How do I carry the weight of my patients' pain without losing myself?

For years you have held the minds of the most troubled people, and that weight has slowly changed the shape of your own. This is not a sign that you are doing it wrong. It is what happens to anyone who stays close to deep suffering long enough. You have absorbed more than most people will ever know. You cannot be a sponge and a healer forever without wringing yourself out. The pain you carry has to go somewhere, or it settles into you and reshapes how you meet your own life. Tending your own mind is not a luxury for someone in your work. It is the maintenance that keeps you able to do it. Find the people who hold you the way you hold others, a therapist of your own, trusted colleagues, real rest. Set down what is not yours to keep. You have spent a career teaching others that the mind needs care and is not a weakness to tend. Now believe it about yourself, before the weight decides your shape for you.