What It’s Like Growing Up Without Ate or Kuya | Kahren

carrying everything on my own.

“You have to do everything yourself.
You can’t rely on other people to help you.”

Growing up as the eldest, I had to figure things out on my own. From elementary to high school, I did my projects/assignments without anyone’s help (who was I supposed to ask?).

My parents were already stressed, working hard to make ends meet for us. They dealt with their problems and I dealt with mine.

By the time I got to college, I had learned to do everything myself. I taught myself not to rely on anyone to accomplish activities or written tasks. When exams or quizzes were coming up, I reviewed on my own, searched for my own resources, created my own methods – panicking quietly just so I wouldn’t have to copy from others.

People say it’s a good thing. That it means you’re independent, strong. But at the back of my head, I’ve always felt like a lonely girl against the world.

I felt pressured to make sure everything went well because if I failed, the thought of asking for help terrified me – not even from my parents.

I’m not strong. I was just forced to be. I had no choice.

Deep inside, I envy others who have older sisters or brothers they can rely on. Someone they can ask for help, share little worries with. Someone to say, “Kuya, ihatid mo nga ako” or “Ate, paano gawin ’to?”

Now my fear of failure has only grown – not because I’m afraid of failing, but because I feel like there’s no one to lift me up when I fall. Sure, I have close friends, but I’m scared of being a burden to them. Everybody has their own problems. I hate the idea of adding to them.

So I do everything I can to make things smooth. To make life flow without tripping along the way. It became my mindset for years: do things on your own as much as you can and don’t rely on others.

Because of this, when people ask me for help, there’s a flicker of something ugly inside me. A question: why can’t they do it themselves, when I’ve pushed myself to suffer through it alone? Why can’t they?

I’ve read that this is a response to trauma, a product of your own experiences. I don’t hate them for seeking help. I actually admire them for it. It’s easy for them to ask – something that feels impossible for me. And I hate myself for that.

I isolated myself. I didn’t open up. I suppressed everything.

It made me stone-cold for a while. Avoidant of stress, problems, anything that could trigger the negativity inside me. I became a ticking bomb, ready to explode – and to prevent that, I avoided people, environments, anything too stimulating.

I’m writing this here because I feel like no one understands me anymore. They see me as rude, apathetic, ungrateful.

But little do they know the things running in my head (tangled, messy, dark) are slowly taking over. All the stress, pressure, tension, and negative experiences I’ve carried have piled up, making me crazy.

And this has everything to do with me being the eldest daughter. My parents and siblings now rely on me while I’m still dealing with my fears, my unresolved trauma, my identity crisis. I carry the financial burden, the emotional burden – all while trying to hold myself together.

I don’t know how to present myself anymore. How to be real. How to express myself fully around people.

If only I knew how to ask for help. How to express. How to communicate. Maybe I would be in a better state.

But no. This is how I’ve lived. I suffer because of my actions, my decisions.

I just hope someday I’ll figure it out. Because right now, I feel like I’m on the edge of losing myself.

I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to this weight, or if I’ll ever learn how to ask for help without feeling guilty. Maybe I won’t. Maybe this is just what it’s like to grow up without an ate or kuya – carrying the load, figuring things out alone, pretending to be strong even when it hurts.

All I know is that this has shaped me, for better or worse, and I’m still trying to make sense of it.