Workplace burnout: 'I was so stressed in 2016 I ended the year with a collapsed lung'

Social-media photos of ‘successful’ lives often mask the painful struggle of managing career and family, with some teetering on the brink of burnout

Eibhlin Johnston: 'I felt constant pressure to hold it all together at work and at home.' Picture: Moya Nolan

Instagram's throwback trend made 57-year-old Eibhlin Johnston, from Blackrock, in Dublin, realise that the photos from 2016 she presented to the world bore little resemblance to how she had felt.

“There are pictures of me celebrating the new year in Malta, doing yoga, and competing in triathlons,” she says. “But I was so stressed and managing that stress through constant activity only added more stress. My body couldn’t keep it up and I ended that year with a collapsed lung, due to pneumonia.”