Burnout in Disguise: We Need to Talk About Your ‘I’m Fine’ Face

Ever been praised at work while secretly falling apart?

That surreal moment when someone says, "You're killing it," and all you want to do is cry—because it confirms your worst fear: no one can tell you're drowning.

This episode dives into the high-functioning burnout trap—when professional performance becomes a mask for spiraling mental health. You’re answering emails at midnight. Making self-deprecating jokes about exhaustion so no one asks questions. Piling pressure onto yourself because the world keeps applauding.

We’ll unpack:

• Why praise can feel worse than criticism
• How imposter syndrome feeds burnout
• The danger of becoming “the dependable one” at your own expense
• Why rest isn’t a reward—it’s survival
• What it means to be human in a system that celebrates self-destruction

If you've ever smiled through a meeting and cried in the parking lot—this one's for you.

Come scream into the void with me @thebrainvsme or visit brainvsme.com for more emotionally chaotic honesty. 

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

I once cried during a performance of you because they said I was doing great. That's when I knew I wasn't. You ever get praised at work and feel worse, like someone tells you roll into a mental breakdown because surprise, you were actually just barely holding it together the whole time. Cool, same. Welcome back to Brain vs Me, the podcast, where we overthink literally everything, especially while pretending to be functional adults. I'm your host, joshua Erickson, and today we're talking about work, specifically how burnout doesn't always look like collapse. Sometimes it looks like employee of the month. We'll get into why productivity is such a messed up measure of worth, how burnout hides behind a smile and a slack status, and why even jobs we love can absolutely wreck us. So grab your coffee, ignore that unread email and let's dive into the professional panic spiral together.

Speaker 1: 0:55

There's this moment that happens to me every few months. Maybe you felt it too. I'll be sitting at my desk, completely wrecked from juggling everything, exhausted, anxious, spiraling quietly, and then I get an email at my desk, completely wrecked from juggling everything, exhausted, anxious, spiraling quietly. And then I get an email from my boss that says something like hey, just wanted to say you're killing it. We really appreciate all you do. And instead of feeling proud or relieved, I just kind of want to cry, not because I'm ungrateful, but because it confirms the thing I've been afraid of all along that nobody can tell I'm drowning, that I've been too good at pretending I'm okay, that the mask works. And once you realize the mask works, you start to feel trapped in it, because now there's this unspoken expectation that you'll show up as the calm, capable version of you, the one who's weirdly good at formatting spreadsheets under pressure, who smiles through every meeting and who never seems to break. And if you drop that performance even for a second, you feel like you're letting everyone down.

Speaker 1: 1:53

See, burnout doesn't always look like missed deadlines or dramatic walkouts. Sometimes burnout looks like a you're doing great email from someone who has no idea you sobbed in your car during lunch. Sometimes burnout is answering emails at midnight because your brain won't shut off and doing something feels better than lying in your bed staring at the ceiling. Sometimes burnout is just silence. You're not melting down, you're not visibly stressed. You've just become eerily good at faking it, at smiling through meetings, at making self-deprecating jokes about how tired you are so no one asks follow-up questions, at keeping the bar just high enough that no one suspects you're running on fumes and the world eats that up.

Speaker 1: 2:40

We praise that kind of constant output like it's a sign of strength, not a giant blinking warning sign that your nervous system is being held together by coffee and cortisol. We treat burnout like a rite of passage, like some elite membership you earn by pushing yourself past every limit you swore you'd respect. We celebrate hustle culture until the hustle becomes the only thing holding you together. And the longer we perform burnout as normal, the harder it becomes to recognize when we're crossed the line, even harder to explain to someone else. Because we don't look broken, we don't even sound broken, but inside everything's cracked. There's this voice in our head that says things cracked. There's this voice in our head that says if I slow down now, they'll realize I was never really capable to begin with. If I say no, they'll think I've been faking it this whole time. If I ask for help, I'll prove I shouldn't be here at all. But that voice, it's lying. Because what if asking for help wasn't a sign of failure but the first real act of self-respect? What if slowing down didn't mean you couldn't keep up, but that you were finally learning how to pace yourself. Look, we are not machines. We are not meant to run at 110% forever. And yet somehow we still feel guilty when we try to rest, we still feel selfish when we draw boundaries, we still feel like we have to earn recovery by completely destroying ourselves first. So today we're going to talk about that, about hustle culture, performance masks and how we mistake people-pleasing for professionalism. Because this idea that our productivity equals our worth. It's literally killing us and we keep clapping for it like it's some kind of success story. Let's stop clapping, let's start talking.

Speaker 1: 4:37

There's a version of me at work that doesn't quite exist anywhere else. He's composed, productive, efficient, he says, says things like let's circle back and can we table that? He nods thoughtfully in meetings, smiles at feedback like it's a warm-up hug and hits deadlines like he's trying to win an olympic medal in outlook calendar navigation. This man a corporate hallucination, a powerpoint ghost, a Slack channel NPC, with just enough charm to be invited to meetings that he doesn't need to be in, because under that polished, smiley exterior is someone who's rewriting emails 12 times to make sure they don't sound passive, aggressive, spiraling over which email is appropriately professional and calculating the social consequences of using a period at the end of a team's message.

Speaker 1: 5:35

The mask oh, it's top tier, but it's not a personality, it's a panic response, especially for neurodivergent folks or people who grew up in chaos, or anyone whose early survival skill was get everything perfect and no one will yell. So we become world-class performers and it works until it doesn't, because this performance isn't a bonus skill, it's a full-time job on top of your full-time job. That's why you hit 5 pm not just tired, but absolutely emotionally annihilated. You didn't just work today, you acted in the professional adaptability show, featuring your award-winning role as the unbothered person who gets it done. And the worst part, you nailed it so well, in fact, that no one suspects a thing. No one realizes you're crashing in slow motion. Nobody knows you rehearse small talk like it's a TED talk. Nobody sees that. Sure, happy to help actually means please, let me go lie on the floor. Even compliments feel like pressure bombs. You're so dependable. You're the glue that holds a team together. We couldn't do this without you, cool, so now I can't quit or cry this without you. Cool, so now I can't quit or cry. Awesome. Eventually you start saving the real version of you for the 15 minutes after work when you sit in your car staring blankly into the abyss of your windshield, too tired to even open Spotify that version, the one whispering I can't keep doing this into the steering wheel yeah, that's the real one, and it doesn't take a dramatic collapse to get there.

Speaker 1: 7:21

Burnout doesn't always look like someone quitting on the spot or flipping a conference table. Sometimes it looks like this Crying on your lunch break, then jumping back on Zoom like a well-hydrated adult, hating every task, even the ones you used to love. Answering emails at midnight because your brain won't shut up. Feeling like a fraud, even while overachieving. Having a full body. Existential crisis because you forgot to include a smiley face in your message. And, the weirdest part, people still think you're killing it Because you've trained everyone around you to believe that your performance is your baseline.

Speaker 1: 8:01

You've taught them that this high output, always on, never faltering version of you is the real you and it's not. It's the protective layer you wear, so no one sees how close to the edge you really are. And that's where burnout thrives In the silence, behind the mask, underneath the praise, because no one comes to help. If you look okay, no one checks in when your calendar is full and your smile is convincing. No one questions the machine until it breaks, but you're not a machine. No one questions the machine until it breaks, but you're not a machine. You're a person pretending to be a machine, just well enough to get promoted and quietly dying inside, all right. So you do everything well, everything well, like, generally impressive, and instead of feeling proud, your brain just goes. Well, that was lucky. You probably peaked. Yeah, that's imposter syndrome. And when you pair it with burnout, oh, it's a disastrous duo, a psychological buddy comedy where the joke is always you. Let me introduce you to mine.

Speaker 1: 9:07

My imposter syndrome is a beast. It is my arch nemesis. It never sleeps, never takes PTO and definitely doesn't believe in sick days. It's there when I'm trying something new. It's there when I'm doing something I've done for 10 years. Hell, it's even there when I succeed, like I'll finish something I'm proud of and for one beautiful second kind of okay. And then the voice kicks in that was a fluke. They're going to figure you out. You're just a well-spoken fraud with decent formatting. It doesn't just undermine confidence, it prevents it. Imposter syndrome makes it impossible to believe I do anything right. Every compliment suspicious, every opportunity, clearly a clerical error. It's like I'm waiting for someone to show up with a clipboard and go sorry, you're not supposed to be here. And the worst part, I didn't always feel like this.

Speaker 1: 9:55

I remember when imposter syndrome first walked into my life, before we met my work life was just regular, awful, the usual complaints hours sucked, pay sucked, coworkers sucked, bosses sucked, but at least it was honest suffering. Then I got my first management job. Cue the dramatic entrance Mr Imposter Syndrome showed up uninvited. Think less rom-com meets cute, more paranormal possession, and suddenly all the normal work areas of stress got spicy. Now it wasn't just this job is hard, it was. You have no business being here, everyone knows it, you're a mistake in khakis. So I worked harder. I got good, really good, and instead of silencing the voice, I fed it, because now the pressure wasn't just to succeed, it was to maintain the illusion that I was supposed to be successful in the first place.

Speaker 1: 10:52

It's this exhausting paradox you earn praise but can't accept it. You hit goals but feel like a fraud. You show up every day, terrified that someone's going to notice you're not actually okay and you can't slow down because if you do, people might realize you were never as competent as they thought, even though you are, even though you've proven yourself over and over again, even though the only one calling you a fraud is you. Burnout and imposter syndrome feed off each other like some toxic office romance. Burnout makes you tired. Imposter syndrome tells you, the only reason you're tired is because you're not cut out for this. So you try harder, which burns you out more, which convinces you even further that you're faking everything. It's a rigged game, one where your brain is a judge, jury and emotional assassin. So if you're listening to this and thinking shit, that's me. You're not alone and, more importantly, you're not faking it. You're just fried, fried and honestly real imposters. Don't worry about being imposters. So the fact that you're spiraling about this just means you're doing better than you think.

Speaker 1: 12:04

There's this phrase high-functioning that people love to toss around like it's a compliment. She's high-functioning, he's really on top of things. They always get it done. So what you're telling me is the car is fully on fire, but it's still moving, congrats. Let's be real. High functioning just means you're falling apart privately, but thanks for not making it awkward for everyone else. It means you still show up to meetings even though you haven't eaten in 14 hours. You respond to emails with professional grammar while actively disassociating. You hit your deadlines with chest pain and a smile.

Speaker 1: 12:44

High functioning doesn't mean healthy, it means hidden. You're doing everything you're supposed to do, but the cost is astronomical. Your sleep is trash, your memory is shot, you forget birthdays, appointments, your own damn lunch. You've got anxiety-induced heartburn and stress rashes, but your outlook status is still available. And, the cruelest part you still get rewarded. You get praised for pushing through. You get promotions for pushing through. You get promotions for skipping lunch. You get employee of the month while Googling how to tell if you're dying or just dehydrated.

Speaker 1: 13:23

Because we live in a system where suffering and silence is considered professional, where your ability to endure becomes part of your brand, where overworking isn't just normalized, it's idolized. So you keep grinding even though you're unraveling. And when it finally does catch up to you, when you cancel a meeting or miss a deadline or respond to an email with okay instead of sounds, great, people assume something's wrong. They don't say, wow, they've been doing too much for too long. They say, huh, they've really dropped off lately. And it's not always malicious. Sometimes it's just people reacting to what you taught them to expect, because if you always deliver at 150%, everything else looks like failure.

Speaker 1: 14:09

That's the trap of being high functioning. You convince everyone, including yourself, that your unsustainable pace is your natural one, and by the time you realize it's killing you, you're too exhausted to explain it. So you keep going, keep performing, keep functioning, and all the while you're silently eroding from the inside out. Because burnout doesn't always look like collapse. Sometimes it looks like competence. It looks like you're so good under pressure. It looks like you always seem so calm. It looks like we didn't even know anything was wrong. But here's what high functioning actually means. You've gotten so good at faking okay. You forgot what real okay feels like. Burnout isn't always loud. Here's a hard truth that took me way too long to learn.

Speaker 1: 15:01

Rest isn't a reward, it's maintenance. You don't earn it. You require it Just like the food, water or the will to keep replying, per my last email. But somehow we've been trained to treat rest like it's dessert. You only get it if you've been good. You only get to slow down once you've deserved it.

Speaker 1: 15:21

In that mentality, it's why people spiral into full-blown breakdowns while saying things like I just need to make it through this week, every week, forever. We tell ourselves I'll rest when the project is done. I'll take a break once things calm down. I just have to push a little longer. But the goalposts keep moving, because work never stops. Emails don't care about your mental state. Meetings don't pause because you're having a trauma flashback.

Speaker 1: 15:51

The system is not built for your humanity. It is built for your output, and the more you deliver, the more it demands. Which means rest has to be something you choose, not something you wait to be granted, because if you don't protect it, no one will. And listen, this isn't just some self-care Pinterest lecture. I'm not here to tell you to light a candle and do a face mask. I'm talking about real rest, the kind where you log off before you're completely drained. The kind where you take your PTO and don't check in just in case. The kind where you let yourself nap or cry or stare at the wall without narrating your productivity to yourself, like you're on Shark Tank. Because rest isn't weakness. It's what keeps you alive long enough to do anything else.

Speaker 1: 16:38

And let's be clear burnout doesn't just take your energy. It steals your joy, your focus, your sense of self. It turns everything you once loved into a task. It makes you hate the parts of you that once made you proud. Rest is how you fight back. Not with guilt, not with shame, not with some five-point plan to become your best self, but with one simple truth you are already enough, even when you're offline.

Speaker 1: 17:07

If any part of this episode made your soul sigh in recognition, I want you to hear this clearly you are not lazy. You are not lazy. You are not failing. You are not broken. You are burned out. In a world that praises exhaustion and punishes boundaries, you've been surviving inside a system that treats your humanity like a glitch in the workflow. Of course you're tired. Of course you're overwhelmed. Of course you're spiraling at 3 am while googling if burnout can cause chest pain. It can, by the way, but none of that makes you weak. It makes you aware, because once you see the performance, the mask, the cycle, you can start to dismantle it. You can stop pretending, you can start resting, you can begin to imagine a version of yourself that doesn't run on panic and praise.

Speaker 1: 18:04

And if your brain tries to fight that, if it whispers, but you haven't earned rest yet, or they'll think you're lazy, if you slow down, or you're only valuable when you're useful, tell it this I am not a machine. I am not a productivity metric. I am not a job title, a to-do list or a perfectly composed Slack message. I am a person and I deserve to exist, even when I'm offline, to exist even when I'm offline. Burnout thrives in silence, so let's stop being silent. Talk about it, name it, laugh about it, because, honestly, sometimes that's all we can do. And when somebody tells you you're doing great while you're quietly falling apart, maybe this time say thanks, but actually I'm not and I shouldn't have to be. Thanks for hanging out with me today.

Speaker 1: 19:00

If this episode gave you something to think about or cry about in the shower, you're not alone. I've been there. I am there frequently. If you want more chaotic honesty like this, check out the blog and podcast at brainversemecom or come scream into the void with me on twitter at the brain verse me. Next week we're diving into a topic it's a little closer to home than most of us want to admit depression that doesn't even look sad. That'll be fun and, as always, remember to be kind to yourself, even if your inbox isn't.