Today I reached breaking point.

Not the dramatic, scream-at-the-sky kind. No, it was quieter than that. Just a slow, silent overflow — like a cup that’s been filled for years and years, unnoticed, until suddenly it's spilling over everything.

Dorothy asked if I was okay. And for the first time in a long while, I didn’t say “I’m fine.” I told her the truth: No. Meltdown.

She gently probed — not in a way that felt invasive, but in the way someone who truly sees you does. “Can you pinpoint it?” And there it was — not one thing, but all the things. Years of bottling up. Stress about my adult children. Worries that feel too big for my tired heart. The ache of giving endlessly without anyone noticing that I, too, am bleeding.

My cup isn’t just full. It’s overflowing. Not with joy or abundance, but with the weight of what I’ve held in for too long.

I told her how I’ve struggled — how I’ve asked God to heal the deep wounds from my childhood. But I still wrestle with rejection. With feeling worthless. And then the guilt — oh, the guilt — for even feeling that way.

Dorothy reminded me of something I know in my head but often forget in my heart: that God’s love is not earned. That He sees me, accepts me, loves me — as I am. Not because I’ve “held it all together” or kept giving when I was running on empty. Not because I’ve survived trauma or kept smiling through pain. But simply because I am His.

Still, I admitted the truth that haunts me: I’m tired of doing this alone. I feel like a used-up orange — squeezed dry. I’ve been there for so many, but when my world falls apart, there’s no one. No family, no friends who check in. Just silence.

I told her about the teenage trauma no one acknowledged. The miscarriages I had to mourn on my own. The way I was taught — literally — to hide my tears. My mother pushing my head under cold water when I cried, as if sorrow were a stain to scrub away. No wonder I learned to swallow my pain. But lately, it feels like it’s all rising up — like grief doesn’t care about timing.

I want to sit in a corner and never stop crying. And yet I don’t. Because the inner voice echoes — “don’t be weak,” “you’re too much,” “no one will catch you if you fall.”

And I keep wondering why I feel so unsupported. Why I keep building walls. Maybe it’s because I’ve learned that vulnerability too often ends in abandonment.

I also shared about the church. How, after my gran’s death and the deep depression that followed, there was no support from leadership — even after years of faithful service. That betrayal felt like another layer of grief. Another space where I gave and gave… and left emptier than before.

I’m learning that grief doesn’t always look like sobbing — sometimes it looks like silence. Like numbness. Like feeling nothing at all. Or like whispering to God in the night, “Are You still there?”

Dorothy said something that made me pause — “Go cry before the Lord.”

So maybe I will. Not with eloquent prayers or brave words. Just tears. Just presence. Maybe that’s enough for now.

Because today, even if I feel empty and unseen, I want to remember: God collects every tear. And He knows how to hold what no one else has ever held.