When I scroll through social media and see all these posts about the teachers on strike, my heart aches. Not just because I understand their fight, but because I’ve lived it.
What they are advocating for? Smaller class sizes, more support, better resources. Those were the same things I desperately needed years ago when I was a teacher. They were the things I needed to stay well, to stay present, to stay human.
Because before I ever became a therapist, I burned out as a teacher.
And it wasn’t just “I’m tired” burnout. It was nervous-system collapse burnout. The kind where your body and brain stop recognizing safety, joy, or rest. The kind where you cry every night, dread Sundays, and forget what it feels like to care.
When Passion Turns into Survival Mode
I had a classroom full of children. Many of them struggling with trauma, neurodivergence, or complex emotional needs. Every day was an act of triage.
One student would throw things or try to kick down the door. Sometimes, our school would go into “hold and secure” and my class couldn’t go to gym or music because it wasn’t safe to walk the halls. There went a third of my weekly prep time.
Meanwhile, all the educational assistants were tied up in crisis management, leaving students in my class (some reading at a grade one level in grade four) without the support they desperately needed.
I tried to make up for the gaps with my own effort. More planning. More meetings. More collaboration. More heart.
But the more I gave, the more depleted I became.
(And this was all before the new curriculum, and there’s still no time, no training, no resources. Just another layer of pressure.)
The system expects teachers to do it all, perfectly, endlessly, with less support each year. Every year the number of students grows, but the schools don’t. Too few new schools are built. Too few portables are approved.
And for someone who prided herself on doing a good job, on caring deeply, it was devastating.
I’d wake up anxious, cry on the way to work, and come home too numb to parent my own kids. One morning, my husband came downstairs to find me sobbing before school. He looked at my children and asked, “Who broke Mommy?”
That question has stayed with me ever since. Because it was true. I was broken.
Not by a single event, but by a system that demanded compassion while offering none.
The Biology of Burnout: What Happens Inside
At the time, I didn’t have the words to describe what was happening to me. But now, after studying and researching stress and the nervous system, I understand exactly what was going on inside my body.
When we experience stress, the brain’s hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activates, flooding the body with cortisol to help us cope. In short bursts, this stress response is adaptive. It gives us the focus and energy to manage challenges.
But when that system stays activated too long, when every day feels like a crisis, it begins to break down.
Prolonged stress dysregulates the HPA axis, keeping cortisol levels high and the body stuck in fight-or-flight. Over time, this can lead to anxiety, depression, exhaustion, emotional detachment, and physical illness.
In other words: burnout isn’t a mindset problem, it’s a biological injury.
Research shows that chronic stress literally changes brain structure, weakening the prefrontal cortex (which manages decision-making and emotional regulation) and over-activating the amygdala (the brain’s fear center). The result? You can’t focus, you’re irritable, and you feel detached from the very work that once gave you purpose.
This isn’t weakness.
This is neurobiology.
Teachers Are Not Broken — The System Is
Teacher burnout has reached crisis levels across Canada. According to Statistics Canada (2023), stress-related absences and early retirements are at an all-time high. In my own research, I found that helping professionals, especially teachers, nurses, and counsellors, are at the highest risk for burnout precisely because they care so much.
They are trained to manage emotions, maintain empathy, and keep showing up even when it costs them their health.
But empathy isn’t infinite. Compassion is a renewable resource only if we have the space to recover.
When teachers are asked to hold emotional labour without rest, it doesn’t just impact their wellbeing, it affects students too. Studies show that teacher burnout leads to higher student stress, lower academic engagement, and less emotional connection in classrooms.
The cost isn’t just professional — it’s human.
Rest as Resistance: Redefining Strength
I used to think quitting meant I failed. That leaving meant I wasn’t strong enough to handle the job.
Now I understand that stepping away was an act of self-preservation. The first boundary I’d set in years.
The truth is, we can’t “mindset” our way out of systemic burnout. We need collective regulation, not individual resilience. We need school systems that understand nervous systems.
So when teachers strike, they’re not being defiant. They’re being biological.
They’re saying: We can’t live like this anymore.
Burnout isn’t rebellion. It’s the body’s alarm system. A physiological plea for rest, balance, and humanity.
And maybe, just maybe, this strike is a collective act of healing. A reminder that caring for others should never mean breaking ourselves.
If You’re a Teacher Reading This
Please know:
You are not weak for feeling overwhelmed.
You are not broken for needing help.
You are a human being navigating an inhuman system.
Take a breath.
You do not have to earn rest.
Your nervous system deserves recovery. Not because you’ve done enough, but because you are enough.
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