The Burden of being a Black Hole

 What’s your role in your family?

When I was 11, my godfather took me outside for a nighttime talk. In the cool autumn darkness, he unimpromptu unloaded built-up complaints and childhood traumas onto me. I nodded and tried my best to fake short understandings and agreeing replies, waiting for the moment I could go back inside. He thanked me for being strong, listening, and told me, “You are the glue holding your family together.”  

In middle school, my family went through some rough times and was constantly in a state of discord, anxiety, and fear. Perhaps being the middle child is what got me stuck in the middle of everything, and that’s how I became everyone’s therapist. Or maybe because in emotionally heated situations, I was the least reactive, making me the optimal outlet. Either way, my role in the family was a black hole for everyone’s troubles, and I thought of myself as a central support propping up my family that was crumbling around me. 

My godfather gave me more private chats and told me everything that was happening would make me stronger in the future, and it made me want to prove myself. I had begun to acquire skills, like 1. Listening to people, 2. Pretending to listen to people, and 3. Shoving my emotions down into a tiny, pent-up body, because letting them out would knock down our family’s stabilizing buttress and burden everyone even more. At the time, I had taken this for strength. The remarkable ability to absorb everyone’s pains and evaporate them away. But they weren’t evaporating; they were getting stuck and building up inside my heavy heart.

Months later, we had a mental health workshop at school. Everyone received a workbook painted with rainbow watercolor that was supposed to represent different emotions. It included different emotional regulation exercises and journaling activities. As our teacher guided us through the pages, she passionately explained why it was important to have an emotional outlet because it was unhealthy to bury our feelings. As she looked right at me and tears began welling up in my eyes, I suddenly became uncomfortably aware of the heavy weight I’d been constantly carrying on my shoulders. It was then that I learned what true strength was. It is the courage to unlock ourselves and let everything out before it eats us away from the inside. I had mistaken strength as mediating, peace-making, and making myself my own lowest priority.

It’s like on airplanes when they tell you to put on your own oxygen mask before helping others. How could I help take care of others if I wasn’t taking care of myself? So I tried following my teacher’s advice and started journaling, though I admit I often got carried away. Once I started writing, I would continue for pages, unable to stop myself from spiraling into a meltdown. It was like trying to gently unlock a door to my heart, and instead, having it violently burst open and drown me in grief. I also felt upset at myself for lacking control, and journaling became so overwhelming that I quit. 

Because I hadn’t figured out how to deal with the burdens inside me yet, I thought I should maybe try to stop accumulating more in the meantime. Though it was difficult to overcome the people-pleasing mentality, I tried setting healthier boundaries and directing people to other resources, like therapy. But because I’d had trouble managing people’s unloadings on me, I hesitated to share my own feelings, afraid of burdening others. However, as I built up the courage to be vulnerable, I realized that others often wanted to help me as I had wanted to help them, and coming together could build a new kind of strength. I found resilience in allowing myself to be honest, but also discovered that when talking to people, we could find strength in each other. It requires an uncomfortable courage, but I’ve found that the difficulty in being open is more tolerable and rewarding than the difficulty of carrying everything by yourself. Hauling heavy weights on your shoulders doesn’t mean you have really strong shoulders. If it’s too much, it will hurt and could break you at any point. But getting help so you can carry a more manageable weight will allow building real strength, your shoulders to relax, your posture to open back up, and you to breathe again.

Questions: Do my metaphors help? Are there too many potentially unnecessary details in my storytelling? What parts seem the least important that I could cut? How is the narrative/reflection balance? Is there enough reflection/growth Also, I kind of suck at coming up with titles, if anyone has any suggestions... I am at 728 words, so any tips to help condense would be great! Thanks for reading