When Being the Strong One Becomes Your Identity

“I had to reschedule three meetings to make this session work,” she said, not as a complaint but as a statement of fact. Her eyes were shadowed, jaw visibly tight. “Last night I was up until 11 PM answering emails. When I finally closed my laptop, I spent another hour reorganizing the spice rack instead of sleeping.”

She glanced behind her and laughed—a short, sharp sound. “Ending a 14 hour work day and doing more work instead of going to bed. Who does that?”

I didn’t answer right away. What I saw wasn’t random exhaustion. It was the culmination of patterns that had likely started decades ago—patterns now threatening the foundation of her adult life.

How the Pattern Forms

When Alexandra was eight, her mother’s depression manifested as unpredictable drinking. Some nights, dinner appeared at 6 PM sharp. Other nights, nothing appeared at all.

“I started making my brother’s lunches in third grade,” she told me during our fourth session, eyes fixed somewhere beyond her screen. “My father worked late. My mother was usually… unavailable. So I took over.”

Small hands making sandwiches before she could tell time. Learning to gauge her mother’s mood by counting empty glasses. Making excuses when permission slips weren’t signed.

This pattern—stepping into adult roles as a child—didn’t just shape what Alexandra did. It hardened into who she became.

Maya, another former client I worked with (name and identifying details changed), experienced this from a different angle. As the oldest daughter of immigrants working multiple jobs, she became the family’s translator and default caregiver at age seven.

“In my community, I was celebrated for being so responsible,” Maya told me, twisting her wedding ring around her finger like a fidget toy. “What nobody understood is that I never had a choice.”

These aren’t isolated stories. Research on children from households with family dysfunction shows they develop distinctive adaptations in their nervous systems. Famed trauma researcher Bessel Van der Kolk, PhD’s extensive work on developmental trauma demonstrates how these children’s bodies become hypervigilant—constantly scanning for needs to meet and problems to solve—creating patterns that persist into adulthood long after the original circumstances have changed.

For women especially, these patterns get reinforced by culture.

We praise young women for self-sacrifice and anticipating others’ needs. Research by Bréne Brown, PhD shows how girls are socialized to value relationship maintenance above self-care, creating a perfect storm where both early experiences and social expectations push toward the same outcome. Being the strong one, and taking care of everyone but yourself.

True strength includes vulnerability and receiving—a radical redefinition for many “strong ones.”

Our culture equates strength with self-sufficiency and stoicism, but research on resilience reveals a more nuanced truth.