Paimana

People often come to me with their questions. Not the grand, philosophical ones, but the smaller, harder ones: Why can’t I feel present anymore? What if I’m making the wrong choice and I won’t know until it’s too late? How do I keep pretending everything’s fine when it isn’t? And somehow, almost instinctively, I find something to say. Through a mix of reading and years of sitting with my own thoughts, sometimes too long, I’ve learned how to turn confusion into something that sounds like clarity. I give them metaphors. I hand them stories that soften what they’re feeling. And most of the time, they leave lighter. They thank me. They think I’ve done something real for them. Maybe I have.

But the truth is, I often walk away from those moments more tired than before. Not just physically. It’s deeper than that. It feels like I’m giving away parts of myself that I haven’t even processed yet. Like I’m offering direction while I, myself, have no idea where I am. I know how to speak about pain, how to reframe it, how to make it make sense to someone else. But I don’t always know how to sit with it honestly, quietly, without trying to make it into something useful. I’ve become someone who speaks from the surface of understanding without always being able to live at its depth.

Over time, being the person that others come to starts to shape you. You start to feel like your worth is tied to how well you can help someone else feel better. And when that becomes a habit, you start to disappear into the role. You become a function. People don’t see you anymore; they see what you give them. And you let them. You perform stability even when you’re unraveling privately. You become careful about the way you fall apart so that no one notices.

I don’t think I’ve ever really learned how to ask for help. It’s not pride exactly. It’s more like I don’t know what language to use when I’m not the one offering comfort. I don’t know how to be vulnerable without feeling like I’m interrupting something. I’m so used to framing emotions in neat, digestible ways that when mine show up raw and unresolved, I don’t know where to put them. So I store them in silence. I tuck them behind all the stories I tell.

And then I come home and sit in that quiet. Not dramatic, not collapsed, just hollow. A slow emptiness that follows me around. It doesn’t scream. It doesn’t cry. It just watches. Watches me do the same thing again the next day. Watches me reach for meaning that I no longer believe belongs to me. I keep hoping that if I say the right thing to someone else, maybe I’ll overhear something useful for myself. Maybe something will echo back. It never does. The words don’t reach. They’re useful, maybe even beautiful, but they’re not for me. They’re borrowed from books, from moments, from places where I once felt clear.

Helping others is not the problem. I believe it matters. I believe that sharing what you know, even imperfectly, is a kind of care. But it becomes dangerous when you use it to hide from your own mess. When you’re always pouring out and never letting anything in. When the stories you give away become more alive than you are. People begin to think you’re unshakable, and you let them. You think you’re supposed to be.

And the truth is, sometimes I want someone to look at me the way people look at me when I’m helping them. I want someone to ask how I’m doing and stay long enough to hear the real answer. I want to believe that I don’t have to be useful in order to be loved. But I don’t know how to unlearn this way of being. I’ve built myself around it. I’ve learned to survive in it. And survival can start to feel like identity if you wear it long enough.

So no, I’m not okay. Not in a catastrophic way, but in a quiet way. In the way that gets overlooked because I’m good at making things sound alright. I’m just tired. Tired of giving from a place that hasn’t been refilled in a long time. Tired of hearing my own voice and wondering who it’s speaking for. Tired of helping people cross bridges that I don’t know how to build for myself.

Maybe this is all I can say right now. Maybe this is as close as I can get to asking for help. Not with a loud cry, not with a collapse, but with a small, honest confession. I am someone who helps. But I am also someone who is breaking. Quietly. And that has to be enough for now.