I Can't Give Everything to Everyone Else Anymore (A story of burnout recovery)

We're Done Pretending, A Reflective Rebels Podcast. Season 1 Episode 7

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Laura lay in bed at 1am, hearing her mum and dad in the next room tending to her son Charlie.

She couldn't get up. Couldn't help. Couldn't be the parent she'd been killing herself to be.

That's when it hit her:

"I can't give everything to everybody else anymore. I've got this little human being who needs me to be the very best version of me."

Not the version that says yes to everything. Not the version that works until she breaks. The actual, whole, healthy version of Laura.

The Giving-Everything-Away Years

If you'd asked Laura how she was doing in the months before the breakdown, she'd have rattled off her CV.

Chief executive of a charity. Studying for a degree. Two voluntary roles. Single parent. When people asked "How are you?", she'd list what she'd accomplished that week. "Yeah, I'm great, I'm fine."

Because in Laura's mind, that's what "fine" meant - achieving things. Doing things for other people. Being useful. Being needed. Her friends were talking behind her back. They'd say to each other: "It's coming. She's gonna go at some point."

But Laura genuinely thought she was handling it.

There was zero time carved out for herself. "What I felt like me time was cleaning the house," she says. "I was obsessive about it. I think it's because it was the one thing I felt completely and utterly in control with."

People called her an "ice queen." Nothing bothered her. She never showed weakness, never asked for help, never admitted she didn't know something. She was giving everything away - her time, her energy, her emotions, her needs - to work, to motherhood, to proving she wasn't the lazy girl from school reports.

And then her body said: Enough.

When Your Body Makes the Decision (and burnout hits)

One afternoon at 3pm, Laura's skin started crawling. She got herself home. A friend came round, put her in the bath. Laura woke up at 1am thinking she was dying.

Pancreatitis. The doctors weren't sure whether she'd go to surgical ward or intensive care.

Three months off work. All confidence gone. Couldn't trust herself to make decisions anymore. Had to move back in with her parents because she couldn't do anything for herself.

"I'd been so busy going 'I haven't got time to be ill, haven't got time for this, haven't got time for that.' All these niggly little symptoms I just ignored. And then all of a sudden it was like, do you know what? If you're not going to listen, I'll put you down."

Her body made the decision she wouldn't make herself.

The Big Shitty Stick

When Laura was pregnant, a friend gave her the best advice she didn't follow at first.

"You need to know - not only are you going to give birth to this baby, but you're also going to give birth to the big shitty stick of motherhood that you're going to beat yourself with on a regular basis. You need to remember to put it in the corner sometimes."

Laura thought: "Not me. I'm going to be great."

But a year down the line, that stick came out regularly.

She can picture it now - like a shepherd's staff, really long, gnarly. It's probably grown over the years as she's added more trauma to it. The judgements she felt as a new mum tapped into insecurities that were always there. She made choices to please other people rather than what she wanted as a parent. Charlie went straight into his own bedroom because of peer pressure, not because that's what Laura wanted.

"That's left me with a little bit of guilt," she says now.

But here's what Laura understands now that she didn't then: That stick was just another way of giving everything away. Beating herself up for not being perfect meant she had nothing left for actually being present with her son.

Where It Started

The pattern didn't begin with motherhood. It started decades earlier.

Laura grew up with undiagnosed dyslexia. Her school reports said "Laura's lazy" and "she's easily distracted." That laziness label wormed its way into every fibre of her.

"I felt guilty if I wasn't doing the best I could do all the time," she says. "Being dyslexic and not having it diagnosed, I had to work so hard that difficulty just became normal."

She was a daddy's girl, but dad was in the military and away a lot. Her sister was the well-behaved one, the academic one. Laura felt like she had to work harder for everything.

So she learned early: Give more. Do more. Prove you're not lazy. Never stop. Never show weakness.

By the time she became a parent and a CEO, that pattern was so ingrained she didn't even notice it was destroying her.

The Jigsaw Gets Scattered (burnout recovery)

After the breakdown, Laura went back to old NLP training manuals. Started working through exercises to find something that was her.

"It was like somebody had got five different jigsaws and opened the boxes and just thrown the pieces all over a room. I had to go around one by one: is that one of my pieces? Nope, that's not me. Is that one of my pieces? Yeah, that one belongs with me."

She'd lost her identity completely. She was CEO. She was mum. She was student. She was volunteer. But who was Laura?

She went from chief executive to doing admin for a charity. That's all she trusted herself to do. "When I first put that first piece in - okay, well I'm capable of admin - I was like, this is great. I found something that's okay."

Slowly she started building boundaries around the pieces that needed to be protected. Her non-negotiables about work, relationships, being available for Charlie on certain days.

But the rebuilding only worked because she'd finally learned the lesson her body had been trying to teach her: She couldn't give everything away anymore.

Who Is Laura?

When I asked Laura who she is now, she paused.

"I am Laura. Before I'm anything else, I'm Laura. Vulnerable, flawed, a little bit quirky, beautifully unique the same way everybody else is. I don't need to be validated or compared to anybody else because I'm uncomparable."

Being a mum comes second. Not because Charlie isn't important - but because Laura needs to be the best version of herself to show up for him. That's not selfishness. That's what she learned lying in that bed, unable to get up, hearing her parents care for her son.

"I need to be the best version of myself to show up for Charlie. I learned that the hard way."

From Ice Queen to Real Human

People used to tell Laura she was like an "ice queen" - nothing bothered her. "How awful to be looked at like somebody who doesn't experience emotion," she says now.

After the breakdown, she let emotion back in. Started crying at adverts and memorial services. Started being vulnerable with her family in ways she never had before.

"This year I've been more vulnerable with my family than ever before," she says. "There was something quite nice about being able to go, do you know what? I'm a hot mess right now. And for the family to just go, okay, we see you and we'll support you and we love you still."

The ice queen who gave everything away but showed nothing? She's gone.

The Laura who cries at adverts and asks for help and admits when she's struggling? She's stronger than she's ever been.

Joy in the Small Moments

Joy used to be achievements. Ticking things off. Proving herself. Keeping everything under control.

Now joy is playing PlayStation with Charlie. Reading books together without scrolling her phone. Being in the moment with friends instead of watching through a camera lens.

"I've never taken less photographs in my whole life than I am at this stage now because I'm in the moment living something," she says. "I don't feel the need to look at it through a camera lens."

She doesn't feel lonely even when she's alone anymore. She's secure in her relationships. She's found her faith again - studying the Catechism with her mum, finding peace in prayer.

"I've learned the joy in the quietness, the joy in the little things and not having to have that joy validated by other people. I'm joyful because I feel the joy. I'm not joyful because you've decided this is a joyful situation for me."

What This Means for You

If you're reading this and recognising yourself - if you're measuring yourself by accomplishments instead of how you feel, if you're giving everything away with nothing left for yourself - here's what Laura learned:

• Your body will make you stop if you won't. Laura ignored every warning sign until pancreatitis hospitalised her. You don't get to choose whether you stop - only when.

  
  

• The roles you're clinging to might not be who you are. When Laura lost her ability to work, to achieve, to perform - she had to rebuild from scratch. That rebuilding taught her who Laura actually is beyond all the doing.

  
  

• Giving everything away doesn't make you strong. The ice queen who never showed weakness? She was isolated and burnt out. The Laura who's vulnerable and asks for help feels stronger than ever.

  
  

• Joy comes from presence, not proving yourself. Laura used to measure herself by achievements. Now joy is being there with her son, not performing for anyone.

  
  

• You have to put yourself first or you'll have nothing left to give. This isn't selfishness. It's the only way to actually show up for the people who need you.

  
  

Maybe you don't need to break down to learn it. Maybe listening to her story is enough.

A Prayer for New Mums

At the end of our conversation, I asked Laura to offer a prayer for that new mum feeling the weight of expectations.

She paused, then said:

"Heavenly father, I ask you to watch over this new mum and all of her support mechanism in the raising of this child. Watch over them, bless them, care for them. Allow them to find their own flow and rhythm in life and to know that they are always supported and that they are good enough. Amen."

Listen to Laura's full story in Episode 7 of We're Done Pretending.

If this resonates and you're ready to stop giving everything away, coaching might help. Email ben@reflectiverebels.co.uk to start a conversation.