#hiddenstruggles
People say every parent hurts when they lose time with their children.
And they’re right.
But what people don’t understand is that my story started long before I became a mum.
I was eight years old when I first learned what it meant to take care of someone else.
While other children were playing outside and learning what childhood felt like—
I was helping my mum, looking after my siblings, learning responsibility before I even understood what childhood was supposed to be.
I didn’t grow up dreaming about the future.
I grew upholding things together.
Then at seventeen I became a mum.
And suddenly all that caring, all that protecting, all that loving—
had somewhere to go.
Four years later-another little life needed me.
Five years after that my third.
By then being “mum”wasn’t just something I did.
It was who I was.
Because I had never known a life that wasn’t built around caring for someone else.
Six years later my fourth child arrived.
And that’s whenever thing went wrong.
Not with loving them.
Never with loving them.
But with being forced to live a life without them.
People say other parents go through this too.
And they do.
But many of them had years before their children.
Years to build themselves. Years to learn who they were.
I didn’t.
I went froma child caring for others to a mother raising children.
So when my world changed—when my children were no longer in my arms or running through my home—
it didn’t just feel like losing them.
It felt like losing the only life I had ever known.
Because when your whole life has been built around loving and protecting and raising others—
you don’t just lose time with your children.
You lose the part of you-that only ever existed when they were there.
Mar 16
Mar 16, 2026 at 2:11 PM UTC
He sits on the edge of the bed;
tears rolling, no reason.
Not sad —
_just leaking_.
Hand across his face,
_sniffs_, straightens his back.
Deep breath —
__Done!__
He moves on,
like it never happened at all.
“Never mind,” he says,
“that’s just life.”
Sep 1, 2025
Sep 1, 2025 at 5:57 AM UTC
__The greatest betrayal?__
When the positivity-giver isn’t so
positive themselves. When the light
they hand out doesn’t reach their
own shadow.
Belief in self-worth— they say it’s
your shell. But I haven’t found the
pearl that fits my shape.
Still liquid—I form myself to every
room, shape my smile to fit their
forecast. _These tears?_ Not weakness.
Just soil erosion.
Washing away what held me—
leaving me bare, unready for tomorrow’s
weight. Like the trampled flower—
I’m not phased. I remember the feet
that pressed me into the same ground
I bloomed from.
I haven’t forgotten all those soles
that stepped on my feat.
Jun 24, 2025
Jun 24, 2025 at 5:12 AM UTC
"You made it look easy," they whisper—
A phrase that echoes, hollow and sharp,
Cutting through the quiet of my solitary journey.
Navigating parenthood alone,
A military spouse stretched thin by distance,
Selling dreams as fragile as glass,
Balanced on the edge of every choice.
A diagnosis presses against my chest,
One child in my arms, another learning beside me.
Battles hidden behind closed doors,
Invisible to those who see only the surface.
When I bared the depths of my soul,
Resilience bloomed like wildflowers—
Not a cry, but a roar.
Judgments swirl around me—
A storm of misconceptions,
Echoes of untold stories etching my truth.
Others glimpse my path only when they walk similar roads,
Their perceptions shifting like sand,
Revealing the landscape of unseen struggles.
My journey is not a blueprint,
Nor a promise of simplicity.
Each step a singular rhythm,
Each challenge a raw, unscripted melody.
I didn't make it look easy;
I made it look possible.
Resilience is not a performance,
But a quiet, fierce rebellion.
No shortcuts, no easy roads—
Just forward motion,
Carved from determination,
Etched with survival's raw grace.
Dec 10, 2024
Dec 10, 2024 at 11:15 AM UTC