I don't even know what I'm hoping to get out of this, like, maybe someone else has felt this... thing. I just got home, it's almost 2 AM, and I missed my bus stop again. For the third time this week. It's the 89, it’s literally a straight shot, impossible to mess up unless you're, I don't know, basically comatose. And I was. I mean, not actually, obviously, but like, my body just decided to shut down. One minute I'm staring at the reflection of the city lights on the wet window, the next I'm jolting awake to an empty bus, the driver staring at me in his rearview mirror with that sort of long-suffering look, you know? Like, "Oh, it's *you* again." And it's always the same story. I finish a double, sometimes even a triple if Janice calls in sick, and my brain just… disconnects. Today was particularly bad. Mr. Henderson had a really rough day, his oxygen levels were all over the place, and then Mrs. Petrovskaya decided she absolutely needed her entire collection of porcelain dolls rearranged by color BEFORE her daughter got there, because apparently, the yellow ones clash with the blue ones. And then Mom called, upset that Dad forgot to take his meds AGAIN, and could I please call him and remind him? Even though I was, you know, at work. And the kids are probably still mad at me because I snapped at them this morning about leaving their shoes in the hallway. I just wanted five minutes of silence before I walked out the door, and they just... kept... talking. So I ended up like, two towns over. Again. Had to walk almost an hour in the drizzle just to get back to my neighborhood. My feet are throbbing. And the whole time I was walking, I just kept thinking, what is wrong with me? Am I just... defective? I'm 31, I should have this together. People my age are, like, buying houses and taking their kids on vacations and getting promoted. And I'm here, literally falling asleep on public transport, unable to complete a basic transit route. It feels less like exhaustion and more like some kind of cognitive dissonance, or maybe a dissociative episode? Like my brain is just opting out of reality for a bit. The thing is, I feel like I'm constantly failing someone. My patients, my parents, my kids, my boss, myself. Every single day, there's a new demand, a new crisis, and I just… react. There’s no space for anything else. And then I do something stupid like miss my stop for the third time and it’s just another brick in the wall of proof that I'm not good enough. And you can’t exactly tell anyone that, can you? Like, "Hey, I'm pretty sure my brain is slowly collapsing under the weight of sheer existence." They'd just tell you to drink more water or get more sleep. As if that's an option. And honestly, what even *is* "more sleep?" What does that feel like? I can’t remember the last time I woke up feeling, like, genuinely rested. It's always this low hum of anxiety, even in my dreams. Like I'm always on call, always waiting for the next thing. And now I have to get up in three hours to do it all again. And I'm just sitting here, staring at my phone, feeling this weird numb ache in my chest. Is this what burnout feels like? Or is it something else? Something darker? I just don't know.