Maybe you've been the strong one for so long, you don't even remember what it felt like to need someone. Maybe you became a mother, and instead of joy, you felt like you were disappearing. Maybe you're grieving something... a parent, a version of yourself, a childhood that never quite protected you, and no one around you has the language for it.

I do. Because I lived it.

I grew up as the emotional anchor in my home, my mother's confidant, my siblings' protector, long before I understood what that cost me. I left for college carrying wounds I couldn't name. I found myself in a relationship that mirrored the very dynamics I was raised in, without knowing it.