The Trap of the Ghost

 Today I was in the car with my daughter and my nieces. The day in Montreal was completely overcast, with that familiar grey sky we know so well around here, but somehow the afternoon still felt light. We put some music on. And then that song came on —you know, the one that goes "I'm going to make you clap"— and the four of us started clapping and laughing out loud as if there were nothing more important in the entire world at that exact moment.
And for a few seconds, I was just there. Completely. Without the whirlwind in my head, without the voice questioning whether I’ll be able to build my consulting practice, without the exhaustion I’ve been carrying for months. Just me, the grey car, the girls, and a silly, perfect song. I keep it in my memory like a small treasure, because those moments have been rare over the last three years. And today I want to talk about that —about the distance that exists between knowing you want to truly live again and the real, non-linear, sometimes desperate path of returning to a healthy life after burnout.

There is something no one tells you about deep burnout: it doesn’t just steal your energy. It steals your pleasure. I used to live through music. I would hear a song and get up to dance in the kitchen without a second thought. On long car rides, it was always Spotify or my USB playlists —always music, always something that moved me inside. Now, I listen to the news on the radio. Not because I am passionate about the news, but because music asks too much of me. It asks me to feel, and sometimes I just don't have the capacity for that. The same thing happened with exercise. With food. With writing. With the desire to get up in the morning.
In 2019, when my daughter was four years old, I made a choice. I was overweight, felt far away from myself, and wanted to be healthy for her —to be able to keep up with her, to truly be present. I put on my running shoes on a Monday at 5:00 AM and I didn't stop. For a whole year, I woke up before dawn: workouts, yoga, running. Two hours every single day, in Montreal, through the Montreal winter. Facing the cold that freezes your eyelashes and dodging the patches of ice on the pavement while running. I lost thirty kilos in twelve months. But more than the weight, I found a version of myself I didn't know existed: disciplined, strong, alive. Between 2020 and 2024, I was the best version of Fabiola I have ever known. Intellectually active, physically fit, creative, present. That woman ran 10Ks, cooked with intention, wrote with passion, and got up before the sun without anyone asking her to.
And then came the collapse. It didn’t arrive all at once. It came in waves. Depression, anxiety, the accumulated exhaustion of years of carrying too much —professionally, personally, emotionally. And without realizing it, I began losing pieces of myself. First went the exercise routine. Then the pleasure in food. Then the music. Then the urge to write. It was as if someone were turning off the lights in a room, one by one, so slowly that I barely noticed until I was standing in the dark.

I don’t like to romanticize chaos, so I will be honest about what my day-to-day looks like right now. I get up. I pack my lunch. A forty-minute commute listening to the news. Work. I leave. I get home and I need thirty minutes locked away in silence because I literally cannot speak to anyone else —my social tank is completely empty. Then dinner with my husband and daughter, a bit of television, and sleep... or not sleep, because sometimes rest vanishes and reappears at 2:00 AM, leaving me the next day with that specific fog known only to those who haven’t slept well for many nights in a row. Food became merely functional. I can go an entire day without eating and not feel real hunger —and then my body demands everything all at once and I overeat. My weight has increased, and with it came a new kind of desperation I didn't expect: the desperation of comparing myself to the 2019 Fabiola who dropped thirty kilos running through the snow, and feeling like that woman belonged to an entirely different species.

And right there lies the tightest knot of all: guilt. This is what people don’t talk about enough when it comes to burnout recovery: the fiercest enemy isn’t the exhaustion. It’s the internal comparison. I compare myself to the version of me who had her shoes on at 5:00 AM and was mentally a kilometer away before even closing the front door. I compare myself to the one who ran through the Montreal winter without excuses. To the one who weighed fifty kilos and felt invincible. And that comparison paralyzes me far more than any physical fatigue ever could. Because the question I ask myself isn’t "can I start moving?" —it’s "can I ever be who I was?" And that is the trap. Because that question doesn't have an answer that sets me free. If I say yes, I pressure myself until I break. If I say no, I give up before I even try.
What I’ve learned —even if applying it is a completely different story— is that recovery from deep burnout, combined with the hormonal changes of perimenopause, is not a straight line upward. It isn't about going back. It’s about building something entirely different from a body and a mind that are no longer the same as they were in 2019. And that is not a defeat —even if some days it feels exactly like one. A nervous system that spent years in emergency mode does not reset with a week of routines. A body that lived with elevated cortisol, chronic insomnia, and anxiety needs time —far more time than an impatient mind wants to give it. And perimenopause is real. It’s not an excuse. It is a variable that quietly changes the rules of the game, without a manual, right in the middle of everything else.

There is a concept that psychologist Adam Grant popularized a few years ago: languishing. It isn’t clinical depression, though they can coexist. It isn’t happiness either. It’s that stagnant, grey middle state where you aren't miserable, but you aren't thriving. Where the day passes and you can’t say exactly what made it bad, but you can’t say what made it good either. Where the things that used to excite you now feel completely neutral. I live in that state right now. And the worst part about languishing is how incredibly quiet it is. It doesn’t trigger obvious alarm bells. It doesn't stop me from functioning —I go to work, I take care of my daughter, I keep up with the house. But inside, there is an emptiness I don’t quite know how to fill, and my attempts to fill it with routines, systems, and healthy habit lists usually last about three days before the engine stalls back into neutral.

Added to this is a concrete reality: I am building my independent consulting practice, and after four months, I have only one client on retainer. The economic uncertainty is real. The pressure of not having a steady income after years of corporate stability is real. And that mental loop —the one that mixes the drive to grow with the fear of losing the little I have— leads me straight back to bed, sleeping just to turn off the noise. I know it. I recognize it. And simply naming it is already something.

But here is the thing: today I was in that car. And when that song came on and the four of us started clapping and laughing, something shifted. Small, fragile, but real. The Fabiola who used to dance in the kitchen isn’t dead. She is just in low-power mode, waiting for better conditions to turn back on. I have medication. I have a therapist. I have my GP tracking my health closely. And I know —even if my body doesn't always execute it— what I need to do. That counts for something too. It’s not nothing.

What I am learning, very slowly, is that re-entering a healthy life after burnout looks nothing like what you imagine. It isn’t a glorious morning where you wake up with renewed energy and decide that today everything changes. It isn’t a motivational movie montage where in ninety seconds you are suddenly running under the rain with a smile. It is much quieter and far more irregular than that. It’s a Tuesday where you decide to walk for ten minutes even if you feel absolutely nothing. It’s putting music on in the car and letting whatever comes come, without forcing the joy. It’s eating something even if you aren’t hungry, because your body deserves fuel even if your head is somewhere else. It’s accepting that the thirty minutes spent locked in silence when you get home isn't selfishness —it is survival, and for now, it’s completely okay. It’s writing this post even when you aren’t entirely sure you have the right words.

If you are reading this and you recognize any part of what I am describing —the emptiness, the routine that won't start, the constant comparison to who you used to be— I want to tell you a few things I wish someone had told me: Burnout is not a failure of character. It is a physiological response from a nervous system that spent too much time on high alert. Recovery isn't a matter of willpower —it’s a matter of time, support, and the right conditions. Comparing yourself to who you were before the collapse is unfair. That version of you hadn't gone through what you have gone through. It isn’t a higher bar —it’s a completely different bar, in a different context, with a different body and a different mind. Bad days do not erase your progress. Even if you can't see it or feel it, something is reorganizing beneath the surface. The nervous system heals slower than the mind wants it to, but it heals. Asking for help is the bravest act, not the weakest. Having a therapist, medication, and a doctor guiding you isn’t giving up —it’s taking your recovery seriously. And the sparks count. That song in the car. That moment you laughed for real. That paragraph you wrote even when you didn't feel ready. They are data points. They are evidence that you are still in there.
Right now, as I write this, I don’t have it all figured out. I have days when the engine starts and days when I can’t even bear to look at it. I have a consulting practice I want to grow and a brain that sometimes refuses to cooperate. I have a body that is changing with perimenopause and no longer responds the way it did in 2019 —and I am learning, with plenty of resistance and a bit of grace, to negotiate with it instead of demanding from it.
What I do know is that I want to come back. Not to be who I was —that is neither possible nor necessary— but to be a version of myself that truly lives. Who enjoys music. Who moves because it brings her joy, not out of guilt. Who eats with pleasure. Who writes because she has something to say. Who wakes up in the morning with at least a little bit of curiosity for the day ahead. That path exists. I can’t see the whole thing yet, but today I caught a glimpse of it from the car, under the grey May sky, with a silly, perfect song. And that, for today, is enough.

Love, Fabi

Transparency Note: If you are going through burnout, depression, or anxiety, please seek professional support. This post shares my personal experience and does not constitute medical advice. Having a health team —a doctor and a therapist— made a massive difference in my process. Asking for help is valid, human, and necessary.
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