Burnout, Grief and the Darkness That Stays

There are days when the grief comes back. Not because you have gone backwards. Not because you have not done the work. But because you are human, and loss does not follow a timeline, and some days — a full moon, a solar eclipse, a Tuesday that smells like something you have lost — the weight of everything you are carrying makes itself known again.

Today is one of those days for me. And I am writing this anyway, because I think there is someone reading this who needs to know they are not alone in it.

What Burnout Actually Feels Like

Burnout is not just tiredness. It is exhaustion that lives in your bones. It is panic that arrives without warning. It is bouts of darkness where you genuinely cannot see any light or feel any happiness — where you know intellectually that things will be okay and yet your body refuses to believe it. The panic I felt during the worst of it was an electric energy surging through my body that wouldn't let me sit still, my mind racing with manic thoughts, negative chatter I couldn't turn off. It is the kind of darkness that makes you understand, more than I ever wanted to, why people reach for something — anything — to make it stop.

The Grief Underneath the Burnout

For me, burnout and grief are inseparable. The exhaustion I carry is not just from working hard or doing too much. It is the accumulated weight of loving people and animals and versions of my life that are no longer here.

It is the sadness for love that I no longer have in the forms it used to take. The love of a mother. The love of a dog who was my baby and my reason to get up every single day. The love of a relationship and a family unit — a person who would ask how my day was, who would hold me when I was tired, who would celebrate with me when something good happened.

There is nobody to ask how my day was now. There is nobody to hug me when the weight gets too heavy. It is just me. And some days that is genuinely okay. And some days it is the loneliest feeling in the world.

That is the grief that stays. Not the acute, howling grief of fresh loss — though I have known that too. The quiet, chronic grief of a life that looks different to the one you thought you were building. The grief of absence. Of silence where there used to be sound. Of space where there used to be someone.

The Manic Walking

When my relationship ended — ended with betrayal, ended in a way that dismantled everything I thought I knew — and Harry died within the same chapter of time, I walked. For hours. To the point of exhaustion. I was manic with it. I could not stop.

That walking was not exercise. It was survival. My body finding the only way it knew to metabolise something too enormous to sit still with. It kept me in my body and in the world when part of me wanted to disappear from both. Sometimes survival does not look graceful. Sometimes it just looks like keep moving. One foot in front of the other until the ground feels a little more solid.

On Self Medicating

I am not going to tell you not to do it. I think that would be dishonest and you deserve honesty more than a lecture. When the darkness is that consuming, reaching for something that makes it stop — even temporarily — is a very human response. I have done it. Most people who have been through real darkness have done it.

What I will say is this: it helps in the short term. And in the long term it is detrimental — because it keeps the grief in suspension rather than letting it move through you. Grief that cannot move through you stays. It settles into your body as anxiety, as burnout, as the darkness that never quite lifts. The only way out of grief is through it. The numbing just delays the through.

How I Move Through It Now

Here is what actually works for me — not as a prescription, but as an offering. Take what is useful and leave what isn't.

Music is my most powerful tool. Not as background noise — as medicine. I choose it deliberately for what I need. It bypasses the analytical mind, which for me — all air sign, constantly thinking — is its greatest gift.

I dance. Not for fitness — for release. Moving your body to music processes emotion in a way that thinking simply cannot. Dancing alone in your living room at full volume is one of the most underrated grief management strategies available to us.

I paint. I write. I make my home feel beautiful — move furniture, clear the energy, create a space that feels like a sanctuary. Your home is either supporting your nervous system or depleting it. An intentional, energetically clear space is not a luxury. It is part of how I stay well.

And most importantly — I feel it. I do not run from the darkness when it comes. I sit with it, analyse it, ask what it is trying to tell me. Grief that is allowed to be grief moves more quickly than grief that is resisted.

To the Woman in the Darkness Right Now

If you are reading this at 2am. If you are in the panic, in the exhaustion, in the sadness for love that used to be there and isn't anymore. If the silence of having nobody to ask how your day was is deafening tonight — I want you to know something.

You are not broken. You are not weak. You are carrying something enormous, largely alone, and you are still here. That is not nothing. That is everything.

Find your tools. The thing that keeps you in your body and in the world when part of you wants to leave both. It does not matter what it looks like. It matters that it keeps you going.

The light comes back. I promise you that from personal experience, not from theory. It comes back slowly and not all at once. But it comes back.

Keep going. Feel it fully. Find your tools. And know that somewhere, a woman who has walked through her own darkness is sitting here writing this for you — because she remembers what it felt like and she wants you to know: you are not alone. Not even close. 💙

What are your tools? The things, that keep you going on the hard days? I would love to hear them in the comments. We learn from each other in ways that no therapist or self help book can replicate. 💙