Understanding the exhaustion of constant adaptation, and what rebuilding without code-switching looks like.
By 3pm, I had already been three different versions of myself.
Morning meeting : carefully chosen words, professional references, certain topics avoided. The version that does not need to be explained.
Lunchtime call with family : my usual tone, the full range of my expressions and emotions, cultural references that do not need explaining. The version that feels like home.
Afternoon client meeting : recalibrated again. A different selection of which stories to share, how to phrase disagreement.
None of them felt whole.
And then there are the questions. "Where are you from ?" "But you do not have an accent compared to X in accounting, how is that possible ?" Always followed by the expectation to explain. The history lesson. The geography. The how and why of who I am, how I speak, why I do what I do. As if my existence requires a constant explanation.
This is code-switching. Not a term you learned in school, but the daily choreography of adapting who you are to fit where you are. It is an exhaustion we do not talk about enough, though certain voices, books and articles have begun naming it. For me, finding those words was a comfort. Finally, language for a feeling that had been adding to the mental load for years.
In the humanitarian sector, this mental load compounds the already intense pressure of the work. You are managing emergencies while also managing how you are perceived. The weight of both can be too much.
By the time I realised I was doing it, I had been doing it for years.
In my article for Rebound & Rise (newsletter on LinkedIn), I wrote about when "just keep going" stops being enough. About recognising the patterns that no longer serve us. Code-switching is one of those patterns. And for those seen, perceived or made to feel as "other" or "different", this pattern becomes extraordinarily heavy to carry.
This is not about blame. It is about naming a reality that many live with, a reality that deserves space to be acknowledged. Drawing upon my experience, experiences of many I know (friends, family, colleagues) and the sources mentioned here, I want to create this kind of space. A space where these discussions can happen openly, for those who feel incomplete, who feel like they leave a part of themselves behind during most of their days, at work, in social settings.
For people who are considered minorities or for anyone who does not quite fit in certain spaces, the added reality of race must be acknowledged. It is simply a reality. The focus here is on the impact, and on recognising that this is lived experience for many.
Code-switching is not just about language, though that is often where it starts. It is about tone, yes, but also about which cultural references you use, which parts of your life you share, how you express disagreement, what you allow yourself to be passionate about, and the parts of yourself you learn to edit depending on the room you are in.
For multilingual, multicultural people, and anyone navigating multiple cultural contexts, code-switching is second nature. It is a skill. A survival tool. A way of moving through the world without constantly explaining yourself.
But here is what we do not talk about enough: for those of us racialised as "minorities", even though globally, we are not, code-switching is not always a choice. It is often a requirement.
The term "minority" itself is misleading. As scholar and author Reni Eddo-Lodge points out in "Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race", the framing of non-white people as "minorities" is a Western construct. Globally, white people are the numerical minority, yet the term "minority" is applied to everyone else. This reveals how "minority" is about power, not numbers. Yet in predominantly white professional spaces (corporate offices, academia, humanitarian organisations), this label shapes how we are perceived, how much space we are allowed to take up, and how much of ourselves we are permitted to bring.
In her book "La Charge Raciale", journalist Douce Dibondo describes this invisible labour : the constant mental calculations required to exist in spaces where your presence is "tolerated" but not normalised. It is not just what you say. It is how you say it. Which stories you tell. Which opinions you voice. How "other" you allow yourself to seem.
Code-switching, in this context, is not code-switching at all. It is self-editing. It is shrinking. It is the slow, exhausting work of making yourself smaller so others feel comfortable.
Robin DiAngelo's "White Fragility" examines how white people in predominantly white spaces often react defensively when racial dynamics are named. But what is less discussed is the toll this takes on racialised individuals who have learnt that naming discomfort leads to more discomfort, for them.
So instead, we calculate.
Can I say this? Will it be misunderstood? Will I be seen as aggressive, unprofessional, not competent enough if I disagree? Am I representing "my people" right now, or am I just trying to do my job and represent only myself?
We carry this double reality: the feeling that we represent "our people" while simultaneously being seen as different, as other. Expected to assimilate yet constantly reminded we do not quite belong.
W. E. B. Du Bois called this "double consciousness", the sense of always looking at yourself through the eyes of others, measuring your every move against how it might be perceived. That was written in 1903. It is 2026, and the calculation is still happening every day.
This is not paranoia. Research from the Harvard Business Review (2019) found that employees from underrepresented groups report significantly higher levels of emotional exhaustion due to "covering", downplaying aspects of their identity to fit in. The study showed that the mental load of constantly monitoring how you are perceived has measurable impacts on cognitive function, decision-making and long-term wellbeing.
I have worked across West Africa, Spain, Switzerland, France and the UK. In each place, I adapted. But the adaptations were not equal. In
some spaces, I was adjusting to new professional norms. In others, I was managing how much of my actual personality to reveal, which parts to keep to myself.
There is a difference between learning workplace culture and learning how to code-switch.
Code-switching shows up everywhere, often invisibly.
In corporate spaces, it is the employee who carefully selects which personal stories to share in meetings, not to offend and/or surprise, which cultural references are "safe" and/or "neutral", not perceived or described as "interesting" or "exotic", which aspects of their background to mention and which to keep private.
In humanitarian work, it is navigating the unspoken hierarchy between international staff and national staff, where your accent, passport or surname determines how much authority you are granted, regardless of expertise.
In academia, it is the constant performance of "legitimacy", publishing in the right journals, citing the right theorists, speaking in a way that signals you belong, even when the discipline was not built with you in mind.
LGBTQ+ individuals code-switch when they navigate heteronormative spaces. Neurodivergent people code-switch to mask traits that might be misunderstood. People from working-class backgrounds code-switch in middle-class environments. The mechanics are similar: suppress, adapt, perform.
But for those navigating multiple axes of difference simultaneously (race, sexuality, class, gender, neurodivergence), the load compounds. You are not just adjusting once. You are recalibrating constantly.
As Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie writes in "Americanah", her protagonist Ifemelu observes how in America, she became Black, not Nigerian, not Igbo, but Black, with all the assumptions and adaptations that required.
"I came from a country where race was not an issue ; I did not think of myself as black and I only became black when I came to America."
That shift, from being yourself to being a category that requires management, is where code-switching stops being adaptive and starts being exhausting.
Code-switching is not inherently bad. We all adapt depending on context. How you speak with your boss is not how you speak with your friends. That is normal. That is social intelligence.
But there is a line.
Adaptive code-switching is conscious, situational and temporary. It is choosing to adjust your approach in a formal meeting, or even a simple interaction at the supermarket, then switching back when the context changes. It feels like flexibility, not survival.
Exhausting code-switching is constant, unconscious and inescapable. It is when you cannot turn it off. When you are performing at work, performing with colleagues after work, performing in "diverse" spaces where you are supposed to feel safe but still feel watched. It is when the only place you do not code-switch is alone.
The privilege of authenticity is being able to exist without calculating how you are being perceived. It is not worrying that your natural way of expressing yourself might be "too much", that your sense of humour, your style, your mannerisms might be misread, that your passion might be labelled as something else.
For many of us, that ease does not exist. And the exhaustion of holding it together, day after day, adds up to everything else we are already managing (workload, deadlines, life) because we are doing it all while also managing how we are perceived and how we feel we get perceived. It is exhausting.
This is what burns people out.
So, what do we do?
For leaders and organisations, the answer is not just diversity hiring. It is psychological safety, real safety, not the kind that exists in policy documents but disappears in practice.
It means normalising different communication styles, not just tolerating them. It means recognising that "professionalism" has been culturally coded in ways that marginalise certain identities and being willing to challenge that.
It means creating spaces where people do not have to choose between being effective and being themselves.
For individuals navigating this, the work is different. It is about finding or creating pockets where code-switching is not necessary. Communities where you do not have to explain the reference. Spaces where your way of being is not misunderstood, it is just yours.
It is also about recognising when code-switching has become so automatic, you have forgotten what it feels like not to do it. And giving yourself permission, slowly, carefully, to reclaim the parts of yourself you have hidden.
It means understanding that adaptation is a tool, not a permanent state. You get to choose when to use it. And when you do not have that choice, it is worth naming that, too.
Burn-out recovery, for many of us, is not just about rest. It is about unlearning the habit of making ourselves lesser, smaller, more palatable.
It is realising that code-switching, while protective, was also costing you. That the exhaustion was not just from the work. It was from being three ifferent versions of yourself by 3pm and none of them whole.
The question is not: How do I stop code-switching entirely?
The questions are: Where can I stop ? Who can I be fully myself with? What would it feel like to take up space without apology ?
Because rebuilding is not about bouncing back to who you were before. It is about designing a life where you do not have to fracture yourself to belong.
This article explores the why behind the exhaustion. If you are ready to explore the how, to work through what rebuilding looks like for you specifically, my DMs are open. Let us talk.
raciste en France. Paris : Éditions Marabout.
About Race. London : Bloomsbury Publishing.- McCluney, C. L., Robotham, K., Lee, S., Richard, B. & Durkee, M. (2019). The Costs of Code-Switching. Harvard Business Review, 15 November.
