You're Not Failing at Love — Your Nervous System Is Just Stuck at Work

Real talk: You spent twelve hours holding a patient's hand through their worst day. You translated complex diagnoses into digestible language for terrified families. You regulated everyone's emotions while your own got shoved into a box labeled "deal with later."

You were a relational genius all shift long.

Then you walked through your front door, and your partner said, "Hey, how was your day?" — and you either snapped at them or gave them absolutely nothing.

And now you're lying in bed wondering what kind of monster has compassion for dying strangers but can't muster basic kindness for the person who chose to build a life with them.

Sweet soul, let me stop you right there.

You're not a monster. You're not failing at love. Your nervous system is still at work — and nobody ever taught you how to bring it home.

The Relational Theft Nobody Talks About

Here's what's actually happening: The healthcare system is extracting your relational capacity in bulk during your shift. Every time you regulate a patient's fear, translate medical jargon for anxious families, or hold space for someone's grief — you're using finite emotional resources.

And then you clock out, and everyone acts like you should just magically refill.

But that's not how nervous systems work.

Dr. Emily Nagoski's research on stress cycles explains this perfectly. When you experience stress — and healthcare work is chronic, unrelenting, traumatic stress — your body goes through a complete physiological cycle. It activates, it responds, and then it needs to complete.

Except you never get to complete the cycle.

You go from one crisis to the next. From one impossible decision to another charting requirement. From one emotional labor task to the next meeting where you're expected to smile and nod. Your nervous system is revving at 8,000 RPMs all day — and then you walk in your front door and your family expects you to just be... normal.

That's not a reasonable ask. That's a setup for relational failure.

This podcast is for women healers over 50 navigating burnout and compassion fatigue who want nervous-system-informed insight into exhaustion, cognitive fog, identity loss, purpose erosion, and embodied recovery so they can move from survival into clarity, stability, and restoration.

Because what you're experiencing isn't a personality flaw. It's a predictable nervous system response to workplace-induced trauma that nobody warned you about.

When the Floating Head Comes Home

You know that dissociative state I call the Floating Head of Competence? That hyper-capable, completely disconnected-from-your-body survival mode that gets you through your shift?

Yeah. She doesn't clock out when you do.

The Floating Head can perform brilliantly at work. She can make critical decisions, manage chaos, and appear completely fine while everything is burning. But she absolutely cannot do intimacy.

She can't be vulnerable. She can't tolerate other people's emotional needs. She can't receive love or offer it in any embodied way — because she's still in protection mode.

So when your partner reaches for you, or your adult kids want to process something with you, or your best friend needs you to actually listen instead of just problem-solve — the Floating Head either shuts down or lashes out.

And then you feel like a failure. Because how can you have so much capacity for patients and none for your own people?

Friend, you're not a failure. You're dissociated. And the dissociation that protects you at work is destroying you at home.

Sacred Resentment Is Trying to Save You

Let's talk about that sharp, hot feeling you get when someone you love asks you for one more thing.

When your partner wants to talk about their day. When your kids expect you to manage their emotions. When your friends assume you'll show up for another event.

That rage that flashes through your chest? That's not you being selfish or broken.

That's sacred resentment — and it's your nervous system's last-ditch effort to protect you from complete collapse.

Your resentment is information. It's telling you that your relational tank is empty and everyone keeps trying to make withdrawals. It's screaming that the current dynamic is unsustainable.

And instead of honoring that information, most of us suppress it. We tell ourselves we should be more patient, more loving, more available. We gaslight ourselves into believing that good women don't feel rage when their loved ones need them.

No. Your resentment is sacred data. It's your body telling you something critical about your capacity and your limits.

The question isn't "how do I get rid of this resentment?" The question is "what is this resentment trying to protect?"

And usually? It's protecting you from giving more than you have. From performing emotional labor you're not actually capable of in this moment. From pretending you're fine when you're absolutely not.

If you're recognizing yourself in this — if you're seeing how burnout has been quietly dismantling your relationships while you blamed yourself — I want you to know there's a roadmap out. In Pursuit of Soul Joy: A 12-Week Guide for Overcoming Burnout and Compassion Fatigue walks you through exactly how to read your resentment as data instead of proof that you're a terrible person. Week 5 specifically addresses this — and it's available right now on Amazon and at juliemerrimanphd.com.

Three Practices That Actually Work

Alright, let's get practical. Here are three things you can start doing today to restore your relational capacity without re-depleting yourself.

First: Complete the stress cycle before you walk in the door. And I don't mean mentally process your day — I mean physically discharge it. Sit in your car for five minutes and shake. Literally shake your whole body. Start with your hands, move to your arms, then your shoulders, then your whole torso. Make noise if you need to. This isn't pretty or dignified. This is primal nervous system work. You're telling your body: that was then, this is now, we're safe to come home.

Second: Name your relational capacity out loud. Stop pretending you're fine when you're running on fumes. When you walk in and someone needs something, practice saying, "I have about twenty percent to give right now. I need thirty minutes to land, and then I can be more present." This isn't cruel. This is honest. And it gives the people you love actual information instead of making them guess why you're distant or irritable. Most of the time, people aren't hurt by our limits — they're hurt by the silent withdrawal when we pretend we don't have limits.

Third: Micro-moments of reconnection. You don't need hours to repair a relationship. You need intentional micro-moments. A genuine hug that lasts eight seconds. Eye contact while your partner is talking. Putting your phone down completely for five minutes of conversation. These tiny, embodied moments of presence do more for your relationships than grand gestures you don't have the energy for.

You Can Come Back

Sweet soul, I need you to hear this: Your relationships aren't failing because you don't love enough. They're struggling because compassion fatigue stole your capacity to be present — and the healthcare system never warned you this would happen.

But here's what I know for sure: You didn't survive everything you've survived just to lose the people who matter most.

You can come back. You can rebuild connection. You can be both boundaried and loving, both protective of your energy and emotionally available to your people.

It just takes different tools than the ones they taught you.

Weeks 4, 6, and 8 in In Pursuit of Soul Joy give you the exact framework for relational restoration that doesn't require you to sacrifice your own recovery. Because you can heal your relationships and heal yourself — but you need practices that honor both. The book is waiting for you the link is in the header above.

The people you love are waiting for you to come back. And you deserve a roadmap that doesn't ask you to disappear again to show up for them.

Let's get you those tools while that knowing is still fresh.