For a long time, I was always pushing through everything because it felt normal.
Stopping rarely felt like an option for me, and slowing down felt like failure. If something needed attention, I gave it more of myself. That became the pattern. Over time, I stopped questioning it.
What I didn’t notice at first was how often I worked past the moments when something felt off.
Fatigue showed up and I ignored it. Tension settled in and I kept moving. Irritability crept into my days, and I told myself it was just part of being responsible. I learned how to treat those moments as noise rather than information, something to manage instead of something to listen to.
Being tired didn’t mean stop. Feeling overwhelmed didn’t mean slow down. Reaching a limit didn’t mean the limit mattered. There was always a reason to keep going, always something else that needed attention, always someone who needed more.
When you spend enough time carrying more than you should, you stop listening to the warnings. You learn how to override them. You tell yourself this is just what responsibility feels like, that everyone is exhausted, that rest can come later.
Later rarely comes.
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