For the woman who's been holding everything together for so long she can't remember the last time someone helped her carry it.

Psychotherapist in Fairfax, VA/Licensed in VA and MD

‍ ‍I work with women who have spent their lives being the responsible one — managing everyone's needs, absorbing the slack, holding it all together. Something recently got harder. You’re exhausted in a way that's hard to justify because your life looks fine from the outside. You’re smart enough to know what probably needs to change, and you still can't move. You’re not falling apart. You’ve just been holding it together for so long, you can't remember the last time someone helped you carry it.

You’ve been the responsible one your whole life. The one who shows up, figures it out, keeps things running. And for a long time that worked. But right now your parents need more, something's going on with your kid, and your husband said something the other day that just landed wrong.

You’re tired. Not lazy tired. Tired of being the only one who seems to notice what everyone needs.

You can't even let yourself say how hard this is — because you’re pretty sure someone who was more organized, more on top of things, wouldn't be struggling this much. And anyway, you have a good life. Nice house, decent income, a family. People tell you how lucky you are. So you keep going. You even knows, intellectually, what probably needs to change. That somehow makes it worse.

You used to love things. You still notices everything, sees all sides, holds space for everyone around you. But you can't remember the last time you did any of that for yourself. That part of you is still in there. She just can't find her way back right now.

Even looking for help feels weird — like you don’t really deserve to take up that space. Like maybe these aren't real problems.

This is the work of figuring out what's actually yours to carry — and what isn't. With someone who already gets how much energy this takes, and isn't going to be shocked by what's really going on.

Somewhere in this work, something shifts. You start to see how much you’ve actually been carrying — and that you’ve been strong enough to carry it, but that doesn't mean you have to keep carrying all of it alone.

You start to notice when something doesn't sit right. You figure out what you actually want to say instead of what keeps the peace. And when you say it — not perfectly, not without anxiety — something in you feels more like yourself than you have in a long time.

The people around you don't always love it at first. But most of them come around. And you stop needing them to approve before you can trust herself.