The Overwhelm No One Sees

(Part 1 The Machine)

The overwhelm is almost impossible to explain. Most physicians are so overwhelmed that even describing it feels inadequate, like trying to explain color to someone who has never seen it. It isn’t just being busy or tired. It’s a sustained level of pressure that, over time, starts to feel irrational.

It’s a sustained level of pressure that, over time, starts to feel irrational.

Some days, I catch myself wondering if I am the irrational one. We say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. And yet, here I am, moving through a cycle I don’t quite know how to exit.

There are moments when my mind drifts in very specific ways. I imagine packing a small suitcase and disappearing somewhere remote. The Amazon, maybe. Studying medicinal plants, living close to the earth, stepping out of everything that feels relentless and overbuilt.

In those moments, I picture a life without email, without Slack, without meetings or constant messages. No license renewals or administrative weight quietly accumulating in the background. Just space, quiet, and the ability to breathe without something pulling at me.

It feels peaceful when I think about it. And at the same time, I know it isn’t an option. I have daughters in middle school and high school, and I have responsibilities I care deeply about. I have built a life that I cannot simply walk away from, even when a part of me wants to step completely outside of it.

So I stay. But something in me has started to shift. The voice is quieter now, less reactive, less frantic, but more steady than before. It’s asking a different question.

If I cannot leave my life, maybe I need to learn how to come back to myself inside it.

That’s the part no one really talks about. You can be functioning at a high level, showing up, producing, and meeting expectations, and still feel like you’re not fully there. Something essential begins to feel distant, even while everything on the outside appears intact.

At first, it’s occasional. You push through a hard day and disconnect a little, telling yourself it’s temporary. But over time, it happens more often, and eventually the absence becomes familiar.

Until one day, you realize you are functioning perfectly and barely living inside your own body.

This is where my story actually begins.