How do I take care of myself when I care for everyone else?

You have held other people's pain for a living, year after year, and to do it well you learned to set your own aside. That was not a flaw. It was how you kept the chair steady for everyone who sat across from you. But the pain you shelved did not vanish. It waited. And now you are meeting it. You know better than anyone that what goes unfelt does not disappear; it just goes underground. You have said as much to your clients a hundred times. The kindness you offer them so freely is the same kindness you have been withholding from yourself. That is common in your line of work, and it is not too late to turn it inward. You cannot be the only person in your life who never gets to be held. Find your own chair to sit in: your own therapist, a supervisor, a trusted friend who is not there to be helped by you. Book it this month, not someday. You spent years keeping everyone else steady. It is your turn to be caught. That is not weakness. It is the same wisdom, finally pointed home.