Burnout Is Sticky. So Is Peanut Butter. Let's Talk About Both.
Episode 20 of Wellness Me Up — Wellness Me Up Diary Entrywith Registered Social Worker & Psychotherapist Kathleen Foldvari
Written and hosted by Amanda Reece, founder of Wellness Me Up.
Not enough people are helping the helpers. Kathleen Foldvari is a registered social worker and psychotherapist here specifically for the healthcare workers, first responders, teachers, and parents who give everything to everyone and forget themselves. Real, practical, and ends with pickles and peanut butter. You're welcome.
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The Helpers Are Burning Out. And Nobody Taught Them How to Ask for Help.
Let's start with the number that stopped me cold.
According to Stats Canada 2025 data, 57 to 75% of public service professionals are either experiencing or have experienced symptoms of full-blown burnout within their career. Compared to about 35 to 50% of the general population. That means helpers — healthcare workers, first responders, teachers, social workers, coaches, parents — are at least 25% more likely to be burning out than everyone else.
And yet they're the last ones to ask for help.
Kathleen has spent her career figuring out why that is. And what to do about it.
Not All Heroes Wear Capes. And That's Actually Part of the Problem.
Remember all the lawn signs during the pandemic? Not all heroes wear capes. Healthcare heroes. Essential workers.
Kathleen loves the sentiment. And she also points out the unintended consequence — when we put helpers on a pedestal and call them heroes, we accidentally make it harder for them to be human. To say they're not okay. To ask for the same support they give to everyone else every single day.
It creates this impossible dynamic where you're either okay or you're not okay. And if you're not okay... how do you even begin to say that when your whole identity is built around being the strong one? The capable one. The one who shows up no matter what.
Kathleen is on a mission to break that down. To give helpers permission to be human. Because helping yourself is part of helping others. That's her mantra and she means it.
I Cried in My Car Before Every Shift. And I Didn't Know Why.
I shared something in this conversation that I don't talk about enough.
When I was a child and youth worker in my early twenties I would sit in my car before walking into the house and just fall apart. Sobbing. And then I would pull myself together, walk in, work with teenagers navigating drugs and gangs and some of the heaviest things imaginable, get through the shift, and then as soon as the last kid went to bed I would sit in the living room with my team and cry again. (Side note: All of it basically reminded me of the chaos of my childhood. I was literally trying to heal those parts of me through my career and it was all crashing in at the same time).
My coordinator told me to get my shit together and go home and sleep. And I would. And then I would turn on the TV and start crying at commercials for no reason I could name.
I didn't have the language for what was happening. I didn't know what burnout was. I didn't know that my nervous system was trying to communicate with me and I had no idea how to listen.
That's exactly what Kathleen gives people. The language. The framework. The understanding that what you're experiencing is real and valid and deserving of attention — not something to push through until you collapse.
Your Nervous System Is Talking. Do You Speak the Language?
This is how Kathleen frames burnout and it's SO useful.
Your nervous system is constantly giving you information. The buzzing feeling that never goes away. Waking up after a few hours of sleep and feeling immediately activated. Irritability that seems disproportionate to what's actually happening. Crying at things that shouldn't make you cry.
Those aren't signs of weakness. They're your body trying to tell you something. But if nobody has ever taught you how to read those signals — and for most helping professionals nobody has — you don't know what they mean or what to do about them.
Kathleen starts by giving people that education. Making it make sense. So instead of feeling like something is wrong with them they can understand what's actually happening in their body and their brain and start working with it instead of against it.
Validation Is the Open Door
Something Kathleen said that I want every helper reading this to hear.
What you are experiencing is absolutely real. What you are experiencing is absolutely deserving of time and attention and care.
So many of the people Kathleen works with have been hearing the opposite for years. You know what you signed up for. If you can't handle it maybe this isn't the right field for you. You need to be stronger. Just get some sleep and come back tomorrow.
That is not support. That is stigma wearing a managerial tone.
And the effect of hearing it over and over is that people start to believe it. They wonder if they're making it up. If they're over-exaggerating. If they're just not cut out for the work they love. And they suppress everything and show up the next day and suppress everything again and show up the next day until one day they just... can't anymore.
Validation isn't the whole solution. But it is the open door. Nothing else can happen until someone finally says — yes, this is real, and you deserve support.
Roleplay Is Weird. Do It Anyway.
One of the most practical things Kathleen offers clients is roleplay practice for boundary-setting conversations.
And she knows it sounds weird. She says so herself. But here's why it works.
How many times have you lain awake at night replaying a conversation you wish you'd handled differently? The boundary you didn't set. The no you couldn't get out. The third shift you said yes to because you didn't know how to say anything else.
Kathleen gives people a do-over in a safe space. They practice the actual conversation — their real words, their real situation — until saying it out loud starts to feel less terrifying. Until the nervous system starts to recognize that setting a boundary is safe. That the world doesn't end. That people actually respect it.
She used the analogy of learning to lift weights properly. She thought she knew how to go to the gym. Turns out she'd been doing it completely wrong for years — wrong foot position, wrong form, everything. And once someone actually taught her the right way? She felt so much more confident that what she was doing was genuinely benefiting her body.
Mental health skill building is the same thing. You might think you know how to set a boundary. But until someone actually teaches you the form — the words, the tone, the follow-through — you might be doing it in a way that isn't working and wondering why.
The WTF Wheel Question: What's Your Go-To Comfort Meal When Wellness Goes Out the Window?
Peanut butter sandwich. That's it. That's Kathleen's answer.
Slather some peanut butter between two pieces of bread and she is a happy woman. Add a couple of pickles on the side and she is in heaven.
I immediately related so hard because my go-to is basically the same thing — peanut butter and jelly, some pickles, cheese, grapes, and I am ten years old again sitting on the kitchen floor eating a snack board like everything is fine.
We also had a very serious debate about smooth versus crunchy. Kathleen is a smooth peanut butter person. I would not say no to crunchy, but smooth is also my go-to. We found common ground with the PB lol.
And then we decided that burnout and peanut butter actually have a lot in common. It's sticky. It can be nutty. And sometimes you just need to go back to basics and make yourself a sandwich before you can deal with anything else.
Honestly? That tracks.
What Wellness Me Up Means to Kathleen
Armoring up. Suiting up. Getting equipped to walk back out into a world that can be heavy and hard and messy.
She talked about her hair braider who says she doesn't braid hair — she breathes life into people. She wants people to leave her chair feeling better than when they came in.
That's what Kathleen does. That's what this podcast tries to do. Give people the tools, the language, the validation, and the permission to take care of themselves so they can keep doing the work they love.
The Sustainability Series
Before I forget — Kathleen has a new offering called the Sustainability Series. Hand-designed workshops tailored to fit real working schedules. Fifteen minute sessions that fit between lunch breaks. Half day workshops for leaders. All followed up with a tangible document so the learning doesn't just disappear.
Because a one-and-done workshop isn't sustainable. And sustainable is exactly the point.
Want to work with Kathleen? Kathleen Foldvari is a registered social worker and psychotherapist helping public service professionals, healthcare workers, first responders, teachers, coaches, and parents prevent burnout and stay in the work they love. Coaching sessions, team support, webinars, and the Sustainability Series all available.
📧 kathleen@amfmsolutions.com 📱 Instagram & LinkedIn — search Kathleen Foldvari or AMFM Solutions 🌐 AMFM — A Minute for Mental Health
If this one hit home... share it with a helper in your life just so we can keep spreading the word that help for helpers is a thing too. And subscribe to Wellness Me Up wherever you listen.
🎧 Listen to the episode here:
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