I do not think I am approaching burnout anymore

Dear Delyara, That is what frightens me most. Not collapse. Continuation. The lunches still get packed. The work still gets done. The children still feel loved. The house still runs. I still laugh sometimes, still answer, still look “fine enough” to people who see only slices. And yet underneath all of that, there is this unmistakable deadening. A thinning of joy. A flattening of self. A constant emotional cost to ordinary life that did not use to be this high. I think burnout can look like collapse. I also think it can look like competence after aliveness has quietly left the room. That possibility feels uncomfortably close to me now.