Rest Is A Strategy,

Not A Luxury, For Advocates And Caregivers

Why Advocates, Caregivers, And Surviving Families Need To Stop Treating Exhaustion As A Badge Of Honor

In advocacy circles, caregiving communities, and surviving families, we are very good at pushing through.

We push through grief.
We push through bureaucracy.
We push through one more phone call, one more deadline, one more “urgent” request.

Rest, on the other hand, often feels like a guilty secret.

Something you earn after the fight is over.

The problem is that for many of us, the fight is not going to be over anytime soon.

The Myth Of The Indestructible Advocate

There is an unspoken script that floats around veteran and survivor spaces:

• The “strong” ones never say no

• The “dedicated” ones answer messages at midnight

• The “real advocates” are always “on”

It sounds noble. It looks impressive on social media. It also quietly burns people out and quietly removes some of the most experienced voices from the work when they finally collapse.

The truth is simple.

If your advocacy depends on you destroying your health, then the system has successfully outsourced its responsibilities to your body.

That is not noble. That is a trap.

Rest Is Not The Opposite Of Work

We talk about rest like it is the enemy of productivity.

In reality, rest is what makes effective advocacy and caregiving possible.

Rest is:

• Your brain processing information and making connections you cannot see when you are fried

• Your nervous system resetting so you can have hard conversations without exploding

• Your body repairing the damage of chronic stress

You do not think clearly when you are exhausted. You react. You default. You say yes to things that do not actually move the mission forward because you do not have the energy to decide.

Strategic rest is not “giving up.” It is maintenance.

The Cost Of Never Stopping

When you never rest, the costs show up in places that matter:

• You miss details on legislation that you would have caught if you were fresh

• You forget to follow up on something important

• You snap at an ally or a staffer who did not deserve it

• You lose patience with the very people you are trying to help

Over time, constant exhaustion trains your brain to associate advocacy with dread.

Things that used to motivate you start to feel heavy. Meetings that used to energize you become one more thing to survive.

That is not because you stopped caring. It is because your tank is empty.

Rest As A Deliberate Part Of The Plan

Instead of treating rest like a reward, work it into your strategy.

Ask yourself:

• What does “off duty” look like for me

• How often do I need to be there to stay effective

• What can I automate, delegate, or say no to, so that rest is possible

Some ideas that do not require winning the lottery or moving to a cabin in the woods:

• Office hours for advocacy.
  Set times when you take calls, answer messages, or work on projects. Outside of those windows, you are off duty unless something is truly urgent.

• Rotation instead of martyrdom.
  If you are part of a group, rotate tasks. One person does the research this week, another handles calls, another writes the recap. No single person should be the permanent “everything” person.

• Real weekends, even tiny ones.
  Maybe you cannot take a full weekend, but you can decide that Sunday afternoon belongs to you. No advocacy, no paperwork, no doom scrolling hearings. Just something that reminds you you are a person, not a case file with a pulse.

Saying No Without Apologizing For Existing

One of the hardest things for caregivers and advocates to learn is the sentence:

“I cannot take that on right now.”

Not “I am so sorry I am failing you.”
Not “I wish I were stronger.”
Just a clear boundary.

When you say no:

• You give someone else a chance to step up

• You prevent silent resentment from building

• You protect your ability to keep doing the work long term

People who benefit from your unpaid labor may not love your boundaries. Systems definitely will not. That does not make the boundaries wrong.

Rest Honors What You Have Already Given

For families who have already lost someone to service, rest can feel emotionally complicated.

There is a voice that whispers:

“They did not get to rest. Who am I to take a break.”

Here is the answer.

You are the person who is still here.

You are the one carrying their memory, their story, and the fight for something better.

Rest is not a betrayal of their sacrifice.
Exhausting yourself into the ground does not bring them back, does not fix the system, and does not honor what they gave.

Protecting your health, your mind, and your ability to keep going is part of honoring them.

You Are Allowed To Be A Person First

Advocacy culture sometimes forgets that the people behind the work are human.

You are not:

• A 24 hour help desk

• A free consulting service for agencies that should know better

• An emotional support human for everyone who suddenly discovered an issue you have lived with for years

You are a person.

A person with a body that needs rest, a brain that needs breaks, and a heart that needs something in life that is not a crisis.

Rest will not fix broken policies. It will not rewrite bad legislation. It will not magically train the VA to answer phone calls properly.

What it will do is keep you in the fight with a clearer head, a steadier voice, and a longer runway.

And in this work, staying in the fight matters.

So if you need permission, take this:

You are allowed to turn off the hearings, mute the group chat, close the laptop, and simply exist.

Not because the work is done.

Because you are not a machine, and pretending you are one only helps the systems that expect you to carry more than anyone should.