I Forgot How to Receive Support

I don’t remember the last time someone asked how I was doing not in the polite, passing kind of way. I mean really asked. Eyes holding mine, voice steady with care. I’ve always been the one on the other end the safe landing, the anchor, the one people call when their world collapses. I didn’t mind it at first. It gave me purpose. It made me feel… worthy. But somewhere along the way, I forgot how to receive support. I forgot how to say “I’m not okay.” Because strength, for me, became silence.

I learned young that love was earned through usefulness. If I could be helpful, needed, dependable, I’d be kept around. So I trained myself to notice every unspoken need. I’d smooth over the awkward tension in rooms, swallow my own sadness to hold someone else’s. I didn’t realize I was setting myself on fire to keep others warm. That being needed became a substitute for being loved.

They called me strong. But strength became a cage. When people see you as “the strong one,” they don’t check in, they lean in. They pour. They cry. They collapse. And you hold it. Every single time. No one ever asks where you go when it gets heavy. And the truth? You don’t go anywhere. You just carry it… quietly.

You become an expert at appearing okay. You smile on cue, nod through pain, laugh at things that aren’t funny because you don’t want anyone to worry. You’re their rock. Their safe space. But rocks aren’t supposed to feel tired. And no one asks how the rock is doing.

I remember crying in the bathroom with the tap running. Not because I was dramatic but because silence felt safer. Because I didn’t want to make anyone uncomfortable with my sadness. Because I thought needing support made me a burden. I remember sitting in rooms full of people I love… and still feeling invisible. Not because they didn’t care. But because I taught them I didn’t need anything. I trained them not to worry about me. And they listened.

Whenever I did feel overwhelmed, I’d argue with myself internally:

“Don’t be selfish.”

“Other people have it worse.”

“You should be grateful.”

So I’d shove the feelings down. Bury them beneath check-ins, favours, advice. It’s hard to ask for support when your entire identity is built on being the support. But the truth? I was crumbling. Silently. Softly. In a way only I could see.

One night, I had a panic attack alone in my room. No one knew. I didn’t tell anyone. Not because I didn’t have people, but because I didn’t know how to reach out anymore. I had spent years curating the image of the unshakeable one. The one who always knew what to say. The one who always had it together. And I realized…I was so afraid of becoming someone’s burden that I became no one’s priority. Not even my own.

Healing didn’t start with a therapist or a journal entry. It started the day I said out loud, “I need help.” It felt foreign in my mouth. Like betrayal. Like weakness. But also… like truth. I had to unlearn the lie that receiving support made me lesser. That asking for help made me broken. That needing meant failing.

I had to forgive myself for all the times I suffered in silence, for all the tears I swallowed, for all the nights I gave so much away and left nothing for myself. And slowly… I began to let people in. Little by little. Carefully. Not everyone knew how to show up, but the ones who did? They stayed. And it mattered.

I’ll never forget the first time someone held space for me without asking for anything in return.

No advice. No “you’ll be okay.”

Just presence.

Just, “I’m here.”

I cried.

Not because I was sad, but because someone finally saw me. And in that moment, I realized: Support isn’t weakness. It’s intimacy. It’s saying, “You don’t have to carry this alone.” It’s the medicine I had spent years prescribing but never tasting.

If you’re the one everyone leans on…

If your smile hides exhaustion…

If your inbox is full of others’ pain but your voice goes unheard…

This is for you. You are not failing by needing support. You are human. You are allowed to fall apart. You are allowed to not have the answers. You are allowed to receive. You don’t have to earn love through usefulness. You don’t have to bleed quietly to be worthy. Being strong doesn’t mean carrying it all alone. Sometimes, the bravest thing you’ll ever do… is let someone carry you.

These days, I still give. It’s who I am.

But I also receive.

I cry without apology.

I ask for help even when my voice shakes.

I let people see my cracks because that’s where the light gets in. If you’re tired of being the strong one, hear this:

You are not too much.

You are not a burden.

You don’t have to keep proving your worth through how well you carry others. You are worthy of support. Of softness. Of safety. Not for what you do but for who you are. Please don’t forget that.