You Don’t Have to Be the Strong One Here

Some of us learned to be the strong ones before we were old enough to know what it was costing us.

Strength looked like competence.

Like steadiness.

Like reliability.

But inside, it felt like exhaustion layered over invisibility, because exhaustion is always the result of invisibility.

When you’re the strong one, people don’t ask the right questions.

They ask what you can do.

They ask if you can help.

They ask if you can hold one more thing.

But they almost never ask the question that matters most:

What’s hurting you right now?

I think about that a lot... how many of us move through life carrying what nobody else wants to touch.

We stay calm while we’re falling apart inside.

We show up for people who never showed up for us.

We keep the peace even when our bodies whisper no.

We muscle through it because that’s what strong ones do.

For a long time, I didn’t question any of it.

I thought that being the one who held everything together made me good, trustworthy, dependable... all the things I thought I had to be to matter.

But eventually, I hit the truth, the strong ones hit at some point:

I realized that nobody was coming to save me.

Not because people didn’t love me, but because they couldn’t see me.

Strong ones rarely get seen.

We perform strength so convincingly that people mistake it for wellness.

They don’t notice the tremor beneath it.

They don’t see the cost we pay privately.

And maybe that’s why I’m writing this now, because if you’ve been the strong one your whole life, I want you to feel something in your body you may not have felt in a long time:

Relief.

The kind of relief that lets your shoulders drop half an inch.

The kind that softens your jaw.

The kind that whispers,

You don’t have to hold this alone anymore.

If you’re tired of being the person who never breaks, never bends, never asks, never receives, I want you to know something:

You don’t have to be the strong one here.

Not in this space.

Not in this corner of the internet.

Not in this tiny moment with me.

If something in this met you where you’ve been quietly hurting, I’m glad you’re here.

You can let it be soft for once.

You can make it easier.

You can rest.

Thank you for reading. If this stirred something in you and you’d like to spend more time with this work, you can explore The Humble Pie 12 Steps and learn more about how I support people as a trauma recovery coach.