The Day I Let Go of Survival Mode

I used to think something was wrong with me.

I wasn’t crying, but I felt hollow. I wasn’t falling apart, but I was constantly tired—tired in my bones, in my soul. It was more than physical exhaustion. It was a kind of weariness that sleep couldn’t fix and silence couldn’t soothe.

I thought I was broken.

I’d wake up every morning with a clenched jaw and a to-do list already scribbled across my mind. I didn’t remember the last time I felt truly rested. Even my happiest moments felt... muted. Like joy was something I had to squint to see. Everything was a task—eating, working, even spending time with friends. I kept asking myself, “Why am I like this?” And worse, “What happened to me?”

I didn’t know then that I was living in survival mode.

You see, surviving doesn’t always look dramatic. It’s not always visible like a bleeding wound or a public breakdown. Sometimes, it’s the quiet ability to carry on when every fiber of your being wants to stop. It’s high-functioning burnout. It’s the person who looks “fine” on the outside but is emotionally flatlining on the inside.

It was me.

For years, I had trained myself to be strong. I was the reliable one, the “resilient” one, the one who always figured it out. My childhood wasn’t traumatic in the obvious ways, but it came with silent weights—responsibility too early, emotional neglect masked as independence, a constant push to achieve. And so I built my identity around performance and endurance. I didn’t allow myself to feel too much. There was no time for breakdowns, only breakthroughs.

But over time, even the strongest foundations crack.

Mine did on a Tuesday afternoon. I was sitting at my desk, typing an email I can’t remember, when suddenly I felt like I couldn’t breathe. My heart raced. My hands trembled. The screen blurred. I wasn’t panicking—I was shutting down. My brain, my body, everything said: Enough.

I called in sick for the first time in a year. Then I sat on my bed and cried, not because of a specific event, but because I finally couldn’t pretend anymore.

And for the first time, I allowed the question to surface: What if I’m not broken? What if I’m just tired... of surviving?

That moment cracked something open.

I started therapy, hesitant and guarded. I didn’t even know what I was supposed to talk about at first. I just knew I was tired—exhausted in a way that didn’t make sense. But slowly, as I peeled back the layers, I saw it: the years I had spent running on adrenaline, people-pleasing, proving myself, carrying the weight of invisible expectations.

I hadn’t been broken. I had been bracing.

And when you live your life bracing for impact, even happiness feels suspicious.

Healing didn’t happen overnight. There were days I wanted to go back to the numbness because feeling again hurt. But I stuck with it. I took baby steps: setting boundaries, resting without guilt, saying no without explanation, allowing my body to rest without equating that with laziness.

The most revolutionary thing I did? I gave myself permission to stop performing.

And something beautiful happened—I started living instead of surviving.

I laughed louder. I slept deeper. I saw colors in places I hadn’t noticed before. I cried without shame. I rested without apology. I found people who loved me not for what I could do but for who I was. I forgave myself for not being superhuman.

Now, when I hear people say, “You’re so strong,” I smile, but I don’t wear it like armor anymore. Strength isn’t how much you can carry; it’s knowing when to put things down.

So if you’re reading this and wondering why you feel so tired even though “nothing is wrong,” I want you to know: you’re not broken. You’re probably just exhausted from holding it all together.

You don’t need to earn rest. You don’t need to justify slowing down. You don’t need to be at your breaking point to deserve peace.

You are enough, even when you’re not achieving. Even when you're just being.

The world may praise survival, but you deserve to thrive.

Let that be your story, too.