Strength Was Never a Choice

Relief came after the last show of the season. Not joy, not celebration. Relief. The kind that arrives when a body finally says, enough.

I was still sick. Sick from missing the previous show. Physically ill. My heart still aching. My body made the decision for me before my mind could argue. Time for solace. Time to isolate and recover. Time to shut the world out long enough to stop bleeding internally.

Then the phone rang.

That phone had already become a conduit for circling holiday vultures, people I had cut off resurfacing with guilt and shame dressed as concern. I had been wrestling with that pressure already, holding firm, protecting what little strength I had left.

And then the call came from my landlord’s nurse.

He had fallen again. She couldn’t pick him up. He refused to go to the hospital. His family wouldn’t intervene. They are waiting for him to die so they can collect what’s left of his worth.

So she called me.

I was lying in bed, in pain, when the anger surged. I live in an apartment complex with twenty other people, yet somehow I am always the only one who can help. The fire department can’t be called because then something might have to be done. Accountability might be required. Consequences might follow.

So instead, the weight comes to me.

I knocked on Derek’s office door, already breaking inside. For the love of God, can you help me? I can’t do this alone.

We went to his house. And I lifted him. Again. A 180-pound man, dead weight, for the fifth time this year.

And someone said, “My God, you are strong, Cynthia.”

It wasn’t a compliment.

It sliced through me like a paper cut. Sharp. Stinging. Exposing something raw underneath.

My mind barked back before I could stop it: Of course I am. Everyone around me is too weak to do anything.

I have always been told I am strong.

I had to be.

Strength was not a virtue I cultivated. It was a condition for survival.

I did not have proper care growing up. I did not have adults who were reliable. I endured things no child should ever endure. I was surrounded by dysfunction, abuse, neglect, and silence. My parents were praised. I was shamed, threatened, punished, and harmed.

Every adult I asked for help betrayed me.

So I learned early: no one is coming. I learned to depend entirely on myself. I learned to defend myself against predators. I learned to solve everything alone.

I made my own clothes. I put cardboard in my shoes to cover the holes. I don’t remember being fed, which is probably why food still carries such complicated weight in my body now. I was starved of care, safety, protection, and affection. And still, I survived.

People look at me now and say, She can do anything.

What they don’t see is the truth underneath:

She has had to do everything.

My strength has become a crutch for everyone around me. An excuse. A justification for their passivity. If I can lift it, they don’t have to. If I can endure it, no one else needs to step in.

And that is what makes me furious.

Because praise, in this context, is not love. It is abdication.

This truth hit me again some time ago when a friend sent me an image of a new Disney character. A female figure, impossibly strong, lifting everything while everyone around her cheers.

I felt instantaneous rage.

Not confusion. Not discomfort. Fury.

My response came out before I could soften it: Stop brainwashing women into believing they need to carry all of this.

That image wasn’t empowerment to me. It was propaganda.

It celebrated endurance without questioning why the load existed in the first place. It turned suffering into spectacle. It framed abandonment as heroism.

I have lived the cost of that narrative.

And now my body is done paying it.

This illness, this pain, this nervous system fried to the point where light hurts my eyes and I have to close the curtains against the sun, this is not weakness. This is consequence.

My body is responding to decades of forced endurance.

Last night, lifting a grown man off the floor while sick pushed me over an edge I have been standing on since childhood.

This is what happens when strength is extracted instead of chosen.

I am not angry because I am strong. I am angry because my strength has been used to excuse other people’s irresponsibility.

Going forward, this has to change.

Strength is not a public utility. Capability is not consent. Praise is not care.

If I am sick, my strength is not available. If I am hurting, I am not the solution. If something is too heavy, it does not automatically become mine to carry.

This is not cruelty. It is correction.

And it is long overdue.

It isn't empowerment, it is propaganda.