I was finishing my capstone paper, juggling night shifts in the psych unit, and covering two emergency cases for a coworker who had the flu. My laptop was always open—on my knees during breaks, perched on the nurses’ counter while I reheated soup, glowing beside me while I slept for short hours with earplugs in.
And somewhere in that chaos, my body began whispering its final warnings.
It started as tightness in my chest. A flutter, a pinch. I blamed caffeine. Anxiety. Lack of sleep. Then came the shortness of breath. I’d walk up a single flight of stairs and my heart would race like I’d sprinted a mile. My hands shook when I typed. My vision blurred sometimes, especially late at night.
The tiredness wasn’t the usual kind—not “I need a nap” tired. This was bone-deep. Soul-deep. Like my body was a house with the lights still on, but no electricity left in the grid.
Mark, a fellow clinician, noticed before I did. One evening after we finished a crisis assessment for a teenager who had self-harmed, he caught me leaning against the wall outside the unit, breathing unevenly.
“Liv, you okay?” he asked, brows furrowed with concern. “You don’t look good.”
I tried to laugh it off, but even that felt heavy. “Just finals week,” I said. “Once graduation’s over, I’ll sleep for a year.”
He didn’t look convinced. “Go get checked out. Seriously. You’re pale.”
I shook my head. “I just need to get through one more week. I’ll rest after.”
He opened his mouth to argue, but another emergency page pulled him away. And just like that, the moment passed. I pushed the dizziness down, shoved it under my ribs with all the other warning signs. Pretended it was nothing.
I’d gotten good at pretending.
My whole life was pretending.
Pretending I wasn’t tired. Pretending I didn’t need help. Pretending I could handle everything alone.
Meanwhile, my family buzzed louder than my health. My parents called every other night, full of excitement about graduation.
“I’ll take videos of you walking across the stage,” Mom gushed. “Everyone on Facebook will be so impressed. My daughter, the master’s graduate!”
It sounded sweet. But I knew better. It wasn’t about me. It was about them. About image. About posting pride they hadn’t earned, polishing their reputation for their tiny Pennsylvania town.
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