An act of refusal

During my last morning briefing, I stood in front of the staff and cried. No composed delivery, no careful framing. Just the truth of it: that I was an emotional wreck, that I was deeply grateful, that they had shown me something about care and belonging I would carry with me. My body knew before my mind did. It knew the only way to leave was honestly.

I had been in that school for four years. Good years, in many ways. Years of real work, genuine relationships and deep learning. But they were also years in which I was quietly re-enacting a much older pattern: carrying more than my share, filling gaps that were never really mine to close and measuring my worth by how steadily I could hold things together.

The institution did not create that pattern in me. But it recognised it. And, in ways I could not fully see at the time, it rewarded it.

That was the harder truth. What I eventually called misalignment was not mainly about strategy, culture, or leadership style. It was about recognising how easily a system could attach itself to an older script in me. Be steady. Be competent. It’s risky to make mistakes. Do not ask too much. Do not rest. Carry more than your share and call it service.

I stayed in the profession longer than I should have, not because I lacked clarity, but because I kept reframing the cost. There is a particular self-deception available to people who are good at over-carrying…it can feel principled for a very long time. It can look like loyalty. It can sound like care. It can even be praised as strong leadership.

That is what I keep turning over now. How easily over-functioning can be moralised. How readily self-sacrifice can be absorbed into the language of commitment. How some systems do not simply tolerate these patterns, but quietly depend on them.

So leaving was not just a transition. It had to become an act of refusal. In the end, it was also the most radical act of self-care I had ever made.

Not simply moving on, but saying: I will not keep working in ways that require me to rehearse patterns I have spent years trying to unlearn. I will not let over-functioning be mistaken for leadership. I will not keep confusing self-sacrifice with service.

That morning did not offer a neat resolution. I am still learning what it means to leave one pattern without rebuilding another in its place. But it gave me something clearer that I could finally see. Not only what I was leaving, but what I was no longer willing to be.

What I have been sitting with now is this: how much earlier could I have named it? What made it so hard to tell the difference between responsibility and over-responsibility?