"Over ten years ago, I founded my company and let my ambition guide me to achieve my goals and build a successful business from the ground up. And I'm proud of what I've achieved because I could see results and it was worth it. There was something really logical about it that reassured me, I don't know. I was always setting myself goals, putting pressure on myself. I got addicted to it, like a game. There was a point where I couldn't be happy about what I had achieved. I just moved on to the next goal, the next target. But I thought I had everything under control at that point. I think I let external validation rule my life. It became that. It just became too much.

It was only a close friend, Christina, who I have known since we were children, who told me that I had changed. She said I had become more withdrawn. I was quite taken aback; I think the word she used was "irritable". That I had become very irritable and would no longer laugh.

This hurt. I don’t know, I felt like it was coming out of nowhere. I think in retrospect I see that conversation in a completely different light, but in the moment, it was just painful. I like control, you know, feeling a sense of control. Control in work. In how I am perceived. I just remember feeling really disorientated.

I think she could see that she’d struck something, I don’t know, I’ve known her for as long as I can remember, so, I think she saw it. She brushed passed it in the way that she does, but I just couldn’t drop it. I felt betrayed. Sounds silly to say now, but I felt like she was attacking my success. I guess at the time, I struggled to separate the two, myself, and what I have achieved.

The next day I felt even worse. I couldn’t sleep. I went to my parents for lunch. Thought a bit of Mum’s Roast chicken would make me feel better, you know. I can’t remember whether I brought it up, or they did, I think it was me. I think, yes, I told them about the conversation, and they agreed with Christina. My mum is one of those women who can’t lie if you paid her, so I felt like her opinion was confirmation that this is real, a real issue. I remember her saying that she hasn’t seen me smile since my brother’s birthday, that was 3 months ago at the time. She said it felt like she was losing sight of her little boy.

After all this, I spoke to my father. He's a doctor, and at that point I started to think something was wrong. I felt like I wasn't seeing what others were seeing. I just wanted it, whatever it was, to stop. He told me to google 'burnout'. My mom stroked my hair and it felt so intimate. I remember feeling like a child again, very small. I think I had been in survival mode for so long that I had forgotten what it was like to accept love without any strings attached or having to earn it. I felt truly connected to them in that moment. It was the first time in a long time that I felt love because I was simply there.

We started to make a plan together. Felt like being back at school. I liked the safety of it. My mum was the one who knew about Save Planet Liners from YouTube. She’s on YouTube all the time. Turns out all those YouTube rabbit holes paid off. She had heard of a Retreat and Resilience Centre on the ship and thought it would be perfect. They offer a medical psychological program developed with professors at the University Hospital in Heidelberg.

I think this felt exciting, and terrifying. I’ve always found water extremely peaceful, feels like an escape. But leaving my company, work behind, it. It was a big thing for me. That same day, I booked the last crossing of the year from Hamburg to New York and the Transformative Wellness Programme. Last trip of the year, last cabin. After almost three months of backpacking through the USA, I wanted to take the Save Planet Liners ship from Miami to Marseille. This time I got an outside cabin.

A week after my conversation with my parents, I was just standing on the sun deck thinking, I’m so proud of myself. And how grateful I was to be here. Allowing myself the time to learn and grow. I am separate from my achievements.

The next day I had a full check-up. Blood was taken, an ECG was done, and I felt like I was being listened too. I was recommended a psychologist, and it shifted everything. I was so used to people listening to me for direction, for guidance, on what to do next. But here, it was me. I was the topic of conversation. How I could become stronger. The doctor then recommended for me to have an individual coaching session daily, and a group session every other day. Now here’s the thing right. The absolute shock came when he said that I had to stop using my phone completely for the duration of the crossing. I found this strangely one of the hardest parts. I still made a phone call to my co-manager, who had taken full responsibility for our business while I was away and explained that I wouldn’t be available until New York and that I could only be reached through my parents in extreme emergencies. Parting with my phone meant not being able to contact my colleagues. It’s strange thinking about it now, but I was dead set on having my phone. It did take a while to come round, I must admit, at first, I imagine it was a bit like ripping candy from a baby but there was a point where I realised I can’t get better unless I completely disconnect.

Let me tell you the next two or three days were…, well, they were a journey. My phone, my iPad and my laptop were silent. No messages. I was cut off from the outside world. Only the sea, the ship and the people around me. I think I felt quite, I don’t know, lonely? Or, like, naked. I didn’t have anything to hide behind.

After a couple of days of being out on the deck, I took a random novel from one of the library shelves. I ALWAYS judge a book which I have for the first time in my hands by it’s cover. I sat down in one of those comfy armchairs and began to read my first book in, I don’t know. I can’t remember the last time I read for enjoyment. In that moment, sitting there, book in hand, staring at the sea, I felt like I could breathe for the first time in ten years. The stress just liquified.

Now I'm back at work after more than three months. After I returned to work, my co-managing director and I locked ourselves in a meeting room for two days and we talked very openly about how we could organize our work in such a way that neither we nor our employees would have to experience burnout. I was very lucky that I was able to break out of the toxic behavior pattern in time."