It started on Monday with a small thing — a comment in a meeting that rubbed her the wrong way. By Tuesday there was another one. By Wednesday, she noticed she was shorter in her responses, quicker to read meaning into neutral emails, carrying the conversations home in her head long after the workday ended. The feeling was building up. She could recognise it the way you recognise weather — not in a single moment, but in the accumulation of small signs that something significant is on the way. By Friday she was exhausted in the particular way that comes not from doing too much but from containing too much. She took a long walk that evening. Not to solve anything — just to give the feeling somewhere to go.

Marco had always been someone things built up in. He wasn't dramatic about it. He didn't shout or make scenes. But pressure accumulated in him like water behind a dam, quietly and steadily, until the structural integrity of his composure became uncertain. His partner noticed the signs: a particular stillness, a slightly longer pause before he answered questions. "You're building up again," she would say — matter-of-factly, without alarm. Learning to calm down before the build-up became critical took him a long time. He tried running. He tried journaling. He tried, with limited success, meditation. What worked in the end was simpler: a ten-minute rule. When he felt pressure accumulating, he gave himself ten minutes to do absolutely nothing except exist in the discomfort. It didn't fix everything. But it interrupted the build-up before it could become something harder to manage.