When the routines and vagaries of chronic illness meet life burnout

Somewhere between the medication alarms, unexpected flares, everyday symptoms, and insurance denial letters, I forgot how to breathe.

It didn’t happen overnight. Burnout crept in slowly, disguised as survival. I was still getting up every day, still managing the house, still being Mom. But inside, I was unraveling. I wasn’t just tired — I was done. I was emotionally numb, mentally fogged, and physically tapped out; just a body and a brain, with no spark left.

Living with hereditary angioedema (HAE) and multiple sclerosis, as I do, already demands more than most people realize. But the world doesn’t pause because you’re chronically ill. It keeps pushing. And lately, it’s felt like everything is pushing at once.

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Take the insurance appeals. I’m constantly forced to fight for medications my doctors already prescribed, treatments that have worked, resources I’ve depended on for years. It’s emotionally draining to plead for your own health — especially when the person on the other end of the phone holds your well-being in their hands but reads from a script like you’re just a case number.

On top of that, I’m a single mom, raising four incredible, chaotic, growing humans. Lately, they’ve started pushing boundaries more. Testing me. Rebelling. I know that’s part of growing up. But it’s hard not to feel like I’m failing when everything feels so fragile. They don’t always see the version of me that’s fighting behind the scenes to keep the lights on, to keep us housed, to stretch one check in 10 directions. They just see the tired mom who says “no” too much.

Then come the surprise expenses — a broken car, a medical bill insurance won’t touch, a school fee I forgot was due. These moments aren’t just frustrating; they’re crushing.

When you’re already hanging by a thread, even small setbacks can feel like the final blow.

The consequences of stress

And all the while, depression looms in the background. Some days it’s quiet, other days it’s deafening — like static in my head that I can’t turn down. There are moments when it convinces me I’m not enough, that I’m too much, that I’m falling apart in ways no one sees.

I always try to ignore and hide the mentally struggling part of me. It’s too raw, too messy, too far from the person I thought I was supposed to be. Not just because I’m sick, but because being seen in my struggle sometimes feels more painful than the struggle itself.

Even now, I wrestle with that feeling. I look at my life — the financial strain, the mental exhaustion, the physical limitations — and I can’t help but think that this isn’t where I thought I’d end up. Not as a woman, not as a mother, not as a human just trying to build something stable.

It’s a quiet kind of heartbreak, to be mourning the life I imagined while trying to survive the one I’m actually in. And that mourning carries shame. Not the loud kind. The kind that hums underneath everything, whispering that maybe I should have done more, been more, figured it all out by now.

What the hum taught me was unexpected.

Burnout doesn’t mean I’m broken; it means I’m human.

Embracing my humanity

Being human means I get to have limits. I get to be exhausted. I get to fall apart sometimes. But being human also means I have the capacity to rebuild — to take a breath, to rest, and, eventually, to rise.

Mental health and physical health can’t exist in isolation, not in a life like mine. If I pour everything into managing my body but neglect my spirit and mind, I’m shorting myself in ways that medicine can’t fix. That’s the lesson I’m learning — painfully, honestly, in real time.

And hope? Hope isn’t pretending things are good when they’re not. Hope is finding peace in the tension. Hope is making space for both the pain and the possibility. It’s trusting that while these hard moments might stay a little while, they won’t stay forever.

In a summarized version of words my dear friend Ronald shared with me, “Hope is in finding the peace and ‘OKness,’ that they both will be here and that the negative situation will subside, and the sun will come out, and things will shift — because things are always shifting, in ways that are good to us, that make us grow and take life in.”

There is no perfect way to navigate this life. I may still be running on empty some days. But I’m still running. Still pushing through the noise, the grief, the doubt. Still showing up.

So if you’re going through your own version of burnout — if your body hurts, your soul feels tired, and your mind is whispering lies to you — I hope you’ll remember this:

• You’re not weak.
• You’re not failing.
• You’re human.
• You’re allowed to rest. You’re allowed to fall apart. And you have the strength to get back up again.

Burnout may knock us down. But it can’t erase our power to rise.

Note: Angioedema News is strictly a news and information website about the disease. It does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. This content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on this website. The opinions expressed in this column are not those of Angioedema News or its parent company, Bionews, and are intended to spark discussion about issues pertaining to angioedema.