She was at a friend’s barbecue in July – sunlight, Ottolenghi salad, 90s tunes looping from a speaker, laughter floating all around. She smiled, joined in, even reached for crisps – and silently thought: I wish I could go home and lie down.
She wasn’t sad. She wasn’t antisocial. She was just … tired. Tired of smiling when she didn’t mean it. Tired of pretending summer felt as good as it looked.
And she’s not alone. Teens I work with say things like: “Everyone’s posting that they’re having the best summer, and I just feel … meh.” Or: “I don’t want to go out – but I also don’t want to be left out.” It’s that strange in between: burnout hiding beneath the calendar of “fun.”
We humans are reliably inconsistent when it comes to the weather. Too grey, too wet, too cold, we say. Then summer arrives – and it’s too bright, too hot, too loud, too full. We’re not ungrateful – we’re human. And we’re wired for what psychologists call negativity bias – an old survival mechanism that causes us to notice discomfort more than ease, even in the best of times.
But underneath the grumbling, there’s something deeper. Summer arrives with an unspoken script: be grateful, be glowing, be relaxed, be happy. And when your inner world doesn’t match that script, you feel like you’re getting it wrong. That gap – between what you feel and what you think you should feel – is emotional dissonance. And it’s exhausting.
There’s research that supports this. Studies show that masking your real emotions – what psychologists call “surface acting” – leads to fatigue, burnout, and even lower immune function. A recent European study found that over 30% of people feel pressured to be happy in the summer months, especially under the influence of social media. And it’s not just the mood mismatch – heat itself increases emotional reactivity, especially in people already holding stress.
I think of the client who described a holiday with his extended family. “It was stunning -views, food, everything,” he said. “But I felt like I was acting in every photo. And then I felt guilty for not enjoying what looked perfect.” He thought it meant something was wrong with him. It didn’t. It meant he was human – trapped between outer beauty and inner depletion.
A client in therapy once said, “I feel like I’m always failing at summer.” She had three invitations that weekend and didn’t want to go to any of them. Saying ‘no’ felt antisocial. Saying ‘yes’ felt false. So, she hovered in what I call obligation limbo – that place where joy quietly shrivels from overexposure.
We’re so quick to pathologise ourselves when our feelings don’t match the season. We blame anxiety. Depression. Hormones. But often, it’s something simpler: an overload of performance. A nervous system that’s run out of bandwidth. A longing for pause we don’t know how to justify.
I’ve felt it too. There was a summer when everything was lovely – the sea, the light, the rhythm of long afternoons – and yet I felt brittle. I did all the right things: I swam, I walked, I listed gratitudes. None of it worked. Because it wasn’t a lack of gratitude – I just didn’t have anything left to give. I wasn’t tired. I was faking it.
Eventually, I stopped trying. I cancelled things. I let the WhatsApp messages sit unread. I rested in shade instead of showing up in full sun. And slowly, my body came back to me. It was honesty, not effort, that helped.
I’ve been thinking lately about a quote by poet Robert M. Drake: “Be authentic to yourself, but if you must cheat, cheat yourself out of the lies the world created.” The lie, here, is that happiness is something we owe the world. That summer is a test of gratitude or popularity. That wellness looks like beaming selfies and travel plans and perfect family photos.
I’m not against joy – quite the opposite. But I think joy arrives when we’re not contorting ourselves to find it.
As psychologist Martin Seligman says, “Authentic happiness derives from raising the bar for yourself, not rating yourself against others.” And summer is full of those silent comparisons – especially in places where life is supposed to look postcard-perfect.
So, here’s what I offer instead: stop aiming for summer joy. Aim for summer honesty. Be warm if you feel warm. Be quiet if you feel quiet. Wear linen if you must, but let yourself wrinkle in peace.
Try this: step outside, just for five minutes. No phone. No goal. Feel the air. Notice the sounds – birds, a breeze, a distant car. Say to yourself, “I don’t have to feel anything in particular today.” Then wait. Ask gently, “Is there something I’ve been pretending not to feel?” If a word arises – tired, flat, restless – just nod to it. Let your nervous system register that honesty is allowed. Maybe cancel something you don’t want to do.
Sometimes the most generous thing we can do is loosen the role the season gave us. To stop performing sunlit ease when what we really want is shade.
A teenage client of mine said recently, “I just want to sit in the shade with someone who gets it.” That line stayed with me. I think that’s what most of us want. Not to be alone. Not to pretend. Just to be.
So, if you’re not glowing right now – don’t panic. You’re not failing at summer. You’re just done faking it.
