There was a time in my life when I genuinely thought I was going to lose my mind.
Quietly. Slowly. The kind where you are still showing up every day, still replying emails, still attending meetings, but inside you feel like something is wrong.
I was working with this brand at the time. From the outside, it looked like progress. It looked like I was growing. It looked like I had finally moved into a “proper” corporate space. After my first experience in a startup that had already shaken me, I thought this new place would be better. I told myself this was a fresh start. This was structure. This was stability.
It wasn’t.
There was no real structure. Everybody was my boss. One person would assign something and mark it urgent. Before I could finish that, another person would message me about something else that was apparently even more urgent. If I focused on one, I was neglecting another. If I tried to ask for clarity, it somehow felt like I was the problem.
Every teams had issues with every other teams. It felt like everyone had quiet resentment toward someone else, and all of that tension would somehow trickle down into the work. Into my work.
I was constantly tense. My shoulders were always tight. Even when my phone buzzed, my heart would jump a little. It felt like I was always behind, always trying to catch up, always trying to prove that I deserved to be there.
Then there was the pay.
I don’t even know whether to call it unfair because the truth is complicated. When they asked for my salary expectation, I said something low. Very low. I thought I was being smart. I didn’t want to price myself out. I didn’t want them to think I was overreaching. So I asked for less.
Later, I found out that my colleague, who was handling less responsibility than I was, was earning more.
That one hurt in a different way. Because I didn’t even know who to be angry at. Them? Or myself?
It’s one thing to be overworked. It’s another thing to feel undervalued while you’re overworked. It starts to mess with your head. You begin to question your worth in ways you didn’t expect. Maybe this is all I’m worth. Maybe this is what my work is worth. Maybe I’m not as good as I think I am.
At some point, I started applying for other jobs quietly. I told myself I needed an exit plan. I eventually got another role. You would think that would make me feel hopeful. It didn’t.
By then, I was drained in a way I didn’t even know how to explain. It wasn’t just physical tiredness. It felt like my mind was overloaded. Like I had been carrying too much for too long and something inside me was giving way.
I would go to bed at night and cry. Not loudly. Not dramatically. Just tears rolling into my pillow because I didn’t know what else to do with the weight of everything. I kept thinking, I can’t continue like this. I actually cannot continue like this.
Even with the new job, I couldn’t give my best. I felt guilty about that too. Here was an opportunity I had prayed for, and I couldn’t even show up properly for it. It felt like I was failing everywhere at once.
After about a month, I reached out to the person who hired me and told them I didn’t think I could continue. I said I wasn’t in the right headspace. I said I didn’t have the mental capacity for it at that time. Even writing that message made me feel small. Like I was admitting weakness. Like I was confirming every fear I had about not being strong enough.
The response I got wasn’t cruel, but it didn’t help. It was full of comparisons. Stories about how when they started out, they had it worse. How they pushed through tougher situations. How I had more advantages. How I didn’t really have an excuse.
Maybe it was meant to motivate me. Maybe it was supposed to toughen me up. But in that moment, all I felt was unseen.
I wasn’t asking to be told that other people had survived harder things. I wasn’t asking for a list of struggles. I just needed someone to understand that I was drowning. That I wasn’t being dramatic. That I wasn’t lazy. That I was genuinely at my limit.
But because I was still functioning, still delivering, still sounding “fine” on calls, nobody could see it.
That season made me question myself deeply. Am I even good enough for this career? Am I just pretending? Do I keep ending up in the wrong places because there’s something wrong with me?
It was one of the lowest points in my life. Every single day felt heavy.
I can’t even tell you the exact moment things changed. There wasn’t a big breakthrough. No perfect conversation that fixed everything. It just became less intense over time. Maybe I slowly started detaching my worth from the chaos around me. Maybe I began to understand that a toxic system doesn’t automatically mean I am incompetent. Maybe I simply got tired of blaming myself for everything.
What I know is that I didn’t lose my mind. Even though I truly thought I would.
Looking back now, I realize something I didn’t know then everything affects us deeply. When the environment is unstable, when there’s no structure, when expectations are unclear, it doesn’t just affect productivity. It affects identity. Because our work comes from our minds. When our minds are not safe, nothing feels safe.
There are seasons where you are not weak. You are not ungrateful. You are not incapable. You are simply overwhelmed. And sometimes the most painful part is that nobody else can see it.
If you’re in that kind of season right now, I hope you give yourself permission to pause. To admit that you’re tired. To admit that something isn’t working. I hope you find a space where you can breathe without feeling like you’re about to be blamed for breathing.
I don’t have a neat ending to this story. Life didn’t suddenly become perfect. But I am still here. Still creating. Still trying. And now I know that feeling low does not mean you are finished. Feeling overwhelmed does not mean you are incapable. And asking for help, or even stepping away, does not mean you have failed.
It just means you are human.
Today, I’m more aware of what I need to function well. Structure. Clarity and Respect. I’ve learned that the right environment doesn’t remove hard work, but it removes unnecessary chaos. And that makes all the difference. I don’t take that for granted anymore.