Why do I dread going back to work after vacation?
She got the job. After months of searching, after the spiral that came with not having one, she finally landed it. The kind that pays enough. The kind that uses what she knows.
And now she sits at her desk, three weeks back from a long weekend, and feels nothing close to relief.
The dread started the night before she went back. Not the usual Sunday evening weight. something heavier. It hasn’t lifted since. She thought getting the job would fix it. She thought the paycheck arriving would mean she could finally exhale. Instead, she’s wading through every hour like her brain is made of sludge.
She can’t think the way she used to. Can’t hold an idea long enough to finish it. She walks to the kitchen and forgets what she went for. Opens her laptop and stares at tasks that used to energise her. Her cognitive sharpness was the thing she relied on. Now it’s just gone.
And underneath that: she doesn’t want anything anymore. The striving stopped. No next thing to work toward. No house, no car, no version of herself she’s trying to become. Which should feel like freedom, maybe. Instead it just feels flat.
We say the vacation will fix us. We say the new job will fix us. We say once the money steadies, once the crisis passes, we’ll get back to ourselves.
And then we get there and realise we left a piece of ourselves somewhere in the months it took to survive. The sharpness dulled. The wanting went quiet. We’re still moving, still showing up, but it’s like we’re doing it from the other side of glass.
The dread of going back isn’t about the work. It’s about walking into the place where we’re supposed to be recovered now, supposed to be grateful now, and discovering we’re still just wading.
Maybe this is what happens when a body has been in survival mode so long it doesn’t remember what else to do. Maybe the brain that kept us upright through the worst of it doesn’t know how to be sharp again just because the worst part is over.
Or maybe we’re not supposed to bounce back. Maybe the thing we’re calling recovery isn’t a return. Maybe it’s something we have to build new, from here, with the pieces that are left.
She doesn’t know if her brain will come back. She doesn’t know if the wanting will. What she knows is she’s still here. Still wading. And that has to mean something, even if she can’t see it yet.
The question isn’t whether the dread will lift. It’s whether we’re willing to keep wading while it doesn’t.
Sitting with it:
What part of you went quiet when survival took over?
If the sharpness doesn’t come back the way it was, what becomes possible instead?
What does it mean to keep showing up when nothing feels the way it used to?