Most articles about the sandwich generation focus on logistics: the driving, the coordinating, the shared calendars. But the harder part is that the person you're now responsible for is the same person your nervous system still organizes around. And the old wounds don't pause just because the roles have reversed.

Someone at work drops the ball on something simple and you feel a flash of heat in your chest that's out of proportion to what just happened. You may have even talked about it in therapy. But the noticing hasn't changed the speed of the reaction, and your body still gets there before your mind can catch up.

You finally did the thing everyone told you to do. You signed up for the class, dragged yourself to the gym, moved your body. And it was awful. Not because you're weak. Because your nervous system has been holding something for a very long time, and movement woke it up.

You told yourself you weren't going to be this parent. You were going to be relaxed. Supportive. And now it's March, and you've googled "when do UC admission decisions come out" for the third time this week.

Burnout isn’t just stress. Here’s how to tell the difference and what actually helps you to start feeling better.