Exceptional at functioning. Quietly falling apart.

We all have bad days.

Sometimes they’re the annoying kind. A chaotic start feeds into traffic, then spilled coffee, tech issues, and then a “no thanks” from a promising client. It’s a dozen small frustrations stacked on top of each other until our patience eventually loses the battle.

And then there are the really bad days. The phone call from the doctor. The breakup. A car accident. Lost job. 1000 rejections.

A friend called me crying this week. She told me she has applied for more than 1000 jobs in the last two years and still cannot get anyone to give her an opportunity. That’s 10 applications a week for 2 years!

And she’s one of the most resilient people I know. I could feel her pain on the other side of the phone, opening up to admit a level of shame and plenty of disappointment in herself and the world around her. It made me wonder how many other people are out there going through something like this. Because it’s clear to see that so many of us have become exceptional at functioning while silently deteriorating.

We still show up with a smile, doing our best to parent or put on a brave face. We carry the weight externally but internally we’re exhausted, scared, or just begging for an opportunity.

Modern advice.

A lot of modern resilience advice often misses the reality of this silent deterioration. We’re constantly trying to optimize for success in some way. We try cold plunges, waking up at 5am, journals, practicing gratitude. These can be quite useful (I talk about them myself!), but eventually that inspiration will deplete when we find ourselves swimming upstream in a river that never stops pounding us.

When I think about the best bits of modern resilience, it feels closer to an internal battle that no one else sees. It’s like trying again after life has humbled us for the fiftieth time and no one else noticed. Or applying for another job after rejection number 1000. It looks like crying on the phone for 20 minutes and then somehow continuing anyway.

That stuff deserves more respect than we give it. My friend wasn’t looking for me to give her advice. She just needed somewhere safe to stop performing strength for a moment. She needed a place where she could be a bit vulnerable.

The real power in vulnerability.

Sometimes we misunderstand vulnerability as some kind of weakness, but it’s actually the opposite. It’s often the moment we finally stop carrying pain alone and that is the moment we show real strength.

There’s a scene at the end of 8 Mile where Eminem’s character, B-Rabbit, steps into the final rap battle knowing his opponent is about to roast him. He knows that the other guy is going to expose every flaw, insecurity, and failure he has.

So he does something brilliant. He goes first.

He lays it all out in the open with a magnificent freestyle delivery of his own failures, his own downfalls, his own pathetic life. The trailer park, the struggles, the embarrassment, every shortcoming comes out.

By doing that, he leans in more than anyone else expected, and that immediately helps to remove the grip that these issues have over him. His shame loses power.

Shame can be a horrible thing. It can make us feel all sorts of heavy emotions and reduce us to feeling like we’re not enough. But that’s when we might want to lean in. When we stop hiding from our reality, we stop giving it complete control over us.

Note that this doesn’t erase the pain entirely and we still have to face reality. The job market is still going to be brutal afterwards. And we still might be scared, burnt out, financially stretched and emotionally exhausted.

But at least we’ll be lighter, and that allows us some space. Maybe resilience is telling the truth about how hard things are… and continuing to move forward anyway. It was great that my friend called. It as her step forward to stop mistaking emotional suppression for strength. It felt like she was revealing what’s really behind those perfect LinkedIn posts and was brave enough to admit that life is bloody hard sometimes.

Instead of the usual tools today, I thought I’d focus on a few anchors.

1. Stop carrying it alone.

   One of the biggest lies we wrestle with is that we should be able to handle this by ourselves. But that emotional isolation can actually magnify our suffering. Our nervous system isn’t designed to carry prolonged stress without some sort of connection. That’s why simply talking honestly to someone safe can reduce emotional load. It interrupts the nervous system’s stress response. We need to try and stay connected while moving through difficulty. Instead of saying “I’m fine” we can tell one trusted person what we’re dealing with.

2. Shrink the timeline

   We overwhelm ourselves by trying to solve everything while we’re emotionally exhausted. When we’ve faced repeated rejection, uncertainty, or burnout, the brain naturally catastrophizes. We start wondering if this will ever change which can add more pressure on our nervous system. Resilient people often survive difficult seasons by narrowing the focus to what’s important now. What’s the next right step? Just one small move. It could be reaching out to someone. It could be taking a walk.

3. Failed vs failure.

   This is big. We must be careful not to confuse the circumstances with our identity. Repeated rejection has a dangerous way of becoming personal, so there is real risk in tagging that moment to a greater sense of worth. A missed job application doesn’t mean that we’re worthless. It means that it wasn’t a good fit. We are NOT failures. I worry about this one more because people who internalize every setback often start speaking to themselves with incredible cruelty. Rejection should never define our worth. We are just going through a difficult season. That language reframe can really make a difference.

I don’t have a magical solution for my friend, but she also didn’t need one. She just needed to open up a little and share what’s really happening behind the scenes. Sometimes the strongest thing we can do is stop pretending we’re okay when we’re not.

Until next time friends, keep moving forward. I see you.

Carré at Resilient Minds

PS - Sometimes the strongest people are the ones struggling most silently. If this made you think of someone, check in on them.