When Serving Starts to Hurt – Recognising Cognitive Overload Before We Label Ourselves Broken
- Jan 19
- 5 min read
Updated: Jan 22
Karmen Fairall is a Speech Pathologist and reflective practitioner exploring sustainable leadership, boundaries, and wellbeing in helping professions. Drawing on lived experience, faith-informed values, and professional insight, she writes to support people who serve others in demanding roles.
Late one night this week, feeling overwhelmed and trying to make sense of it all, I found myself typing a question into ChatGPT that felt heavier than I expected: What’s wrong with me? The response that came back surprised me, and yet, in hindsight, it really shouldn’t have. Rather than jumping to conclusions, it gently asked why I was asking. Then it reflected something back to me that felt uncomfortably accurate.
Based on what it already “knew”, a season of broken sleep and early motherhood demands, major business changes, high emotional stress, and an unrelenting mental load, it suggested that I wasn’t necessarily failing or malfunctioning. I was experiencing extreme cognitive load.
That sentence stopped me in my tracks.
Not because it explained everything, but because it named something I had been quietly avoiding: perhaps I wasn’t broken. Perhaps I was simply overloaded.
My husband had been saying something similar for months. But sometimes it takes a non-emotional, non-invested mirror to help us wake up to our own reality.
When life accelerates without permission
Often, it takes the extremes of life to reveal what we’ve been carrying for far too long.
The COVID-19 pandemic was one such moment. I don’t recall anyone saying, “Wow, I really could have crammed more into my days before lockdown.” Instead, many of us became aware, perhaps for the first time, of just how many small, unexamined tasks we had been squeezing into our lives without intention or alignment with our values.
I remember vowing that when life returned to “normal,” I would live more slowly and more intentionally.
And yet here I am, years later, feeling as though I’m trying to keep pace with a life that’s moving faster than ever before.
The invisible weight of cognitive load
In this season, I hold multiple roles that matter deeply to me, such as Speech Pathologist, business owner, wife, and mum to two preschool-aged boys. By nature and by profession, I am a carer, nurturer, clinician, and helper.
What’s often overlooked in these roles is the invisible mental work that underpins them, the constant planning, anticipating, remembering, organising, and decision-making that happens quietly in the background.
Research on maternal wellbeing consistently shows that this kind of cognitive or mental load falls disproportionately on mothers and is strongly associated with stress, burnout, and reduced wellbeing. International studies have demonstrated that when this invisible load increases, so too do levels of psychological strain and exhaustion, particularly in seasons of young children and disrupted sleep.
When layered with emotional responsibility and professional demands, this cognitive load compounds quickly.
The cost of high standards in serving roles
I’ve come to appreciate personality and strengths frameworks not as boxes, but as mirrors that invite greater self-understanding. According to Myers-Briggs, I’m an ISFJ. On the Enneagram, I’m a Type 1, the Reformer.
This means I’m wired not only to notice needs, but to feel a deep responsibility to address them, to do things well, ethically, and properly. I carry strong internal standards and a persistent inner drive toward improvement.
These qualities serve me well professionally. But when paired with constant cognitive load and limited recovery, they also make it difficult to slow down, because doing things well can quietly begin to matter more than being well.
For those with strong internal standards, burnout doesn’t always look like collapse. Sometimes it looks like relentless self-correction within an already overloaded system.
When serving starts to hurt
Burnout isn’t just a feeling or a buzzword. It is recognised internationally as a real occupational phenomenon. The World Health Organization defines burnout as a syndrome resulting from chronic, unmanaged workplace stress, characterised by exhaustion, mental distancing, and reduced professional effectiveness.
Helping professions, including healthcare and allied health, consistently report higher rates of burnout than many other fields. Global research indicates that prolonged emotional demand, high responsibility, and limited opportunities for recovery significantly increase vulnerability to chronic stress in these roles.
This stress doesn’t remain confined to the mind.
Prolonged activation of the stress response has well-documented physiological effects, including fatigue, immune suppression, and an increased risk of illness. Often, the body speaks when the mind refuses to listen.
In my own experience, pushing through without pause eventually led to my body enforcing a stop I hadn’t chosen. A sudden and unexpected three-day hospital stay became the moment when it was no longer possible to ignore the cost of sustained overextension.
Serving others was never the problem. Serving without limits was.
A different question to ask
Before we rush to ask what might be “wrong” with us, there is another, gentler question worth asking, "What is this season asking me to notice?"
For many helpers, clinicians, leaders, and parents, the answer isn’t another productivity tool or coping strategy. It is an honest reckoning with capacity, and a willingness to acknowledge that sustainability matters.
Two practices for overloaded helpers
Baseline practice: Audit your cognitive load, not your character
For one day, write down everything you are holding mentally, tasks, decisions, worries, and responsibilities. Not to optimise it, but to see it. Then ask:
Is this sustainable?
Is this shared?
Is this truly mine to carry right now?
Awareness often brings compassion before change.
Reaching practice: Establish one boundary that protects your body
Choose a single, non-negotiable boundary that serves your physical or emotional recovery. This might look like prioritising sleep, reducing decision-making, or stepping back from one role or commitment. Boundaries are not acts of selfishness. They are acts of stewardship, of your health, your family, and your capacity to serve well over time.
A final reflection
Perhaps the most important shift is this, moving from self-judgement to self-honesty.
Before we ask what might be wrong with us, we might instead ask, "What would it look like to pursue excellence without self-erasure, and to recognise that rest, too, is part of doing things well?"
Sometimes, the most faithful response isn’t to push harder, but to listen more closely.
Continue the conversation
I’m currently in a season of slowing down and exploring how faith, frameworks, and reflective practice can support more sustainable leadership and service, particularly in helping professions.
If this reflection resonated with you, I invite you to stay connected and follow my journey on LinkedIn, where I’ll continue to share insights as this work develops.
Read more from Karmen Fairall
Karmen Fairall, Speech Pathologist, Reflective Practitioner
Karmen Fairall is a Speech Pathologist and business owner with experience across allied health, service-based leadership, and caregiving roles. Her writing explores burnout, cognitive load, boundaries, and sustainable leadership in helping professions.
In this season, she is intentionally slowing down to reflect on how faith, frameworks, and systems can support healthier ways of serving others. Through her work, she seeks to help people lead and live with clarity, compassion, and care.
