Recovery - The Pattern Starts Early

I've burned out three times.

Three major collapses where my body and mind just... stopped.

Each time, I thought it was a one-off.

Each time, I thought "this won't happen again."

Each time, I reset and rebuilt.

And each time, I carried the same patterns with me into the next chapter.

Until January 2026, when I finally saw it.

But to understand why that time was different, you need to know the full story.

Starting with the first time I broke.

I am the oldest daughter to separated parents.

Four siblings total, two on each side.

I was the good girl.

Looked after my siblings way before I should have had that responsibility.

Quiet. Nose always in a book.

Didn't get into trouble at school aside from struggling to submit work on time.

Until I wasn't.

At 15, my "friends" - acquaintances from school - set me up with this guy.

They were all "dating" his friends and we were the last two standing. He was 24.

That should tell you everything you need to know, right?

But back then, as a teenager in 1999-2000 (yep, I'm old), it seemed perfectly acceptable.

Actually normal.

My friends were all dating his friends.

The age gaps were similar - we were 15-16, they were 19-24.

My mother knew about it. And to be honest, she couldn't say much. She was in her early 30s at the time, dating a 19-year-old.

When my new social life started interfering with being the unpaid childminder.

My mother suddenly had an issue with it.

Just after my 16th birthday, she gave me the old "while you're under my roof" speech.

Guess what? I moved out. Into the boyfriend's flat. Of course I did, right?

That's when I started drinking.

I didn't know it then, but he was an alcoholic.

We'd go drinking at the local pubs and I was never refused service.

Despite this, I finished school.

I didn't do as well as I should have - but who would, going in either hungover or still intoxicated?

I wanted to go to college. I'd always wanted to start a business.

By that point, I'd stopped cooking meals and cleaning for my dad's regulars - remember them from Post 1?

My now-25-year-old boyfriend didn't like the idea of me being in these men's houses alone. (I know. Looking back, I see all the warning signs.)

Anyway, my dream was to open a day-care centre.

We didn't have one in the area back then, so it was an open market.

But my boyfriend convinced me I couldn't attend college because he was working and he'd have to pay for it and couldn't afford to.

That was bollocks, by the way.

But I didn't know any better. So instead, I got a job at one of the many factories that employed most of the people in our village.

Making spring rolls.

Ten-hour night shifts.

Then coming home to cook, clean, and on weekends, care for his toddler daughter.

When he realized I was earning way more than he was, he quit his job and stayed home drinking.

At 17, I found out I was pregnant.

At seven months pregnant, I found out he was cheating on me.

I didn't leave.

I stupidly didn't want to be like my mother.

I wanted my child to grow up with both parents. And that's when the abuse really got going.

Psychological. Physical. Financial. (Lots of things happened, but that would turn this into a trauma dump so we'll skip it for your sake and mine).

When my daughter was born, I made her my world I threw myself into the role of mummy.

I knew how to look after kids - I'd had plenty of practice after all.

But when she was around six months old, I was struggling.

After an incident of literally crying over spilt milk, I went to my doctor and was given Prozac for Post-Natal Depression.

The next year was spent in a fog of medication and what I now know was burnout.

My baby was my priority.

And I learned to just accept everything else.

Until he threatened to hurt her.

The night everything changed. He was drunk. Again.

Had picked a fight over my family "taking over our impending wedding." (I know. I know.)

He had me cornered with the baby in my arms.

I was crouching, trying to shield her, when he pulled a kitchen knife from behind his back and pointed it at her head.

Something in me snapped.

I put her down slowly on the floor.

Picking up a hammer I'd been using to put shelving together as I did.

And I launched myself at him.

He stumbled backwards and ran from the room.

I threw the hammer at him.

It embedded itself in the wall inches from his skull as he slammed the door closed behind himself.

Reset #1: The calculated escape.

You'd think that would be the end of it, right? Wrong.

He'd been abusing me for years.

It wasn't that easy to walk away.

But now my head was clear.

I stopped taking the meds.

Formed a plan.

I got help from my dad to move us into a house owned by a family member - away from his family and friends, only my name on the tenancy.

I stopped pandering to him and started doing everything I could to keep him away from our child.

I quit my job (in a different factory by then) and convinced him that the only way we could survive would be to "lie" to the job centre and say he'd moved out.

That way they'd pay me benefits as a single mother.

I packed his stuff and sent him to his parents.

As soon as he was out the door, I told him not to come back.

Cancelled the wedding.

Used the money I could get refunded to move myself and my daughter so he wouldn't know where we were.

That was my first reset.

I was in a new relationship. My family didn't approve. This time the relationship seemed good.

He was somebody I knew from my childhood - the "bad boy next door."

Literally.

I'd grown up with him living next door.

Called his mum "auntie."

He saved my baby brother from a house fire when I was 13.

And he was only four years older than me. (I did not learn that lesson, okay?)

He'd been in trouble in his late teens, ran with the wrong crowd - or so I thought.

I couldn't understand my family's reaction, especially my mother, because she adored him.

I later found out that was part of the problem.

She liked him too much.

A few months in, I had a falling out with the "friend" I was house-sharing with.

Ended up moving into his mum's house as a temporary solution.

It was a relief to finally have people who wanted to help me care for my daughter.

I was finally starting to live a "normal" life.

I had my 21st birthday and things were looking good.

Until my now-2-year-old decided to ride her trike down a set of concrete steps in the garden.

She seemed okay.

A few bruises. Scrubbed the skin on her nose. Nothing serious.

We were packing up for a weekend of camping, so we cleaned her up and off we went.

The day we returned, we were met by the police at the door "Somebody" (my mother) had reported me for child abuse.

They'd been told my daughter was neglected and beaten.

They talked to my toddler and went away, seemingly appeased that she wasn't in fact in any danger.

But then the health visitor asked me to take her to hospital a few days later "just to get her nose checked."

It had scabbed over and she said she was concerned about infection.

Once there, social services came in.

I wasn't allowed to take her home.

I rang my mother in a panic (obviously not knowing she had made the initial report) and asked her to be temporary guardian.

I knew she would be approved, seeing as she now worked in a daycare-centre. (Talk about foreshadowing, right?)

After a year-long battle at court, I lost the fight to bring my daughter home.

Lots of contributing factors.

But it boils down to me not knowing how the system works, not having family to back me up, plus my daughter's undiagnosed autism and hEDS all adding up to her being sent to live with my paternal grandmother (My mother couldn't cope with her and tried to put her into the foster system after a month.)

That's when the second burnout hit I couldn't function.

I was drinking heavily to numb my reality.

Only cleaned myself up on days where I got to see my daughter.

Six months later, I tried to end my own life.

Reset #2: The moment I woke up.

As the pills I'd swallowed worked their way out of my system, I had a moment of realization.

If I'd been successful, my daughter would have grown up thinking I was the monster people portrayed me as.

That I didn't love her. I couldn't let that happen.

I had to sort my shit out and prove everyone wrong and be there for my baby girl when she needed me. That was my second reset.

It's not a one-time thing.

You can recover from burnout and still burn out again.

You can reset your life and still carry the same patterns into the next chapter.

You can do the work, make the changes, rebuild - and still end up back at the breaking point.

Not because you're broken. Not because you're doing it wrong.

But because burnout isn't just about what happened.

It's about the patterns you've been carrying your whole life.

The pattern of taking on too much.

The pattern of ignoring warning signs.

The pattern of proving you're strong by breaking yourself.

The pattern of resetting instead of addressing what keeps breaking you.

The pattern I didn't see yet

At 18: Carried everything (siblings, abusive relationship, baby, his drinking, factory job) → body & mind broke → escaped.

At 21: Lost my daughter, drank to cope, tried to end it → woke up → fought to be there for her.

Both times, I thought the reset was the solution.

Both times, I thought "this won't happen again."

Both times, I was wrong.

Because I was resetting my circumstances without understanding the pattern underneath.

And that pattern? I survive by carrying more than anyone should, until my body forces me to stop.

What comes next:

This is Part 1 of the recovery story. In Part 2, I'll tell you about Reset #3 - the pregnancy that changed everything, the court case that changed UK law, and the ten years of inner work I did between 2013 and 2024.

Because those ten years? They're the reason the third burnout was different.

They're the reason I finally saw the pattern.

And they're the reason I'm here now, writing this, instead of still stuck in the cycle.

1) Look back at your own burnout history How many times have you burned out?

How many times have you reset?

What pattern keeps repeating?

2) Spot the difference between resetting circumstances and changing patterns.

Resetting = changing the external situation

Changing patterns = understanding WHY you keep ending up here

3) Ask yourself: What am I carrying that isn't mine to carry?

Not just now.

What have you been carrying your whole life?

4) Notice where you learned to survive by carrying too much.

Who taught you that love means sacrifice?

Who taught you that strength means never stopping?

Who taught you that your worth depends on how much you can endure?

5) Give yourself permission to see the pattern without shame.

You're not broken because the pattern repeats.

You're human.

And now you're awake to it.

Next post in the series

Recovery Part 2: The Reset That Changed Everything

Recovery isn't linear. Burnout isn't a one-time thing. And sometimes the pattern has to repeat until you finally see it for what it is.