When You Become the Routing Point for Everything

There’s a point in a long, complex project where you stop noticing the shift happening. You’re answering a few more questions, stepping into a few more decisions, translating a few more ambiguities. Nothing dramatic. Nothing you’d call out.

But if you’ve ever found yourself becoming the person everything gets routed through, this is what to watch for. This is what it cost me. And this is what changed.

One evening, my wife looked over and said, “You’ve seemed off recently. You’re snappier with the kids. Snappier with me.”

That was the moment it landed.
Not in my head. In my chest.

I realised the project wasn’t just something I worked on anymore. It was something I carried.

How it felt day to day

I didn’t recognise it at first. I just knew something felt… flattened.
Not dramatic burnout. Not despair. Just numbness.

Every day had this undercurrent of “there’s something I still need to do.”
A constant mental static, buzzing quietly underneath everything else.

There was no space for emotion.
Everything had to be logical.
Everything needed an answer.

And when you’re the person the team trusts to provide that answer, you start behaving like an always-on routing system. You hold the context, the risk, the “why” behind every architectural choice. You anticipate the next decision before anyone asks. You stay available late at night, early in the morning, in the gaps between family moments that should have been yours.

I checked Slack before the school drop-off.
I checked Slack while watching TV with my wife.
I checked Slack after telling myself I wouldn’t.

Not because I liked being always on.
Because I felt responsible.
Because the weight had settled on me so gradually, I didn’t notice how heavy it had become.

The way it spilled into real life

Outside work is where the cracks showed first. Over a few months, the gaps widened.

I stopped feeling present with my kids.
I stopped wanting to train Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
I stopped caring about the things that usually anchor me.

I wasn’t impatient because I didn’t love my family.
I was impatient because I couldn’t feel anything.
Numbness doesn’t announce itself. It just moves in quietly.

My wife told me she saw me snap at one of our girls and then simply… not react.
No frustration. No guilt. No softness.
Just nothing.
And I hadn’t noticed.

That scared me more than any late-night escalation ever could.
Because the real cost wasn’t the context switching or the cognitive load.
The real cost was losing the version of myself that my family knew.

Why this happens

Nobody sets out to create a single point of failure, emotional or operational.
It just happens, especially in complex engineering work.

Teams go to the person who has the answer.
Leaders rely on the person who can hold the whole picture.
Cross-functional partners trust the person who can translate between worlds.

And because you can do it, people assume you should.
Because you do it well, people assume you can handle more.
Because you rarely complain, people assume you’re fine.

The system unconsciously routes everything toward the path of least resistance.
And eventually, you become that path.

This role isn’t written down anywhere. It isn’t visible in sprint reports.
No one celebrates “held the project together today.”
But the emotional labour is real, even when the room can’t see it.

When it became unsustainable

For me, it was that conversation with my wife.
She said, “Something isn’t right here. Come and talk to me.”

I tried to articulate how I felt. The truth was simple: I didn’t feel much at all.

Talking it through made me realise just how far I’d drifted from myself.
Not sleeping well.
Not connecting.
Not finding joy.
Not feeling sadness either.
Just… functioning.

That was the moment I understood something had gone wrong.

Putting a name to it

I spoke to a therapist and completed ten sessions of cognitive behavioural therapy.
They told me I’d been operating at the very top of my window of tolerance for so long that my body shut down emotion as a protection mechanism.

High-functioning depression, emerging out of burnout.

It was strange hearing the word “depression” when I didn’t feel depressed.
But that was the point. Feeling wasn’t something my nervous system had capacity for anymore.

Naming it didn’t fix everything.
But it gave me language.
And language gave me a way out.

The beginning of recovery

Recovery started with honesty.
With myself. With my wife. With my therapist.

Then came boundaries that actually meant something.

I deleted Slack from my phone.
I stopped opening my laptop after 7 pm.
I forced myself back into the things I loved, even when motivation was nowhere to be found.

And crucially, I stopped trying to hold the project alone.

I told my boss and a close project manager friend that I was overwhelmed.
That too much was being routed through me.
Decisions needed to be shared, not centralised.
That others needed to step into the uncertainty rather than wait for me to absorb it.

They were brilliant, especially the PM.
She ensured context was distributed, and decisions were made by the people who owned them.

I followed up with this in Slack:

Redistributing ownership wasn’t just organisational.
It was emotional.
It lightened the load in a way boundaries alone never could.

Slowly, the numbness softened.
I started feeling again.
Enough to recognise myself.

And for clarity: this is past tense. I have healthier systems, clearer boundaries, and more support now. I’m not writing this from inside the storm.

A more hopeful turn

This pattern isn’t inevitable.

Healthy systems share knowledge instead of centralising it.
They build decision-making frameworks instead of relying on muscle memory.
They create an environment where asking for help isn’t seen as a weakness but as a way to keep the whole team moving.

Leaders can learn to notice the early signs.
Who always translates ambiguity?
Who never steps away?
Who carries the context no one else bothers to learn?

And individuals can protect their attention without guilt.
Boundaries aren’t barriers.
They’re how we work sustainably.
They’re how we remain human inside complexity.
They’re how we stay whole for the people who matter most.

There’s a calmer way to work.
A steadier way.
One that doesn’t require a single person to become the project’s pressure valve.

I’m learning that now.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
And with far more clarity than I had before.