I sit on the carpet, legs crossed, the worn fibers pressing into my thigh. My back rests against the locked door. My breath comes in quick, shallow bursts as I press the heels of my hands into my eyes, willing myself not to cry. The house is quiet for the first time all day. I should be using this rare moment of stillness to rest. Instead, I’m hiding.

 I just need five minutes. Five minutes where I am not needed by anyone. Where no one expects me to have the answers. Where I don’t have to be the strong one. But even here, alone, the weight never leaves me. Because when people see you as strong, they don’t think to ask if you’re okay.

For as long as I can remember I have been the strong one. The person people turn to, the one who figures it out. I have been through more than most people know—single motherhood, trauma, the relentless fight to advocate for my daughter’s medical care. Through it all, the message I told myself was always clear: I had to be strong, I couldn’t break or ask for help, if I did it meant I had failed. 

No one tells you that strength, when worn like armor for too long, becomes a cage.

The problem with being strong is that people assume you don’t need help. They lean on you, but they never check in on you. They expect you to have the answers, to push through, to be okay—because you always are. So, you start to believe that breaking down isn’t an option. That asking for help means disappointing people.  

“How do you do it all?”  someone asks, smiling like they admire me. I smile back. “I just do; I have to.” Because that’s what I’m supposed to say. What I can’t say is, I don’t know if I can do this anymore. What I can’t say is, I am barely holding it together. The weight of being the strong one isn’t just exhausting; it’s isolating.

When my daughter was just a couple of years old, I was barely keeping it all together. She wasn’t sleeping. She could never get comfortable. Her medical issues were constant, and I had no idea how to fix them. No one expects a child to need their first surgery before they turn two. But I had been naïve. I had been lucky, raising two healthy boys before her. I had no idea what it meant to fight for a child’s health, to be a medical advocate, to live with the constant fear that something might go wrong. 

 One night, after a particularly long week, I showed up to my waitressing shift running on fumes. A coworker offered me a drink. A few drinks turned into a few more. And since I wasn’t much of a drinker, it didn’t take long before I was drunk—sobbing to my boss about my daughter, about my boys, about how I wasn’t sure I was a good enough mother for any of them.

 I don’t remember what I said, only that I finally let it all spill out. I was lucky. My boss didn’t fire me. But I couldn’t shake the shame of losing control, of letting my composure crack in front of someone else. 

For so long, I believed strength meant endurance. That it meant pushing through, showing up, never cracking. But I have learned that real strength isn’t about carrying everything—it’s about knowing when to put some of it down. It’s about being brave enough to say, I need help. 

The strongest people aren’t the ones who never break. They’re the ones who know when to ask for help before they do.

If you’ve ever felt like the person who has to hold it all together, ask yourself this: When was the last time someone held you? When was the last time you let yourself lean on someone else? 

Strength isn’t about never falling—it’s about knowing you don’t have to stand alone. 

You don’t have to carry it all, all the time.