ALL
MY FRIENDS
ARE TIRED 

The Weight of Shared Fatigue 

von Raja Löbbe

I learned from a very young age to break my boundaries. Well, at least to bend them. All to make other people feel good. It’s difficult to unlearn that. I also learned from a very young age that I have to earn the space I take up, or even better, to take up the least space possible. It’s difficult to unlearn that, too. The instinct to prioritize others often overshadows my own needs, creating a cycle I am spiraling in. The belief of not being deserving of space gets reinforced by societal expectations and personal experiences almost every day, shaping how I interact with those around me. A cycle I have been repeating over and over again to this day, where I tend to negotiate my deservingness of space through the care I can give.  

Holding your hand makes me feel warm when you grab mine; but I could throw up thinking about taking yours.  

Highlighting the paradox struggle between wanting connection and fearing rejection. In this essay, I want to explore this negotiation of space, as well as care-burnout resulting from it. I use my personal relationships (of any kind) as a starting point —shaped by queerness, mental illness, and neurodivergence. Through this lens, I also look into how personal background and communication influence our understanding of care and our capacity for caring.

#1 

Dynamics of care are complicated by intersectionality — how aspects of identity such as race, gender, and socioeconomic status intersect to shape individual experiences. These dynamics are shown not only in intimate relationships but also in broader social contexts where support systems are often unequally distributed on too little shoulders. As a queer person with mental health issues, I’ve often felt pressure to provide emotional support within a community while  simultaneously grappling with systemic inequalities that affect access to resources. Our identity is deeply woven into how we experience care,  how we define it or what we might need from it. In her text „Capitalocene, Waste, Race, and  Gender“, Françoise Vergès offers an analysis considering mainly race, socioeconomic status and a female experience.¹ My perspective (and this essay) is shaped by my identity — being a queer, autistic, nonbinary (raised female) individual sculpts my narrative as it sculpts my relationships and every other aspect of my life. 

#2 

When people talk about care, for many, the first thing coming to mind is parents caring for children. Or maybe children caring for elderly parents. Maybe care-facilities for disabled people or saying  „I care for you“ to someone you love. We think about domestic labour — cleaning, cooking, childcare. In German, there are different words for different kinds of care — the language in this case being more precise than English. We say Fürsorge, Selbstsorge, kollektive (Für-)sorge,  Sorgearbeit, Umsorgen. Distinctions, highlighting the multifaceted nature of care and its various expressions in our lives. 

I write this considering a broader understanding of care relating to feminist theorists Berenice Fisher and Joan Tronto.² I understand everything as care that is necessary to maintain and improve reality in a way that fosters a good quality of life. Therefore, I think care can be many things — from making a partner breakfast to listening to problems of a friend; helping someone find a therapist; planning a vacation for someone; trying out new pronouns; picking your trans friend up after their mastectomy; being kind and reassuring when a chronically ill friend cancels your walk; sending messages like „I was just thinking of you, hope you are okay. No need to answer“. Care can be as small as a hug or no hug, as asking a question or saying nothing. Care for an individual just as much as care for a community.

#3 

Understanding care in such a broad way while negotiating my own worthiness by caring leads me to care more for others than myself. I often feel defeated by this imbalance, but am apparently still willing to give more than I actually can — a cycle that feeds into feelings of not being enough when I’m unable to meet others needs fully. This dynamic creates an internal conflict where the desire for connection clashes with the fear of rejection: What if they never ask for my care again, if I communicate a boundary right now? A fear rooted in past experiences that shape how I perceive love and support today. 

I entangle myself in physical and metaphorical  spaces, leaving more room for the people around me than for myself. I end every conversation with “call me if you need something.” When my partner calls her boyfriend for support instead of me, I am very quick to think she doesn’t like me anymore.  

Manchmal rennst du vor mir weg weil das  dein Muster ist und ich vielleicht clingy bin. And all I wanna do is scream at you „Was brauchst du? Was kann ich tun?“  

Not just a longing for intimacy, but also the deep-seated fear of being abandoned in vulnerable moments — a fear that, if ignored, can leave me spiraling for days. 

#4 

I’m in the middle of a depressive episode while  writing this essay. In times of depression, I struggle very badly with leaving the house so (as much as I hate admitting it) I sometimes depend on the people around me to have time for me. My friend canceled our walk today and I started thinking about this essay. Originally I wanted to write about a queer perspective on care — weaving networks of care —focusing on rethinking care practices. However, what I started writing was an exploration of burnout and space. 

If I had to broadly characterize the people around me and identify what connects them, I would use the terms queer, therapy, and FLINTA*. We are understanding, good at communicating, forgiving and caring. We have gone to therapy, most of us for years, and learned to prioritize and communicate our own needs. But we still find ourselves caught in cycles where we overextend ourselves emotionally. Most of us still spend our time caring for others: partners, shared living, community spaces, explaining sensitive language to the dudes in our collectives. But in our little bubble, we are all sensitive to the care work we all do. We respect each other’s boundaries, we check in with each other about our capacity for emotional labor before diving into deeper conversations about our struggles.  

This offers space, space to communicate what we actually need, space to cancel a walk. All my friends are tired (I am too) and in our little circle there is finally room to express that tiredness, to confess into the exhaustion, to take time for ourselves too. 

„hey du, mir geht‘s heut psychisch überhaupt nicht gut und ich fühl mich nicht so nach menschlichem kontakt - wärs okay wenn wir das verschieben?“ „klar! sag bescheid wenn du was brauchst!“ 

We collectively address care burnout by normalizing the need for breaks, encouraging each other to prioritize self-care without guilt. We’ve learned that sometimes just being present, sending supportive messages or sharing memes, can be enough. 

#5  

My tendency to depend my self-worth on my caring for others, while creating a safe space for others who not always care for me (and I mean that in the kindest way possible), makes me angry sometimes. Not angry at them, but angry at  myself and a little helpless too. 

Dauernd sagen wir Verabredungen ab, weil wir auf uns selber achten: “mir fehlen da grade die Kapazitäten” oder “mir gehts nicht gut und ich fühl mich nicht nach Menschen”. Ich würde jederzeit um 3 Uhr nachts für dich ans Handy gehen, aber über die Weser fahren, um dich zu sehen, überfordert mich schon an meinen guten Tagen.
Wenn ich meinen fellow autistic Mitbewohner frage, ob er den Müll rausbringen kann (seinen Teil des Putzplans erledigen) because i am very overwhelmed by the smell, sagt er “ich schaffe das sensorisch diese Woche nicht” und ich weiß nicht, was ich dazu sagen soll, weil ich gelernt habe, sensibel für die Grenzen anderer zu sein. Sensibel meinen Grenzen gegenüber bin ich dabei aber nicht.    

My caring and my anger and everything all together lead to my own care burnout. I am so busy caring for others and fighting against those who don’t care that there’s not much space left for self-care. My 10 years in therapy gave me all the skills and words needed to prioritize myself but I still tell myself it’s more important to care for everything else. 

#6 

Now you could argue that implementing self-care practices might be the solution to all this. But from Audre Lordes’ understanding of self-care to what I find when searching „#selfcare“ on Instagram today – a lot has changed. Nowadays self-care functions as self-optimizing. When I search for #selfcare on Instagram I mainly see white thin cis hetero women applying facemasks, making to-do-lists, spring-cleaning, hopping on tread mills, getting their „summer body“ ready or going away for a „wellness weekend“. What I see isn’t self-care as resilience but committing even more to neoliberal capitalism: buying stuff, enhancing performance, living privilege. 

The mental health industry has also jumped on the self-care train: offering apps and subscription services, promising improved well-being through guided meditations or therapy sessions. While these resources may be beneficial they often come at costs excluding marginalized individuals who may not have the financial means to access them. This commercialization risks reducing mental health care into transactional experiences rather than investing in support systems within communities. Sarah Ahmed writes on her blog feministkilljoys:  

„Audre Lorde offers a powerful critique of  how happiness becomes a narrative of self care.“³ 

Referring to one of Audre Lordes’ most famous quotes:  

“Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.”⁴ 

I view using self-care as an optimizing mechanism as possibly harmful. By doing that, we ignore deeper issues leading to needing self-care in the first place: Systemic oppression, patriarchy, the complexities of individual experiences. What can self-care practices look like if understood as an act of forming resilience, survival mechanisms, political resistance in our current society? 

#7 

Navigating the complexities of care within personal relationships, requires us not only recognizing our own needs, but also those around us. A delicate balance shaped by identity and circumstances that often leads us into cycles of anger and burnout when neglected. It could be essential that we create environments where vulnerability is met with compassion rather than judgment – a collective effort towards healing both ourselves and each other, including shared experiences with burnout and exhaustion. By redefining self-care not merely as an individual pursuit of happiness, but as an act rooted in resilience and warfare, we can start transforming our relationships with ourselves and each other into spaces where everyone feels valued. Embracing both anger and vulnerability allows us being understanding towards ourselves and others, potentially paving a way toward healthier dynamics built on mutual respect and understanding. Cultivating genuine selfcare practices becomes braided into creating pathways toward resilience not just individually but collectively. 

¹Vergès, Françoise (2019). Capitalocene, Waste, Race, and Gender. In: e-flux journal, Issue #100, Mai 2019 

²Tronto, Joan C. / Fisher, Berenice (1990). Toward a Feminist Theory of Caring. In: Abel, Emily K. / Nelson, Margaret K. (Hg.): Circles of Care. Work and Identity in Women’s Lives. Albany; SUNY Press, 36-54 

³Ahmed, Sara (2014). Self-Care as Warfare. Abgerufen von  https://feministkilljoys.com/2014/08/25/selfcare-as-war fare/comment-page-1/ am 22.03.2025 

⁴Lorde, Audre (1988). A Burst of Light, Essays. London; Sheba Feminist Publishers.