How to message a therapist who's burned out

When a therapist says she's drained, she means her tank is actually empty. Not sad-tired or busy-tired. She has given away all her emotional bandwidth and needs to be around people who ask nothing of her.

If your message requires her to think, feel, validate, or explain anything, it lands like a work task. She'll read it, feel the weight, and put it down because responding takes energy she doesn't have. She's not avoiding you. She's protecting the only free time she has.

A good reply here accomplishes two things at once. First, it gives her something that doesn't require work to process. Second, it shows you understand what's happening without saying so directly.

This means sending something brief enough to read in five seconds. Something that stands alone and doesn't need a matching response. An observation about something outside your interaction, a small thing you noticed, something that makes her smile without making her think. The move is: acknowledge reality, then give her an easy out.

Time your text for when she's just left work but before her brain shuts down completely. Early evening is better than late night, because she'll see it while she still has a thread of presence.

Then be prepared to wait. If she replies fast, she's having a good night. If it takes two days, her battery is lower than she told you. Don't send a follow-up. Don't fill the silence with another message. When she has energy again, she'll come back. If a week passes with nothing, send one calm, short thing that gives her an actual exit ramp instead of another obligation.