I realized at 66 that the reason I'm always tired has nothing to do with sleep. I've been running an internal monitoring system since childhood that tracks other people's moods, and it never shuts off, not even when I'm alone. - Silicon Canals

"I learned to read those signals the way a sailor reads weather. Not because anyone taught me. Because the emotional climate of the house depended on it, and nobody was narrating what was happening, so I became the narrator."

"What nobody thought to ask was what my brain was doing when nothing was happening. Because the answer, which took me six months of therapy to see clearly, is that my brain was never not working."

After retirement, a person experienced profound fatigue despite adequate sleep. Medical tests showed no physical issues, leading to a realization that their brain was constantly managing others' emotions. This behavior, learned in childhood, created an emotional awareness that became exhausting. The individual recognized that their upbringing, particularly their mother's authority and father's emotional cues, shaped their ability to read and respond to others' feelings, contributing to their ongoing fatigue.

Read at Silicon Canals