She is at the point where she has a work-related breakdown at least once per week, and wants to quit her job. If that’s what it takes for her to get better I am completely fine with it, but I can’t help but think that this would happen in any job, because:

1. She wants to work the exact hours listed in her contract, without counting breaks of any kind so she effectively works more than 8 hours per day. She doesn’t want to cheat her employer, despite knowing about wage theft.

2. She doesn’t want to inconvenience anyone, so she consents to doing things that are too much for her. The biggest offender here are the work trips, she is very introverted and socialization tires her out, especially considering that she fakes her facial expressions and the way she speaks in order to fit in, so having to do that for 4 consecutive days with her coworkers is really taxing for her. Despite that, she goes anyways, because she doesn’t want to inconvenience her manager and coworkers and comes back in a worse state than before she left. This also applies to working on things she doesn’t like, which might have been avoided if she tried speaking to her manager (who is a pretty decent person luckily).

I have also been burnt out during uni, and from experience know that if you don’t stop on your terms, when your body and mind “tell” you you are at your limit, you are going to collapse in a much worse manner, so I want to prevent this somehow. But I feel like I can’t do anything except observe her walk a dangerous path without robbing her of her agency and that’s frustrating. Does anyone have some ideas for this?