I was confident, capable and completely fell apart. Here's what burnout actually looked like — and what came next.
I want to start by saying this isn't a woe-is-me story. I'm fine. More than fine, actually. But I do think burnout is one of those things that sounds like a buzzword until it happens to you — and then it's the most disorienting, frightening and frankly bewildering experience of your life. So I'm going to tell you what it actually felt like. Because I wish someone had told me.
I was 33. I'd just become the first hire to head up a new department at work — which sounds exciting, and it was, but it also meant there was no team, no infrastructure and no playbook. Just me, back to back meetings, hundreds of emails a day and an overwhelming need to prove I could handle it. I said yes to everything. I set up everything. I was the first in and rarely the first out.
What I was not doing: eating properly. Exercising. Switching off. I'd go long stretches forgetting to eat entirely — not intentionally, just genuinely absorbed — and get home too wired and too tired to make a proper dinner. I stopped moving my body. I was entirely in my head and completely disconnected from everything else.
I didn't notice any of this at the time. That's probably the most important thing to know about burnout. You don't see it coming.
The Starbucks I couldn't walk to
I'd just had a lovely long weekend in the countryside with my family. It was a sunny Monday. I had the rest of the day off. I was changing trains on the way back to London when I spotted a Starbucks across the station and thought I'd get a drink.
I couldn't get up from the waiting room chair.
Not because I was tired. Because I was genuinely afraid that if I stood up, I might faint. My heart was racing. I kept searching my brain — what is wrong? Why do I feel panicky? I'd just had a wonderful few days. The sun was out. There was nothing to worry about. I just didn't recognise how I felt.
I got home and thought it would pass. I had a bath — that would fix it. It didn't. I put on familiar, comforting TV. Podcasts. Temporary distraction, then the adrenaline would creep back. The feeling didn't stop. I quit caffeine on the spot, had a herbal tea, went to bed early and told myself I'd feel better in the morning. Maybe it was hormones.
I slept terribly. I woke up feeling exactly the same. I called the doctor at 8am.
It's chemical, not character
When I finally got through and explained how I was feeling, I burst into tears on the phone to the receptionist. A doctor called me back and walked through it all — was I stressed? Did I have a demanding job? Was I eating? How many hours a day on a screen? Was I exercising?
She was calm and kind and then she said: you have burnout.
I didn't know what that was. I told her I was a confident person and couldn't understand the anxiety. She said something I think about often: it has nothing to do with personality. Your nervous system is in overdrive. It's chemical, not character — intense stress and cortisol, and your body needs to recover. More on stress and adaptogens.
I naively thought: right, a couple of days and I'll be fine.
I had bloods done and was prescribed Sertraline. I called in sick, spoke to my sister — a clinical psychologist and an absolute saint — and told myself I'd be back in tomorrow.
I wasn't back in tomorrow.
The tube, the panic attack and the lift I couldn't get into
The next morning I got on the tube — after over ten years of living in London, a journey I'd done hundreds of times — and I couldn't do it. Rising panic. Shortness of breath. A genuine fear of fainting. I got off and walked the remaining 40 minutes to the office. I lasted an hour before I went home. I couldn't face the tube so I got an Uber and had a panic attack in the back seat. My sister talked to me the whole way.
When I got home I didn't leave the house. My anxiety had become debilitating — which I now understand was the medication, which makes things worse before they get better, which is a particularly brutal thing to experience when you don't know that's what's happening. I couldn't get in the lift in my building. I was terrified that if I went anywhere I'd faint.
My mum came to London to get me and take me home to Norwich. There was no way I could have got there on my own.
I was signed off work and spent three weeks largely in bed. Completely exhausted and completely terrified that I was broken and would never be able to return to my flat or my life. I did every meditation app. I did every Google search about how to stop anxiety. I had all the herbal teas. I was a shell I didn't recognise. It took over two months before I returned to London.
I couldn't even watch The Traitors because it made my anxiety worse. I mean. That felt like a new low.
I stayed safe with nature documentaries. Heal on Prime — genuinely incredible, watch it. And then Fantastic Fungi.
The documentary that changed everything
I couldn't believe what I was watching. The science. The history. The beauty. The sheer worldly intelligence of something most of us only think about in a bad risotto.
The more I researched, the more fascinated I became. I started looking into functional mushrooms — Lion's Mane, traditionally associated with focus, Chaga with wellbeing, Cordyceps with energy — and became increasingly frustrated that every product I found was either overcomplicated, overpriced, or full of ingredients I didn't want. Mushroom coffees with added caffeine. Gummies with sugar. Blends that didn't tell you how much of anything was in them.
I wanted something simple. One ingredient I could add to whatever I was already drinking. No new routine. No weird flavours. No caffeine. Just the good stuff, at a dose that actually made sense.
It didn't exist. So I decided to make it.
The mycology diploma and three years of testing
I completed a mycology diploma. I spoke to industry experts. I worked with an award-winning UK supplier and spent three years testing, adjusting and refining the formula until it was something I genuinely wanted to take every single morning — something I could add to my coffee, matcha, smoothie or yoghurt bowl without thinking about it. Something I'd actually take every day.
MOTHERFUNGI® was born. And I'd never been more certain about anything.
Burnout is more common than anyone talks about
When I was in those weeks in Norwich, I felt uniquely broken. Like something had gone wrong in me specifically. I was embarrassed, confused and convinced I was the only person who had somehow collapsed under the pressure of a job I'd chosen and wanted.
I wasn't. According to the Health and Safety Executive, 964,000 workers in Great Britain were suffering from work-related stress, depression or anxiety in 2024/25, and it accounted for over half of all work-related ill health. Read the HSE report.
It has nothing to do with how capable you are. It has nothing to do with your personality. Your nervous system isn't a moral failing. It's a system that can be pushed past its limits — and when it is, it will tell you.
Mine told me at a train station, in front of a Starbucks I couldn't walk to.
I'm glad it did.
Georgie x