For most of my life, being strong felt like a compliment. It was something people admired. Something I admired about myself and held great pride in. I was independent, capable, resourceful, resilient. If something needed to be done, I figured it out. If there was a problem, I solved it. If life got hard, I pushed through. I didn’t spend much time questioning it because it worked.
Looking back, I can see that I became “the strong one” long before I ever called myself that. My mother was a single mom raising three daughters. She loved us fiercely and would have done anything for us. Asking for help wasn’t discouraged in our home. But somewhere along the way, I learned that if I could figure something out myself, I should. Why ask when I could do it? Why burden someone else when I could carry it? Why depend on someone when I could depend on myself? The more self-sufficient I became, the safer I felt. As a child, I also learned something else.
If you could hurry through pain, discomfort, sadness, or disappointment, it would be over faster. So that’s what I did. I pushed through. I kept moving. I handled it. And because I became very good at handling things, people assumed I didn’t need much. The truth is, I eventually started believing that too.
What I didn’t understand was that there is a difference between strength and self-protection. Strength says, “I can do hard things.” Self-protection says, “I can only trust myself.” For years, I confused the two. The reality is that being the strong one gave me a lot. It made me resilient. It helped me build a career. It taught me how to solve problems. It helped me survive situations that might have broken me.
But every strength has a shadow. And the shadow side of being the strong one is that eventually you stop allowing people to see when you’re struggling. You stop asking for help. You stop expecting support. You convince yourself that needing people is risky. Not because anyone explicitly taught you that. But because disappointment hurts. Because unmet expectations hurt. Because relying on someone and watching them fail to show up hurts.
So little by little, you decide it’s easier to carry it yourself. The problem is that eventually you start carrying everything. I can see that pattern throughout my life. I see it in relationships. I see it in work. I see it in achievement.
For years, success felt like safety. The more successful I became, the less I would need anyone. The more money I made, the more secure I would feel. The more capable I became, the more control I would have. Achievement became proof. Proof that I was okay. Proof that I could handle life. Proof that I didn’t need help. Proof I didn’t need anyone. The harder I worked to become independent, the lonelier it became. Not because I didn’t have people. Because I wasn’t letting people in.
Even in my abusive relationship, I can see how this pattern showed up. I was hyper-independent before that relationship ever began. The relationship didn’t create it. It reinforced it. Every need became ammunition. Every vulnerability became a debt. Every act of support came with strings attached. Look what I did for you. Look what I gave you. Look what you owe me. So I stopped asking.
I took on more. I became quieter. More isolated. More determined to figure everything out myself. And like so many people who find themselves in unhealthy situations, I carried a tremendous amount of shame. Shame thrives in silence. Had I been openly sharing what was happening, I may have gotten help sooner. But when you are used to carrying everything yourself, silence can feel familiar.
Then cancer arrived. Cancer does not care about the identities we build. It does not care about the stories we tell ourselves. It does not care how strong you think you are. Within weeks of starting treatment, the woman who could sprint a mile in under eight minutes found herself out of breath walking fifty feet.
The woman who could do everything herself suddenly couldn’t. A walk that once took ten minutes now took twenty. Tasks I barely thought about became exhausting. I needed help. Real help. Not emotional encouragement. Not motivational quotes. Help. Physical help. And if I’m honest, I hated it.
Because every time I needed help, it forced me to acknowledge something I desperately wanted to avoid. I was sick. I didn’t want to be the person who needed help cleaning. I didn’t want to be the person who couldn’t do everything herself. I remember hiring a housekeeper because I physically didn’t have the energy. And even then, I felt guilty. Guilty resting while someone else cleaned. Guilty receiving something I genuinely needed. Guilty allowing someone to do for me what I could no longer do for myself. That guilt told me a lot about my relationship with receiving.
The people who loved me showed up. Not once. Not twice. Over and over again. My mother came to every infusion. My sisters stepped into roles I never expected them to. The older sister who was used to taking care of everyone suddenly found herself being cared for.
My youngest sister stayed with me after surgery. Helping with drains. Helping me get up. Helping with things that stripped away every illusion of independence. My middle sister would come over and climb into bed with me. We would watch television together like we had when we were kids. Simple moments. Ordinary moments. Yet somehow they felt extraordinary. Because beneath all of it was something I had spent years struggling to believe.
I was loved. Not because of what I could do. Not because of what I could provide. Not because I was strong. Just because I was me.
There are moments in life when a belief you’ve carried for decades begins to crack. Cancer didn’t create those beliefs, but it forced me to look at them honestly. The biggest one was realizing that I had spent years preparing for people to let me down. Meanwhile, the people who loved me were showing up again and again. Consistently. Faithfully. Lovingly.
I still think strength matters. I still think resilience matters. I still think being capable is a beautiful thing. But these days, my definition of strength looks different.
Strength is asking for help when you need it.
Strength is admitting when you’re struggling.
Strength is allowing yourself to receive.
Strength is trusting someone enough to let them carry part of the weight.
The biggest lie being the strong one ever taught me was that I was better off alone. I wasn’t. None of us are. The truth is that life was never meant to be carried by one person. Not the grief. Not the fear. Not the joy. Not the healing. Not the rebuilding.
Perhaps one of the greatest acts of courage is allowing ourselves to believe that we don’t have to earn love through achievement, competence, or self-sacrifice. We simply have to be willing to receive it.
The life I want moving forward will require many of the qualities that helped me survive.
Resilience.
Courage.
Perseverance.
But it will also require something that once felt far more uncomfortable.
Trust.
Trust that I can ask.
Trust that I can receive.
Trust that support does not make me weak.
And trust that being loved was never the problem.
Believing I had to do everything alone was.
