After years of pushing myself, I remember my exact physical breaking point.
It happened shortly before I made the plan to quit. I woke up one morning and I couldn’t get out of bed. My mind said “Go, we have to get to work.” But my body didn’t respond. I felt like I was trapped inside a dead car, slamming on the gas and going nowhere. I lay in bed and tears came to my eyes, but I was too tired to cry.
I missed work that day. I don’t even think I called in. I was valuable enough to the team that nobody asked questions when I returned. Maybe they knew?
That was my first taste of absolute burnout, when my body had given up physically. For the first time, passion for the product couldn’t override my basic needs. Something had cracked. Again.
When I finally got out of bed, I wasn’t the same person.
One of the junior engineers messaged me. She noticed a shift in my personality that I was unaware of. I wasn’t my enthusiastic self. She told me she admired my spirit so much.
To that junior engineer: I hope you can read my story and understand how I ended up the way I did. I hope you walk away before you lose your spirit.