High-functioning is just code for quietly struggling

A love story with your own survival instincts - the kind that whispered: “If I’m in control, I can’t be abandoned.”

You didn’t mean to become the one who does it all. The one who plans ahead. Who follows up. Who makes the spreadsheets, books the flights, organises the birthdays, the gifts. Who remembers the milk, the meeting, the thing no one else thought of.

You’re not trying to be controlling. You’re just trying to stay safe. Because somewhere along the line you learned that letting go meant getting hurt.

That trusting others meant being left. That softness was a setup.

And so you made control a kind of home.

This isn’t about perfection, it’s about protection.

The world sees someone competent. Capable. Calm. Someone who gets things done, holds it together, and never asks for much.

But it rarely sees what that performance costs and beneath that surface is a body that never really exhaled. A nervous system that learned to brace first, just in case.

Because when you grow up around unreliability, chaos, absence, or blame, you don’t just become efficient. You become prepared. Always.

Ready for people to forget. Ready for the letdown you saw coming. Ready to clean up what was never yours to carry. So you become someone who copes so well that no one thinks to ask if you’re tired.

Hyper-independence is grief in disguise.

It’s the quiet ache of having needed more and deciding never to need again.

It looks like resilience, but it’s really distance. A kind of self-protection that says:
If I don’t rely on anyone, they can’t let me down.
If I do it all, I won’t be disappointed.

And I know this in my own body. I still flinch at the thought of handing things over. Because I’ve done that before, in previous relationships where I had to manage everything. Where disappointment wasn’t an event - it was a pattern.
So I built a life that didn’t require relying on anyone. And I called that strength.

But really, it was loss. Dressed as control.

“I’ll just handle it” isn’t always strength, sometimes it’s fear.

Fear of being a burden. Fear of being seen as too much. Fear of someone dropping what you handed them - again.

So you stop handing it over. You carry it all. You become the reliable one. The strong one. The steady one. The one who never drops the ball because you never let it leave your hands.

People start to rely on you, not because you have capacity, but because you never say no. You’re praised for how well you manage and for being so resilient. But no one asks what it’s costing you.

And inside?

You’re the one who needs rest the most. And the one who forgot how to receive it. Not because you don’t want to, but because your body still thinks the moment you stop, everything might fall.

This isn’t just the mindset - it’s memory.

Stephen Porges calls it neuroception - the body’s ability to detect safety or danger before the mind catches up.

And attachment theory reminds us: when safety and care are unreliable, the body adapts. You learn to self-regulate, self-source, self-manage. You learn that it’s safer to cope alone than risk reaching out.

So now, even when someone says “I’ve got you,” you flinch a little. You double-check. You keep a backup plan.

Not because you want to, but because your nervous system still thinks you’re on your own.

So how do you let go when letting go doesn’t feel safe?

Not all at once. And not for anyone who hasn’t earned it.

You start with small things. Let someone else hold the list. Let a task go unfinished. Let the message go unanswered until you’re ready.

Let yourself rest before it’s urgent and your body makes you.

And when the discomfort rises, because it will, don’t shame it. That discomfort is your body trying to protect you the only way it knows how.

There is nothing weak about learning to receive.

You are not less for needing. You are not broken because rest feels unsafe. You are not dramatic or difficult or too much because your softness has a story.

You were trained to survive in a world where safety wasn’t a given.
But it is now. Or at least, it can be, in moments.

So let this be one of them.

Let yourself feel how heavy it’s been to be the one who always copes. And if that feels like grief - that’s okay too.

And if no one ever held it for you, you still get to put it down.

Even now.
Even here.
Even if your hands shake as you let go.

You don’t have to overfunction to stay loved. You don’t have to be in control to be safe. You don’t have to keep proving how capable you are. Softness was never the problem. Abandonment was. And you’re not there anymore.

So maybe today - just for a moment - you can let someone carry something with you.

And let that be enough!

If this landed: Send it to someone who always copes quietly. Or someone whose strength comes with a cost.

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