Burning Out for Someone Who Doesn’t Notice

Every day, I patch things up.

Emails she forgot to send. Reports she half-finished. Mistakes she didn’t even realize she made. I fix them before anyone notices. I stay late. I skip lunch. I ignore the tension in my shoulders, the dull ache in my chest, the headaches that linger from working past midnight.

Her name is Sophie, and she’s my coworker. Brilliant, charming, impossible to dislike—but oblivious to the cost of my loyalty. She never thanks me. She never notices. She just keeps relying on me.

I tell myself I’m a team player. That helping her is part of the job. That it’s normal to sacrifice a little for someone else. But the truth is simpler and uglier: I like her. I like being needed by her. I like feeling indispensable. I like her enough to make myself smaller so she can shine.

Months go by. My health deteriorates. I can’t sleep. My eyes burn from staring at spreadsheets for hours. My body aches, and I ignore it. My friends stopped inviting me out. My hobbies faded. But she smiles at me when she sees the work done, and that’s enough—or so I tell myself.

One day, my body forces me to stop. A fever knocks me out. I stay in bed for hours, thinking about deadlines I haven’t met, mistakes I haven’t corrected, projects I’ve abandoned. And then it hits me: she will keep going, just fine, without me noticing the absence.

I realize something painful: I’ve given so much of myself to protect her, and in return, I’ve lost myself. My own career is slipping. My own health is failing. My own life is disappearing.

And for what? A smile she doesn’t remember, a glance she doesn’t value, a dependency she takes for granted.

I want to step back, to reclaim my life, to stop covering for her every mistake. But guilt claws at me. She’ll struggle without me. She’ll fail without me. And part of me still wants her to notice, to appreciate, to finally see me.

But I know the truth: she won’t. And no matter how many mistakes I fix, no matter how much I give, some people will never see the cost behind your devotion.

I’m learning, painfully, that saving someone else shouldn’t destroy you.

Even if it’s Sophie.