"What happens when the person you're waiting on... is you?"
There's a particular kind of tired no sleep can fix. It creeps in like a slow, invisible leak. First, it drains your mornings. Then your laughter. Eventually, your will. And by the time you notice, you're not living anymore, just... maintaining.
I used to feel that way, Every. Single. Day.
I was the go-to person for everyone else. The dependable one. The one who never dropped the ball, who remembered birthdays, who texted first, who stayed late and showed up early. I wore reliability like a badge of honor. And for a while, I tricked myself into thinking that was enough.
But slowly, my life began to blur. Like a photo gone out of focus. It wasn't one big thing that broke me... It was everything. The tiny, invisible wounds that accumulated while I smiled through them. The resentment I swallowed every time someone said, "You're so strong," when I wanted to scream, I'm tired.
There was a week, no, a month where everything started falling apart. My mom had a health scare, work was tightening deadlines like a noose, and a friend I loved deeply went ghost on me after I opened up about feeling burnt out. I hadn't cried in three years. That week, I cried in the car, at work, in the shower, in my sleep. My soul felt waterlogged.
I remember standing in front of the bathroom mirror one evening, still in the clothes I'd worn for two days, staring into my own reflection like it was a stranger. My face looked hollow. I said to myself, out loud, "I don't know who you are anymore."
That was the beginning of the spiral.
You see, I kept waiting.
Waiting for a friend to call and say, "You sounded off, are you okay?"
Waiting for someone to see through the practiced smile.
Waiting for a pause in the noise... Just one damn pause, so I could finally breathe.
But no one came.
And the silence that followed? It was deafening. It wasn't just the absence of help. It was the betrayal of being forgotten by the very people I never forgot. The people I made space for, who never made room for me.
The truth came in like a punch to the gut: I made it easy for them to overlook me.
Because I made pain look like grace.
Because I said, "I'm fine," with a smile too convincing.
Because I taught them I didn't need help.
And now, when I did? No one noticed.
One night, I cracked. Not in some poetic, soft breakdown kind of way. I raged.
I threw a plate. Not because I wanted to break it, but because something inside me had already shattered and I needed the world to see a sound that matched what I felt.
I sank to the kitchen floor, sobbing because of the pain and because of how invisible I had become in my own life.
I wanted someone to come knocking. To say, "I felt something was wrong." I wanted a sign. A rescue. A hand on my shoulder.
But the only thing that touched me was the cold tile under my skin.
And it hit me... hard, brutal, and final: No one is coming.
Not because they don't care.
But because they're all carrying their own weight, too. And maybe... just maybe, they think I'm still carrying mine like I always do.
But I wasn't. I was drowning. I needed help.
That night, I stopped waiting.
I dragged myself off the floor. Washed my face. Put on clean clothes. Not because it solved anything, but because I refused to sink further.
I started small.
I stopped saying "yes" when I meant "God, no."
I stopped replying to texts that drained me.
I started asking myself, "What do YOU need?" A question I hadn't asked in years.
I unfollowed people whose lives made me feel like mine was a failure in slow motion. I let myself sleep. I booked therapy. I cried through half the sessions and apologized for the other half.
I stopped glamorizing strength, and started honoring survival.
And slowly, the light came back.
Not because life got easier. But because I got honest.
So, If you're reading this, and you feel like you're holding everything together by a thread, think of this as your mirror.
Sometimes, the rescue you're waiting for won't come in the shape of a person. Sometimes it looks like a decision. A boundary. A breakdown. A silence you honor instead of fill.
You don't have to be everyone's anchor if it means you're sinking.
You're allowed to choose yourself. To say, "I matter too."
You're allowed to put the phone on Do Not Disturb and your heart on "healing mode."
Because here's the truth: No one is coming.
But you're already here.
And maybe that's enough.
Start where you are.
Even if it's on the floor.
Even if it's just a whisper.
Because the moment you stop waiting to be saved... is the moment you begin saving yourself.