Burnt Out On The Road

It’s 7am Early autumn. Grey sky. Damp cold clinging to the windows of the company car.

But inside? The heaters are blasting like a furnace, the air thick, almost suffocating. I’m in the back seat, knees jammed against the chair in front of me, two colleagues beside me. Another is driving. And in the front passenger seat… my boss. We’re on a four-hour drive to yet another pitch. Back-to-back from the last one. Five days on the road. Another two still to go. I barely slept. I’m missing my bed, my family…home.

And just as my shoulders begin to drop, just as I let myself take one single breath… My boss spins around and snaps: “What are you all doing? Get your laptops out. you’re not paid to sit around, You’ve got work to do”

Their voice fills the car and rattles through my brain. Instantly, everyone in the car shifts. No one looks at each other. We tighten our lips, hold our breaths and sink a little lower into our seats. We know how this could play out. I open my laptop, knees jammed against the seat in front, and for a moment the screen swims. My hands shake and I feel myself diminishing. Like I could snap from the pressure. Like my whole world has shrunk to the size of this cramped back seat. What shocks me isn’t their behaviour. I’ve seen it before. It’s mine. I have years of experience.

People count on me. I know how to lead. And yet there I am, laptop open, obeying without question.

It was fear. Fear of losing everything. My job. My security. My reputation.

Fear that maybe they were right, maybe I wasn’t enough.

I stare at my inbox, trying to focus while they bark orders into their phone, And I think “How did I get here?” How did I become the woman too scared to say, “I’m tired.” “I need a moment.” “This isn’t okay.” But I didn’t say any of those things. I worked. And there were more journeys. More pitches. More days when I was exhausted and carried on anyway. After a while, this started to feel normal. I stopped questioning it. And somewhere along the way, I stopped listening to myself. My body began to bear the cost. My health deteriorated. Inflammation. An abnormal heart rhythm In the end, I had to leave Recovery took a long time. My confidence had gone. Speaking up became harder. Voicing an opinion. Saying no. Especially saying no. And even now, there’s a part of me that looks back and asks why I didn’t. Why didn’t I say no? Why did I keep going? I can understand now how exhausted and frightened I had become. I had left. But the doubt came with me.