Burnout sucks.

It’s come and settled into my life twice. The first time I drifted away from volunteer work it was a gentle tide pulling me. The next time it was a tidal wave destroying everything – my relationships, my hard won sobriety, my identity.

In years of suicide prevention I’ve seen it take away many good people.

Hindsight shows how my denial played a big role.

My inner world and outer world drifted further apart while my awareness didn’t keep up. Once it finally did, breaking through that denial felt like tearing through the fabric of my identity.

It was violent and humbling.

I’ve heard messengers described as feathers.

Like gentle warning signs, the intensity of their consequences hardly shows in the message itself. A little twinge of pain, a pang of guilt or the soft burn of shame…

Ignored long enough, a feather becomes a tonne of bricks.

I haven’t burnt out in so long as I’m no longer deaf to what the feathers have to say.

About my roles, relationships and responsibilities. About what kind of consequences I’m heading for from day to day.

More importantly, I no longer kid myself that I’m immune. But I had to learn the hard way.

So… how are you?