they said i was strong

Strength. It's a word that's often spoken with admiration, etched into the compliments of well-meaning friends and strangers alike. They look at you and see a fighter - a survivor of storms, unshaken and unbending. They marvel at your ability to hold your ground while everything around you crumbles, as if you were carved out of granite instead of flesh.

"You're so strong," they say, their voices dripping with awe. "I could never handle what you've been through."

It's meant to be a kindness, I think - a ribbon tied around the wreckage of your life. But what no one tells you about being strong is how quietly it exhausts you. How heavy the armor becomes when you've been wearing it for so long.

Because no one asks if you're tired.

No one asks what it's like to shoulder the weight of the world while pretending it doesn't crush you. To absorb every hit without flinching because weakness feels like a luxury you can't afford. Strength becomes both your shield and your prison, a mask you wear so often that even you forget what lies underneath.

And maybe that's the worst part of all - the way they romanticize your pain. They see the battles you've fought and survived but never the scars left behind. They call you inspiring, not realizing that the strength they celebrate wasn't a choice. It was a necessity.

Because what's the alternative? Falling apart isn't an option when you're the one everyone depends on. Cracking under the pressure feels selfish when people rely on your resilience to navigate their own storms. You become the anchor, even as the waves threaten to drag you under.

But anchors rust too.

I think about all the moments no one sees - the quiet collapses behind closed doors, the tears shed into pillows, the endless nights spent staring at the ceiling, wondering if you'll ever feel like yourself again. Those moments when your strength feels less like a virtue and more like a punishment.

And yet, no one asks.

No one asks if you feel like you're unraveling from the inside, piece by piece. They see the surface - the steady hands, the forced smiles, the composed words - and assume you're fine. Or worse, they convince themselves that you thrive on resilience, that you're built differently.

But you're not.

You're human. You bleed, you break, you ache like anyone else. The difference is that your pain goes unnoticed, hidden beneath the layers of your so-called strength. And when no one asks, it becomes easier to stop offering the truth. It becomes easier to lie.

"I'm fine," you say, because explaining feels exhausting.

But you're not fine. You're tired. Tired of being the strong one. Tired of the expectations, the silent burdens, the unspoken rule that you must endure.

Sometimes, I wonder what it would feel like to let it all go. To drop the armor, the facade, the weight of being "strong" and simply exist as you are. Would the world shatter if you showed them your cracks? Or would it soften, just for a moment, and offer you the grace you've given to everyone else?

I don't know the answer. But what I do know is this: strength is not the absence of struggle. It's not the ability to carry everything without breaking. Real strength is being able to admit when you're tired and allowing yourself the space to rest.

But until someone asks, the world will never know how much it takes from you to keep going. And maybe, just maybe, it's time you asked yourself the question no one else will:

What would happen if you put the weight down?