Years ago, I was directing a short film, and it was my first time leading a crew of that size. Every second of the day, people were looking to me for direction, for decisions, for clarity. The pressure to be “on” felt constant, and underneath it, I had this unconscious belief that in order to lead, I had to hold everything else in.
By day three, the strain of that was catching up with me. A set designer came over to ask which shade of light blue I wanted for the bedroom walls, and as she was talking, I could feel my lower lip starting to tremble. I said, “I’m so sorry, I just need to run to the bathroom—I’ll be right back.”
But I didn’t really need to use the bathroom, I needed somewhere to hide. I locked the door and burst into tears.
I’ve heard versions of this story many times in my work as a psychotherapist. Not from people you’d expect to be falling apart, but from thoughtful, highly capable people—founders, executives, creative leaders—people who are used to being the steady one, the one others rely on. What they describe is not a lack of ability. It’s the pressure of feeling like there’s no place for their humanity to go.
There’s often an unspoken idea about leadership that to lead well, you have to be composed at all times. That you have to absorb the pressure, hold the uncertainty, and keep moving without letting anything show. So you do. You hold it in during the meeting, you push through the decision, you stay available, responsive, and "on." And then, at some point, it spills out somewhere. Maybe in a bathroom. Maybe in a sharp comment. Maybe in a way of coping that doesn’t feel great afterward.
It's not because you’re doing anything wrong, but because there’s only so much a system can hold without release.
One of the shifts I often work on with clients is untangling this idea that leadership means being endlessly available. Because that’s not actually leadership. It’s a form of people-pleasing that gets mistaken for leadership, and it’s usually driven by fear—fear of disappointing someone or being seen as unreliable. But over time, it has the opposite effect. When you don’t set limits, when you try to meet every expectation, you don’t become more reliable. You become depleted.
At the same time, when there’s no outlet at all for what you’re carrying, the pressure builds. Not all of your experience belongs in every room, but when none of it has a place to go, you end up performing a version of yourself that has no interior life. Even a small amount of space to be human and acknowledge what’s actually happening for you can begin to shift that.
And then there’s the deeper layer. Even with better boundaries and small openings, you still need somewhere for the full experience to go. A place where you don’t have to edit yourself. Where you can say the thing you would never say in the meeting or to your team. That’s where something like therapy comes in, or a journaling practice, or another intentional space where what you’re holding can actually move through you.
Because the goal isn’t to eliminate pressure. Leadership comes with pressure. The goal is to not let pressure stay trapped inside of you until it explodes.
If you’ve ever found yourself hiding in a bathroom (or anywhere else) just to get a moment of relief, it doesn’t mean you’re not cut out for what you’re doing. It might just mean you’ve been holding more than you were meant to hold by yourself.
Anna Holtzman is a psychotherapist in private practice in New York, working with thoughtful, high-functioning adults who want their work and relationships to feel more sustainable, satisfying, and their own.