What I Needed Was Never Complicated—Just Real

I’ve Always Been the One to Show Up for Me

(But I’ve spent my entire life wishing someone else would)

Every heartbreak.

Every loss.

Every trauma.

Every moment that shattered me into pieces…

I carried it. Alone.

I didn’t have someone to hold me through it.

No one to wrap their arms around me and say, “I know this hurts. You don’t have to be strong right now. I’ve got you.”

So I learned to be strong.

I learned to carry the weight, even when it was unbearable.

I learned to show up for myself—over and over again—because no one else did.

From the pain of abusive relationships…

To soul-crushing heartbreak…

To losing my mom—

Even then, I didn’t fall apart.

Because I couldn’t.

Because I wasn’t in a space where it felt safe to grieve her.

So I never truly did.

I held it all together when the most important person in my life was gone.

I kept moving. Kept smiling. Kept pretending I was okay.

But I wasn’t.

And looking back… I see it now.

All those fake smiles. The silence. The numbness.

They weren’t strength. They were survival. They were a cry for help.

But no one ever heard it.

Instead of seeing the pain beneath the surface, people turned away.

They either assumed I was fine or noticed I wasn’t acting like myself—and shamed me for it.

Not one person stopped to say,

“I see you. I know you’re not okay. And it’s okay to not be okay.”

That’s all I ever needed.

And maybe the hardest part of all of this is that for as long as I can remember…

I’ve had to justify my feelings.

Explain them. Prove them. Defend them.

Because most of the time, my emotions were treated like they didn’t matter.

Dismissed. Invalidated. Twisted into something they weren’t.

So I started second-guessing them myself.

And when you spend your whole life having your feelings minimized, questioned, or rejected…

You stop trusting yourself.

You hide your emotions even from your own heart.

You go numb until the numbness turns into confusion—and you don’t even know what’s real anymore.

You start gaslighting yourself before anyone else can.

And the world doesn’t help.

Society tells you to move on, toughen up, keep going.

But no one tells you how to feel.

No one teaches you how to sit in your emotions without shame.

No one says,

“It’s okay to hurt. It’s okay to feel angry. It’s okay to cry. And you don’t have to apologize for any of it.”

But that’s what I needed.

That’s what I still need.

Not attention. Not rescuing.

Just a steady presence. A safe person.

Someone who sees how hard I’ve been trying and says,

“You don’t have to carry this alone anymore.”

Because even though I can carry it—

Doesn’t mean I want to.

Doesn’t mean I should have to.

I want to be held instead of doing all the holding.

I want to rest.

To exhale.

To feel safe in someone else’s presence, not because I’m incapable—but because I’m human. And because I deserve that kind of love, too.

I don’t need saving.

But God, it would mean everything to finally feel what it’s like to be genuinely loved.

The way I love.

The way I’ve always hoped someone would love me.

Even just once.

Even just for a little while.

—

Lindsay-Michele