The Kind of Burnout No One Talks About

Burnout part 1: Why high-functioning people on the frontlines are exhausted in a different way

I used to think burnout would feel louder. Collapse, tears, or not being able to get out of bed; something you could point to and say, that’s it, that’s the problem.

Instead, it felt more like being slightly out of focus in my own life.

From the outside, everything looked sharp. I was traveling constantly, moving between airports and field sites. I was spending my days with wild animals, working as a wildlife photographer for magazines like National Geographic. It’s the kind of job people repeat back to you slowly, as if tasting it. National. Geographic. Usually followed by, “That’s the coolest job ever.”

And it is. But I remember standing in places I had once fantasized about, watching rare animals move through landscapes most people never get to see, and feeling oddly absent, like I was there, but not quite inside myself. Like I was witnessing my own life instead of inhabiting it.

It didn’t feel dramatic. It felt normal, busy, full, slightly overwhelming, slightly numbing, the kind of state you slip into without noticing, especially when everyone around you keeps telling you how lucky you are.

Over time, I stopped noticing how little space there was in my life. No real home, no consistent community, no unstructured time, no sense of internal rhythm. I didn’t know where I belonged, geographically or emotionally. I was always in motion, always producing, always saying yes, always thinking about what was next. I didn’t know who I was without a camera in my hands, or how to be unless I was performing some version of “Nat Geo Photographer.”

From the outside, I looked fearless, adventurous, tenacious.

From the inside, my body felt tired, and flat, and strangely far away from itself.