Career Fatigue is a Systemic Symptom

Burnout Is Not Just a Bad Week. It's a Chronic Condition.

Burnout isn’t always loud. It doesn’t always come crashing in with a breakdown or a dramatic exit. Sometimes it whispers. Sometimes it numbs. And often, it becomes so normalized that we stop recognizing it for what it is: a chronic, cumulative response to unsustainable conditions. We’ve been taught to believe burnout results from a bad boss, a busy season, or poor time management. But for many professionals, especially those from historically marginalized communities, burnout runs much deeper. It’s not just about work. It’s about how we’re allowed to work. Who we’re expected to be while doing it. And what we must sacrifice to stay employed, respected, or safe.

Burnout isn’t always about doing too much. Sometimes, it’s about being too much for systems never built with us in mind.

Burnout Lives in the Body and Builds Over Time

It’s the tight shoulders from holding your breath through another meeting where your ideas are overlooked. It’s the headaches after shrinking your truth to make others comfortable. It’s the racing heart when you speak up, because every word carries the weight of representation. The exhaustion doesn’t go away with a nap or a weekend off.

Over time, these micro-moments compound into macro-costs. We call it stress, tiredness, or “just getting through the week.” But what we’re describing is a long-term erosion of well-being caused by chronic emotional labor.

For Marginalized Professionals, Burnout Is a Systemic Issue

For Black and Brown professionals, women, LGBTQ+ folks, neurodivergent workers, and anyone who has ever been made to feel “other” in a traditional workplace, burnout isn’t just about workload. It’s about the invisible tax of trying to survive in environments not designed for you to thrive.

You're expected to:

• Work twice as hard for half the recognition.

• Code-switch to seem more “palatable.”

• Be assertive—but not too assertive.

• Carry the DEI banner and your actual job responsibilities.

• Take feedback that’s biased in disguise.

• Overachieve not just to succeed, but to feel safe.

  
  

This constant navigation is not just tiring. It's depleting.

And most of the time, it's unseen, unacknowledged, and unpaid.

Burnout as Betrayal

When you’ve spent years over-functioning to compensate for underrepresentation…When you’ve internalized the belief that rest must be earned through depletion…When you’ve silenced your intuition just to stay employed…

That’s not just burnout. That’s betrayal of self—reinforced by systems that reward the silence and penalize the truth.

What Can We Do?

Name it.

You can’t heal what you haven’t named. Burnout isn’t a personal flaw—it’s a cultural condition. Acknowledge it. Talk about it. Let yourself feel the anger, grief, and exhaustion that comes with it.

Reclaim your worth.

You are not your productivity. You are not your job title. You are not the sum of how others see you. Reclaiming your worth means setting boundaries, saying no, and redefining success on your terms.

Rest as resistance.

Rest isn’t a reward. It’s a requirement. And for people carrying multiple layers of oppression, rest is a radical act of self-preservation. Prioritize it. Protect it. Practice it.

Find your people.

Community is the antidote to erasure. Whether it’s a mentor, a group chat, a therapist, or a professional network, surround yourself with those who see you, hear you, and hold space for your whole self.

Because Healing Is the Real Work

Burnout is real, painful, and not your fault. But here’s the truth: Your healing is revolutionary. When you reclaim your voice, your value, and your vitality, you don’t just recover. You rise. You restore what systems tried to strip from you: your agency, joy, and power. And that is where real change begins.