Can you remember when you first became “the responsible one”? Most women can’t - because there wasn’t one singular moment when they shifted from being cared for to being counted on.

The internet calls it “eldest daughter syndrome”. I call it what happens when a little girl becomes her family’s emotional shock absorber.

Seven years ago, while in grad school to become a licensed counselor myself, I was sitting across from my therapist, intellectually spiraling about something my husband did: over-explaining, analyzing, looping through every possible angle. You know. Tuesday.

She paused and asked if I’d be willing to try something different. Instead of talking about the frustration, she asked me to speak to it. To listen to it. To let it respond. It was weird. But it also worked.

You don’t need to be less reactive—you actually need to be better at it.

Some version it always comes up with new clients: “I just want to be less reactive.” Not less hurt. Not less unseen. Just…less reactive. 

Sometimes it’s buried under paragraphs of context. Sometimes it’s the whole damn paragraph. Either way, it’s one of the most common reasons my clients cite for starting therapy—the thing they think will make everything feel more manageable. 

“So… what kind of clients do you see?” It’s a simple question, but I never quite know how to answer because the truth is, I don’t think in diagnoses or demographics. I think in nervous systems. I think in spirals. I think in her. Women just like you—the ones who are smart, high-functioning, and secretly unraveling.

It’s 2:14AM and your phone screen is burning holes in your face. You’ve got 17 tabs open, and none of them are helping. Why not? Because you’re not actually looking for an answer. You’re looking for relief. From the guilt. From the grief. From the whiplash of feeling one thing in the morning and the opposite by dinner.

When she first came to see me, Brooke didn’t talk about grief or loneliness - she talked about logistics. She told me she had a good partner, a stable relationship. No real fights. No red flags. “We get along,” she said, in a way that sounded like both a celebration and a resignation. And then one day, a month or two in, she told me a story that changed everything.

From the outside, it looks like you’re just trying to communicate - to be understood. But on the inside? You’re frantically trying to outrun the ache of being met with the blank face. The defensive shrug. The moment when you realize you’ve been understood technically—but not felt. 

You tell yourself you’re confused. That if you could just figure it out—run the numbers, weigh the options, script the perfect conversation where no one gets hurt—you’d finally land on clarity. But if we’re being honest? You already have clarity. You’re just scared shitless of what it means.

You knew marriage would be work. You expected hard conversations. “Compromise”. The constant recalibration that happens when two adults are learning how to stay connected while managing groceries, gut health, and generational trauma - never mind dodging Legos. You even braced for seasons of disconnection—because you’re realistic like that.

But what you’re feeling now? The second-guessing, over-analyzing, and soul-numbing depletion? You didn’t see that coming - and you shouldn’t have.