Reposting for anyone who needs this right now

How to Know When You’ve Reached Your Limit

Reaching your limit rarely looks dramatic.
It doesn’t always arrive as a breakdown, a fight, or a final incident.

More often, it shows up quietly — in the body.

Signs from a Neuroscience Perspective

You may have reached your limit when:

• Your nervous system stops mobilising
  You’re no longer anxious or reactive — you’re flat, numb, or strangely calm. This is not peace. It’s shutdown.
• Hope disappears before anger does
  You stop imagining things getting better. Not in despair — in certainty.
• Your body reacts before your mind
  Tight chest, sudden exhaustion, headaches, gut issues, frequent illness. The body calls time when the mind keeps negotiating.
• Explaining yourself feels impossible
  You’re tired of words. Tired of evidence. Tired of being clear. This is often the last stage before exit.
• Your values and your behaviour no longer match
  You notice yourself tolerating what you would never advise someone else to accept.
• The thought of leaving brings relief, not fear
  Fear may still exist — but relief is louder. That’s your nervous system recognising safety.

What This Means

From a neuroscience standpoint, this moment occurs when the brain stops believing repair is possible inside the current environment.

This is not weakness.
This is adaptive intelligence.

The system has learned:

“Staying costs more than leaving.”

What Reaching Your Limit Is Not

• It is not failure
• It is not cruelty
• It is not giving up too soon
• It is not something you can be talked out of once the body has decided

A Final Note

You don’t reach your limit because you didn’t try hard enough.

You reach it because you tried long enough.

If this is landing for you, trust it.
Limits are not punishments — they are information.

And information, when listened to, is the beginning of safety.