“But you seem fine.”

“But you seem fine.”

That's the thing about burnout nobody tells you — the bit before it looks like anything. It doesn't arrive as a dramatic collapse (though it can end there). It arrives as a slow dimming. You still hit every deadline. You still show up. From the outside, nothing has changed.

Capable is not the same as okay.

I spent years being the person everyone relied on. Good career. Independent. Organised. I could run a project, a team, a household and other people's emotions — sometimes before breakfast. What I couldn't do was tell you when I'd last felt like myself.

I didn't recognise how much I was struggling. That's the part I want you to hear. Not the ending — the not-knowing. I thought I was tired. I thought everyone felt like this. I thought wanting to disappear for a while was just what adulthood felt like.

If someone in your life seems fine — the strong one, the reliable one, the one who always copes — ask them twice. The first answer is a reflex. The second one is the truth.

And if you're the one who seems fine: you don't have to wait until things fall apart to say so.