's really debilitating.

The last four months had been particularly intense. The kind of anxiety where it feels like you're constantly about to jump out of a plane.

Headaches. Bad sleep. Heart palpitations. Feeling ridiculously overwhelmed by the simplest of things. Having to stop doing things I wanted to do because my body just said no.

I'd also been noticing something underneath the anxiety. A low hum of 'what's the f**king point, nothing ever helps'. A sniff of depression.

And not to sound dramatic (!!) but an exhaustion to the very depths of my soul, that no amount of sleep could shift.

Burnt out, to a crisp

Part of it was work. Part of it was everything else. Running your own business. Parenting. Navigating the world with an ADHD brain. Keeping a house tidy and clean (that seems to immediately become messy and dirty). A daughter, 4 dogs, a cat and a snake.

Trying to keep on top of the constant, relentless labour of just keeping a life going, all whilst carrying the additional loads that are neurodivergence, mental illness and chronic physical pain.

One evening, nothing dramatic happened. I just hit a wall. I could NOT carry on doing whatever it is I was doing. I said to my husband how much I was struggling. And then I went to bed, because I had nothing else to give.

The next morning I woke up with a little bit of fire in my belly. I felt determined.

I needed a proper break. Not a day off. Not a quieter week. Something drastic. A real circuit breaker to try and interrupt the pattern I was experiencing.

I booked a trip to Lagos, in the Algarve

Ideally I needed a month away from everything. But let's be realistic... maybe a few days would help. My lovely husband encouraged me, so I checked my calendar, found a window the following weekend, and just did it.

I booked a trip to Lagos in the Algarve.

There was guilt, of course. There's always guilt. Spending money. Leaving my daughter. Going alone. The standard operating system of a woman and a mother who has been taught by society that their own needs come last.

I went anyway. Guilt be damned.

I spent a lot of time wandering around the old town. Floating in the pool. I went on a dolphin watching boat trip, sat in the square with a mocktail and listened to live music, got a massage, went to bed early and re-watched Supernatural on my phone. I walked along the coastline and napped on the beach. I sat on my roof terrace and stared at the view. I did whatever I wanted to do when I wanted to do it.

And at one point, I watched a kite in the sky for about an hour. Just watched it. No phone. No work. No parenting. Just me and an orange kite. No lie, I was gutted when they pulled in that kite - I was having a lovely time just watching it and zoning out.

What I learned by doing nothing

It wasn't a magic fix. I didn't come back a new zen woman. But it gave me distance. It gave my nervous system a few days to start recovering. It gave me space to think about what I need and what I don't in my day to day life.

And it reminded me that I am allowed to take a break. To prioritise myself. To give myself space.

It's easy to say that taking a break meant I could come back and work better, be a better mother, a better wife, blah blah blah. But you don't have to do these things to be a better anything for someone else. You can do them just to feel better for yourself.

So if you are second guessing taking a break, or putting a boundary in place, or just giving yourself some compassion.

Push through the guilt and go for it.