I always thought burnout was something that happened to “other people”.
The weak ones. The ones who couldn’t handle pressure.

Not me.

I was the girl who answered emails at 1 AM, drank coffee like water, and thought skipping meals was a “time management hack”. If my body complained, I threw on a little concealer, lipstick, and said, “Come on, we don’t have time for this.”

Then one Tuesday night, in the middle of the supermarket, my body stopped negotiating.

I remember staring at the shelf, trying to decide between two brands of fish sauce, while replying to a client on my phone with my other hand. My head had been throbbing all day, my heart beating a little too fast, but I ignored it. I had deadlines. I had bills. I had to “push through”.

The floor suddenly tilted.

The bright lights stretched into long blue lines. My knees turned to water. The next second, my cheek was against the cold tile, and my basket had exploded — vegetables rolling, a baguette on the floor, a bottle rolling away like it wanted to leave me too.

People shouted. Someone called, “Miss? Miss, can you hear me?”
I could hear them, but my body felt a thousand miles away. My heart hammered in my chest; every breath sounded like it was coming through a straw.

I wasn’t thinking about work anymore. I wasn’t thinking about my to-do list, my inbox, my weight, my skin, my clothes. One thought hit me, clear and sharp:

“So this is how it ends? In a supermarket aisle?”

At the hospital, they wired me up like a broken machine. Tubes. Monitors. Blood tests. My urine bag filling up beside the bed. Dried blood on my arm where they’d missed the vein. My hair greasy, my face bare, my body heavy like someone else’s.

I’d always used my body like a costume: dress it well, paint the face, keep it presentable and nobody would see how tired it was. Lying there in a hospital gown that didn’t close properly, I saw what it really was: a fragile, overworked animal that had been carrying me for years while I treated it like a slave.

I felt guilty. Proper, deep guilt.
Not the “I skipped the gym again” kind. The kind where you realize something has been loving you quietly, and you never once said thank you.

A volunteer came in the next morning. She wasn’t a doctor. She didn’t bring medicine. She just pulled up a chair and said, “Put your hand on your belly. Just feel your breath.”

Honestly, I wanted to roll my eyes. I didn’t need yoga. I needed answers. But I was too tired to argue, so I did it.

Inhale. Belly rises.
Exhale. Belly falls.

Again.

At first it was boring. Then, weirdly, I felt… sad. My heart was still racing, but under my palm my stomach moved like a small wave trying to keep me afloat. My body had been doing this for me since I was born — breathing, pumping, repairing, digesting — and I’d never paid attention unless something hurt or didn’t look good in the mirror.

I realized something that scared me more than the collapse:
This body isn’t “mine” the way I thought. I don’t own it like a phone or a car. I can’t order it not to age, not to break, not to fall. I had lived as if I could.

I wish I could tell you that from that day, I switched to green juice, quit my job, and became a Zen goddess. I didn’t.

I still overthink. I still scroll TikTok too late. Sometimes I still eat spicy noodles at midnight and regret it.

But something quietly shifted.

Now, when my shoulders harden into stone, I don’t say, “I’ll stretch later.” I pause. I roll them. I ask, “Ok, what are you trying to tell me?” When my stomach hurts, I don’t curse it for “ruining my productivity”. I put my hand there like I did in the hospital and breathe.

I moisturize the lines forming around my eyes without panic. They’re not proof I’m “getting old and ugly”. They’re proof I’ve stayed alive long enough to laugh, cry, and stare at screens for way too many hours.

Some days I still forget. I still treat my body like a tool. And then I remember that supermarket floor, that helpless view of the ceiling lights spinning, that cold tile under my skin. My body had to scream to get my attention.

Maybe yours is whispering right now: through headaches you ignore, through the way you wake up tired every single morning, through the tightness in your chest every time an email pops up.

We think we don’t have time to rest.
But what if our body doesn’t have time to keep saving us?

If you’ve read this far, maybe this is your little “supermarket moment” without the actual collapse. Maybe tonight, instead of one more hour of scrolling, you put your phone down, place a hand on your chest, and just breathe with the only body you’ll ever get.

Tell me honestly: has your body ever had to “scream” at you too? And what did you do about it?