You Call It Burnout, I Call It Character Development

The Slow Burn I Didn’t See Coming

It didn’t hit me all at once. Burnout crept in like a dodgy flatmate who never pays rent on time, steals your wifi, and slowly eats all your snacks. I told myself I was just tired, just needed to fix my routine, maybe drink less wine and more green tea. But no amount of hydration could fix the chaos brewing in my brain. I wasn’t just tired. I was fried. Scrambled. Served with a side of identity crisis.

For three years, I had kept going like I had something to prove. After leaving my ex-husband behind in Scotland, I jumped straight into survival mode. No rest, no pause, just go. Divorce? Check. Rebuild life? Check. Job after job after job with zero stability? Triple check. Then my dad died in June 2024, and everything inside me just snapped. It felt like the universe kept pressing “shuffle” on the grief playlist.

By December, I was one big eye twitch away from spontaneously combusting. I wasn’t just burnt out. I was crispy. Everything made me cry, and I hadn’t even hit perimenopause yet. I couldn’t focus, I couldn’t rest, and my brain had developed the processing power of a dial-up modem. Every day felt like performing in a play I no longer had the script for.

The Meltdown You Didn’t See Coming

One morning, I woke up and my first thought was: nope. Not today, Satan. Not because I didn’t care, but because everything, my limbs, my brain, my hope, felt impossibly heavy. My thoughts were already doing laps before I even sat up. The soundtrack of my mind was a chaotic medley of “I can’t do this” and “why am I like this.”

Emails? Ghosted. Messages? Ignored. Friends? Avoided. Food? Forgotten. Sleep? Who’s she? My entire system had hit CTRL+ALT+DELETE and refused to reboot. And yet, I still showed up. I smiled, and I nodded. I got things done while internally screaming into the void. No one knew I was falling apart, which somehow made it even worse.

I felt like a weird little alien trapped in a human suit. There was no spark, no sense of self, just this shell of a person who vaguely remembered joy but couldn’t find the way back. I needed more than a nap. I needed a full soul renovation.

Rest Isn’t a Reward, It’s a Rebellion

I used to think rest meant a sheet mask and a couch session with a Savvy B. Cute, right? But when burnout hit, I realised rest wasn’t about sleep or skincare. It was about stopping. Completely. No pretending. No people-pleasing. Just… stop.

I started small. I deleted the blog drafts that bored me to tears, I roamed the streets like a woman on the verge of a very chic breakdown, hair unbrushed and slightly bewildered. And of course, I drank tea and stared out the window like some emotionally unhinged Jane Austen character waiting for a telegram that never came. At first, I felt like I was breaking some cosmic rule. Then I realised I was just finally listening to myself.

I started choosing softness. I cried when I needed to. Said no without an essay. Let my nervous system finally exhale. I did therapy. Slowly, I felt little glimmers return. Laughter. Presence. The ability to feel something other than “make it stop.”

Rebuilding With Crumbs and Tea

There was no grand awakening. No makeover montage. Just tiny, clumsy steps towards feeling like me again. I apologised to my ex-boyfriend-turned-bestie for being a chaos goblin. Then, I ate some vegetables, wrote down some things that mattered. I slept. I cooked. And I moved like a person who was allowed to go slow.

Most of all, I gave myself permission to take my time. I stopped expecting to bounce back. Some days were still rough. Some mornings I still thought, “ah shit, not this again.” But I let those feelings be what they were instead of shoving them in a drawer labelled “later.”

And somewhere in that soft mess, I found myself again. Not the hyper-productive, always-smiling version. The real one. The one who knows her worth isn’t based on her to-do list. The one who fell apart and got up differently. Softer. Braver. Slightly more chaotic, but deeply whole. I’m no longer crispy. I’m golden-brown, flaky in places, slightly buttery but still warm

Rest isn’t lazy, it’s the only reason I haven’t spontaneously combusted.

The Slightly Unhinged Final Thoughts

If you’re feeling like you’ve lost the plot, you probably have. And that’s okay. You don’t have to keep pushing just because you’re scared to stop. The world doesn’t need you at 100%. It needs you real, it needs you hydrated. And, it needs you in bed at 8pm with Cheezels and boundaries.

Rest isn’t selfish. It’s survival. And it’s your birthright, not something you earn after a breakdown. Burnout doesn’t mean you’ve failed. It means your body and spirit are begging for a reset.

So let yourself stop. Cry in the shower. Walk barefoot on the grass. Cancel the plans. Be a bit unhinged if that’s what healing looks like right now. You’re allowed to fall apart. Just don’t forget you’re also allowed to rebuild.

If this sounded like a page from your diary, I’d love to hear your story too. Or maybe just take a moment today to ask your nervous system what it needs. A nap? A scream into a pillow? A jaffle? Honour it. You deserve to feel like you again. Even if the journey back is weird, wobbly, and involves an embarrassing number of matcha lattes.

You Are Not Entitled to an Answer – Chaos, Crumbs and Clarity

In this episode of Chaos, Crumbs and Clarity, we're unpacking why you are not entitled to an answer. Specifically, we're talking about the strange little corner of modern dating where a few days of app chat somehow becomes an emotional contract, and suddenly a man you've never met believes your silence requires a formal explanation, a debrief, and possibly a follow-up meeting with management.I have two stories for you. One man who talked almost exclusively about himself, ignored the fact that I was sick, and then followed up a week later asking whether I'd reconsidered his "request for clarification". And another who became offended because I didn't respond to his selfie within two hours while I was lying in a dark room with a migraine. Sir. Please be serious.Because here's the thing. Before you've met someone, you do not owe them unlimited access to your time, attention, reassurance, or emotional labour. You don't have to justify why the vibes changed. You don't need a reason they'll consider reasonable. You are allowed to disengage because something felt off, because you changed your mind, because you met someone else, or because you're in your luteal phase and frankly the entire world can wait.Today we're talking about the difference between ghosting and simply disengaging, why demanding closure can become a boundary violation, the exhausting expectation that women should manage men's feelings for them, and why you do not need to JADE, justify, argue, defend, or explain, when you've already decided you're done. Let's get into it.Key Takeaways:A few days of chatting does not create a debt. Matching on an app, exchanging messages, or talking on the phone does not give someone a claim on your attention. Until you've actually built a connection, you are allowed to walk away without submitting supporting documentation.Closure is not something another person can demand from you. Asking once is one thing. Continuing to push after someone has clearly disengaged is not persistence or emotional maturity. It's refusing to accept the answer you've already been given.You do not need to JADE. You don't have to justify, argue, defend, or explain why you're no longer interested. The reason doesn't have to be good enough for him. It just has to be yours.Pre-date silence and post-date silence are not the same thing. If you've never met, disengaging is part of app dating. Once you've shared an actual date or developed a genuine connection, a simple goodbye becomes basic courtesy. Nobody needs a dissertation, but acknowledging another human being matters.Sometimes they don't miss you. They miss the audience. Someone can seem interested while actually being interested in having your attention. Real connection requires curiosity about you. If the only time they become deeply engaged is when you're leaving, pay attention to that.For more visit ⁠BryJaimea.com⁠ or follow over on IG ⁠@BryJaimea

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