(Warning: Contains explicit language.)

I often wonder what my life looks like to outsiders, people who don’t know the truth about the horrors and breaking points I’ve learned to endure. What do they see when they look at me? I wonder if I’m one of those people who seem put together on the surface. Always moving with purpose, always ready to take on any challenge. I wonder if there are people in my life whom I inspire to find the strength and courage to try to push themselves (in healthy ways, hopefully!). I wonder if that’s why no one checks in on me that often — because I seem like the kind of person who always has a handle on situations even in the middle of chaos. Someone who can make it through anything.

Hyper independence is a bitch of a coping mechanism, isn’t it? It masks as capability, power, and the appearance of always being put together. What others see as the ability to be calm and level-headed in stressful situations is actually the toxic trait of not trusting other people to help. Or even worse, the fear of being a burden to others, so you pile everything up on your own shoulders. And the longer time goes on, and the more you subject yourself to, the more you learn to handle alone until you couldn’t possibly fathom someone else lending you their strengt,h as now you know you can do it all alone. And if you’ve seen that you are indeed capable of doing it, why would you need to ask someone else?

And what else could go hand-in-hand with hyper independence, if not for overthinking? What a complete fucking mess those two can create together — right when I start to relent and try to rely on others for help, the overthinking steps in, and I start to overanalyze every small action and every minute comment until I convince myself the person feels burdened to help me. In reality, they probably don’t even think twice about it before agreeing to assist. But damn, my own mind can’t just sit still for a moment and let good things be.

I’m trying to work on it more these days. Ask for help more often, share the hard things I’m going through with those close to me so they can be there to support me. It’s far from a perfect process for me, nor does it come naturally or effortlessly. But I’m trying.

I bring this up now as my hyper independence has been being tested lately, on more than one occasion this last month, and I’m still trying to process how I’ve handled these situations.

The first occurrence to happen was the unfortunate reappearance of someone from my past that I would have rather never seen again. I’ve written about them and our relationship before — the emotionally abusive, manipulative narcissist with anger issues. Looking back at our relationship now, I feel bad for the version of me that lived through that. And though I’d like to say if I could ever go back and undo that relationship earlier so I didn’t have to live through all those terrible things again, I would. But that would be a lie. I grew so much from that time and became a much better person afterwards, that I couldn’t imagine I’d be the same person I am now had I not gone through that. Doesn’t mean it wasn’t one of the worst pains of my life — just means that I learned that the path to growth fucking hurts sometimes.

And like the naïve little ball of sunshine I am, I thought I’d never run into or see this person ever again. I would have been happy if that were the case. I was out shopping recently at the local store I visit every week. My cart was full, and my energy was running out as I pushed the off-balance, metal basket on wobbly wheels to the check-out stands.

I was looking for something quick and easy, and thought it was a blessing to see an empty check stand. The person running it was turned around, talking to one of the other employees as I pulled into it and started unloading my things onto the belt. I wasn’t looking at him yet, as I was focused on hustling myself through, when I heard a familiar “Oh, hey.” I immediately froze and looked up to be faced with the unfortunate truth that my ex was the cashier. Though his greeting was casual, his face was a mix of things I couldn’t quite place. Something like irritation, surprise, and something else made me feel like he wanted to yell at me for some reason.

I’m sure my face gave off my surprise (I feel like I wear my emotions on my sleeve), but I tried to keep my tone casual and professional. I asked him how long he’d been working there, and he said only two weeks so far. Said he likes it because it’s a union and they offer good things for their employees and all that shit. All I could hear was, “Yeah, so I’ll be here for a while.” My first thought? Fuck.

I shop there all the time because they’re the only store in town with everything we need at the best prices — any comparable options are in the next towns over. I finished my shopping that day and went home, where I proceeded to have to calm myself from the mini panic attack I started getting. The following week, I was doing my shopping there again, as I still don’t have any close, viable alternatives. And though I didn’t see him that time, I felt nervous going down every aisle, wondering if he was going to pop up randomly somewhere. By the time I got home, I was mentally exhausted and fighting off another anxiety attack with a whole day of chores left ahead of me.

This was one of those times that made me think that most of the people in my life don’t see this side of me. I told a couple of close friends about him working there, and they were supportive about it in the way I needed, but I purposefully left out the panic attacks this was causing me. Because the verbal support they gave at the time was great and easy to accept, but it felt like burdening them with the knowledge of my physical reactions to see him again, because what are they supposed to do about that? There’re no words to say to comfort someone fully from that, and they can’t be there to hold my hand while I shop every week and be ready to help me if I were to run into him again. I don’t want them to feel bad for not being able to help me face that kind of pain, so I kept that part to myself to figure out. But I can’t figure it out, because it surprised me to learn that after this time of healing I went through after leaving him, after all the pain I worked through to get to the place I am now, I’m not fully healed from it still. If I were, I wouldn’t have reacted like that, I think. So here I am, struggling to figure out what to do to stop myself from having a panic attack from visiting a store I’ve been going to for years, alone, because my hyper-independent ass can’t ask for help. And it’s in this that I remember I’m not as put together as I may appear to other people.

An upcoming challenge I’ll also face head-on with my independence is the annual vacation of my direct manager, leaving all of her daily tasks to myself and the rest of the team members. We all work well together — truly, this team would not work as well had it not been for the specific people on it. We’ll divide her duties amongst us and support each other when one of us starts falling behind. It will be a stressful time for all of us, no doubt. But we’ll get through it together and be just fine like we’ve done in the past. I know all these things to be true — it will be difficult and testing at times, but we can do it, and we will together. And that is what I’m trying to focus on now, but instead all my thoughts can go to is how the rest of my teammates have partners who have, in the past during this time, shown great support by spending breaks with them, listening to their stresses for that day, and bringing them food. They all have partners who come and support them because they understand how stressful this time is for us, and they want to help. And it’s so sweet, and I’m so happy they all have those kinds of relationships. But all I can think of right now is how I don’t have someone like that in my life — how I’ll be alone during that time and need to rely on my hyper independence yet again to get me through this.

I have friends and family who can offer comforting words, but I don’t have anyone to go home to and hold me at night or rub the stress from my back at the end of the day. I don’t have someone else who will take care of meals for me or some weekly chores, just so I have a little less to worry about. I’ll feel alone and have to comfort myself. I’ll have to take care of feeding myself, getting all my chores done, and managing to support my team members without receiving the extra support after/during work that they all do.

And some people will see this at the office and maybe think, “Oh, she’s strong, she’s fine. Look at how well she’s dealing with this.” In reality, I’m breaking down inside, fighting off a pain that feels too deep to put into words around the coffee machine. In reality, I desperately want someone to check in on me and just ask how I’m doing during that time. But I know even if I get that, I’ll tell people I’m fine. Because once again, hyper independence is a bitch, and of course, I can’t let people know how hard it all is for me to deal with.

I won’t show these aspects of myself to just anyone, because I’ve learned over time that I can trust extremely few people with how I’m feeling. What a terrible habit to reinforce in my own mind. But it’s something not easily unlearned, and every small thing that seems to align with the thinking that you can’t rely on people only enforces its stronghold on my mind tenfold. Recently, I had an experience where I was stuck due to car troubles. I called someone for support, and they came out to be with me, which was so nice! But then they commented on knowing nothing about cars, so there’s nothing they could do, and I convinced myself I heard an annoyed tone to their voice when there probably wasn’t one. I took it as them not actually wanting to be there because there was nothing they could do, and they’d rather be home than just standing there. I let them know they didn’t need to give me a ride to the mechanic’s, as the tow truck driver could, and they also seemed annoyed by that to me. I couldn’t figure it out, and it could have just been me reflecting back the stress I was feeling at the time on their actions and comments, but at the moment, I didn’t have the time to sit and work it out. I just tried to work on fixing the problem myself without them needing to get involved, so that I didn’t throw a wrench into their plans for the day.

It’s in these moments that I start to think about how other people see me when I insist on handling things myself.

My life isn’t this stressful constantly, but when it rains, it pours, I guess. I either have a break with nothing substantially difficult going on in my life, or I have multiple things like this hit me all at once. There’s no way around that — it is what it is sometimes.

But while I work through my lifelong learned habits of hyper independence and feeling like I can only rely on myself, I can at least take comfort in knowing that every storm runs out of rain eventually. All these things will pass at some point, and I’ll take a nice, deep breath and think to myself, “That wasn’t so bad,” because isn’t it much easier to say that after all the bullshit is over with?

I know these are bad habits to have, and I look forward to the day when someone will come along, understand these feelings, and push through the walls I put up to be there for me. I imagine they’ll refuse to accept my answers of “I’m fine,” and sit with me and gently but sternly encourage me to talk to them about it. They’ll bring me food when I’m stressed and help out with more than their fair share of the chores just to lighten my burden a little without me having to ask, because God knows I won’t. I think that’s what I need the most — someone who helps of their own accord, who takes action without waiting for permission or my asking them to do so. The biggest obstacle I face is that if I need to ask someone to help, they never really wanted to in the first place, if they saw I could use it but didn’t offer it themselves. What a toxic mindset to have…

I still have a long way to go in my growth, but I know I’ll get there. Eventually.