The Cost of Advocacy, Part II: The Toll of Carrying Change
By Sunday, the receipts are crumpled in your bag, the heels are kicked off, and the makeup’s long gone. What’s left is the emotional hangover — the quiet aftermath of fighting for a cause that refuses to rest.
Advocacy doesn’t end when the event does. It follows you home.
The Emotional Overdraft
You tell yourself you’ll rest after this week’s meetings, after this deadline, after this one more project. But “after” never comes. There’s always another crisis, another message, another person who needs help now.
You stop sleeping through the night. You start forgetting to eat. Your body becomes a to-do list with no off switch.
People call you strong. They mean it as a compliment, but it lands like a sentence. Because being strong is exhausting — and everyone expects you to keep doing it anyway.
The Personal Collateral
Advocacy takes things you didn’t consent to give. Time with family. Friendships that fade. The version of yourself that used to have hobbies. You start to measure your worth in outcomes instead of joy.
And when someone asks how you’re doing, you say “fine,” or “surviving,” because explaining burnout to people who don’t live it feels impossible.
The Loneliness of the Front Line
There’s a strange kind of isolation that comes from caring this much. You sit in rooms full of people but feel unseen. Everyone assumes you’re okay because you’ve made “holding it together” look easy.
Sometimes you wonder if anyone notices how thin the line is between “advocate” and “exhausted human.”
The Small Victories
And yet — there are moments. Tiny, quiet, miraculous moments. A policy change. A family helped. A door finally opened. Those moments keep you breathing through the burnout.
They don’t erase the toll, but they remind you why you started.
The True Cost
The real cost of advocacy isn’t just financial; it’s the pieces of yourself you trade for progress. It’s carrying everyone else’s pain while trying not to drop your own.
But it’s also a connection. Laughter in hallways between sessions. Late-night brainstorming with people who understand the weight. The friendships forged in the fight are what make the struggle survivable.
You keep showing up because deep down, you know change is slow, messy, and worth it.
So yes — it costs everything. But silence costs more.
— said by Tori Seals, because someone had to say it
