For years, I believed protecting my first family system was my responsibility. It felt like a duty owed to my dad, an unspoken agreement of loyalty that extended beyond him. I thought that by absorbing the chaos, stepping into the crossfire, and sacrificing myself, I was somehow keeping his memory alive and maintaining the family unity.

But protection came at a cost. Beyond love and loyalty, I offered consistency, reliability, and access to myself – my emotional support and financial backing. Yet, that was rarely met with reciprocity. Years of carrying the weight in these relationships left me drained. Difficult conversations were often avoided, sidestepped, or left unresolved and the same patterns repeated. The silence cut the deepest, especially when it came from those I had fought hardest to defend. I convinced myself it was worth it, that one day they would see me, that the sacrifices would mean something.

What I didn’t realize back then was the knot I was tying inside myself—a tangle of confusion, loyalty, guilt, and grief. It left me questioning whether their inability to protect me meant I hadn’t done enough for them.

It’s only now, after years of bearing that weight, that I’ve started to untangle it. And as I loosen it, I’ve realized something important: I did not fail them. All I ever did was protest the dysfunction, the silence, the avoidance of truth. Their attacks, their lack of communication, and their refusal to face difficult issues are not reflections of my worth. They are signs of their wounds.

Wounds are personal. They belong to the person who carries them, not the one who tries to heal them from the outside. I now see how often I mistook their inability to grow as something I could fix if I just gave more. But that’s not responsibility; that’s self-sacrifice taken too far.

Redefining responsibility means rewriting the story I once believed to be true. It is no longer about protecting others at my own expense. It’s about safeguarding my peace, honoring my truth, and stepping away from the crossfire that was never mine to begin with.

This shift doesn’t mean I love my dad or my family any less. It means I’ve stopped confusing loyalty to him with submission to the wounds of others. I can still long for that ideal of family, that dream of everyone holding hands, laughing and singing kumbaya in unison, but yet I wonder what it might have been like if he were still alive, if his presence could have steadied the fractures. Instead, I have learned I can love them from afar, cherish his memory and still refuse to carry the weight of a family dynamic that left me feeling alone even in their company.

The guilt is gone. Now, clarity remains. My worth isn’t determined by what others can’t give me. My role isn’t to be their shield but to follow my own path…free, honest, and unencumbered. Maybe that’s the invitation for all of us: to ask whose wounds we’ve been carrying and whether it’s finally time to set them down.