People call you when something goes wrong. You are good in a crisis, and you have been in a lot of them, mostly other people's. When someone asks how you are, you say fine and ask about them. Lately you have noticed there is no one you would call. I'm carrying so much and no one really knows it.
All three look like the same steady person. They leave that person alone for different reasons.
01
What you do when someone leans
Start with what happens when the call comes, and what happens after.
You answer. You show up, you stay calm, you know what to do. When it is over you go home and nobody asks what it took.
When the question does come your way, you turn it around. Good, busy, you know. Then you ask about their week. If something in you does give out, it happens where nobody can see. I go find somewhere nobody can see me, fall apart, then walk back in and go on like normal.
People call you the strong one, or the one who has it together. It is a compliment. It may also be something you never agreed to.
The cost may be that nobody can reach you. The people around you may only have what you show them to go on, so the support that exists may never arrive. I'm the one taking care of everybody else, and none of them know I was up half the night crying.
02
What being the strong one may be protecting
A layer down is what would be at risk if you were not the strong one for a day. Three rules can keep a person in that position.
"Strong is the only version of me they know."
The steadiness may be your standing with people. Under Strong, the trouble with being asked how you are is that an honest answer would show them someone they have not met. At work I'm rock solid. In my own life I'm a mess.
Read about Strong →"If they didn't need me, why would I be here?"
Being leaned on may be how you belong. Under Needed, the calls are tiring and they are also proof of a place. I'm the shoulder people cry on. It doesn't really come back the other way.
Read about Needed →"Asking creates a debt I don't want to carry."
Being the one who gives means never being the one who asks. Under Burden, the strength may be a way of making sure you are never in anyone's debt.
Read about Burden →These are not the only rules that can do this, and none of the three may fit.
03
What is under the rule
Each of the three has a fear under it, and each fear would explain why leaning back feels impossible.
Under Strong, the fear may be that if they see you struggle, you lose the only standing you have. What would answer it is being seen at less than full capacity and still being held.
Under Needed, the fear may be that without your usefulness there is no reason for you. What would answer it is being wanted and not required.
Under Burden, the fear may be that your needs make you too much, and too much gets left. What would answer it is receiving without owing.
So the same loneliness can be asking for three different things. Being told to let people in does not say which.
04
Two questions, in order
First. Which would be harder: them not needing you, or them seeing you struggle?
Picture the people who lean on you most. In one version they stop needing you. In the other they see you struggling. If the first is harder, that is the Needed answer. If the second is harder, that is the Strong answer.
Second, whatever the first answer was. If someone helped you and literally nobody would ever know, would you accept?
Someone helps you through a bad week, and it stays between the two of you. Yes is the Strong answer, because what mattered was who would see. Still no is the Burden answer, because the debt would exist either way.
Subtraction means taking explanations away until what is left has to carry the evidence. If neither question moved anything, there is not enough to tell yet.
Being steady does not have to mean a rule is involved. Some people are private, and some are steady and fine with it. The thing to weigh is cost, meaning whether staying composed is leaving you without support you could use.
05
One thing to try this week
The next time someone asks how you are, give one true sentence before you turn the question around. Not all of it. It's been a hard week, actually.
Then stop, and watch what they do. Notice whether they move toward you or change the subject. Notice what you want to do in the second after you have said it.
Write down both.
What it is like to keep the hard parts out of sight is on I Hide When I'm Struggling.