The Eldest Daughter Burnout

In this episode of Con Cariño Talks, we’re talking about a kind of exhaustion that sleep doesn’t always fix the burnout that can come with being the oldest Latina daughter.

From growing up as la que ayuda, la responsable, and la que puede con todo, to carrying those expectations into adulthood, we explore what happens when always being the strong one starts to feel heavy.

This episode is a conversation about family expectations, guilt, responsibility, boundaries, and learning that you don’t have to earn rest by reaching your breaking point.

Because you can love your family, honor where you come from, y todavía elegirte a ti también.

If you’ve ever thought, “Estoy cansada de ser la fuerte,” this conversation is for you. 🤍

Con cariño, para la hija mayor que también merece descansar.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Hey sisters. Welcome to season one of Con Carinho Talks. Can you guys believe it? We are at season one. Disclaimer, I have been wanting to start on this podcast for a really long time. What held me back, honestly? The money into getting equipment, getting a good microphone to be able to sound good, because quality audio I believe is important. What also held me back was the confidence to start. So now I'm here. No professional. It's just me. Maria. So for today, I want to welcome you. Thank you for being here. Some days we might do full English. And some days we might do full Spanish. Or some days we might just do Spanglish. So have you ever been so used to being the strong one that you didn't realize you were tired until your body started telling you? Not because something terrible happened. Not because you can handle it, but because you've been handling everything for so long that you forgot what it feels like not to. If you're the oldest daughter, the responsible one. The one everyone calls. The one everyone counts on. This conversation is for you. So once again, hey sisters. The eldest Latina daughter. That's who I am. Growing up, you can say that I was a troublemaker. Todo el tiempo me portaba. Way back when we were in grade school, um, the charts where you would go change your color. I believe green was where everyone started, that was the baseline, and then it would transition over to yellow, orange, and then was it red? But one of them meant a warning. And for my mom, she took this color chart very seriously. My mom would always be like Maria, portate bien porque no quiero que cambies tu color. Tienes que mantenerte in verde. So when my mom would drop me off at school, like I was saying, that was her main thing. Maria portate bien. Maria no quiero que tu color cambio. Tienes que estar inverde. Always instilled into me. There was times, you know, where, you know, it's I would get in trouble for talking and my color would change and my mom, oh my gosh. Maria otra vez. So some days were good days, some days we're not. But you know, we dealt with that. But back to center on topic and you know when being responsible became is maybe later into grade school. I'm gonna later in, you know, freshman year. I did not go to a and let me clarify, okay? So where I reside, there is a thing called early college. For those who know, it's technically when go to a community college instead of going to your home high school. So your high school is at the community college, you have your advanced honors classes, and then for electives, instead of going to you know your basic and like I I can't I'm saying basic, but I have no idea what basic means because keep in mind that I did not go trad to traditional high school. So I'm gonna go based off of what I've seen in movies, okay? So like uh woodbuilding, um J R O T C the baby class, do you know what I'm talking about? When you would get the baby and you would have to take care of the baby over the weekend. So yeah, we didn't have any of that. Our electives were literally taking college classes because we had a strict curriculum that if we wanted to graduate high school with our associate's degree, we had to take these certain classes. So, so being mature happened to me really early. Um, I was when you enter high school, you're what maybe 13? I don't know. I I I believe I started when it was in 2000, you know, it's 2026, and I'm 28. You guys do the math, okay? Because there's a reason for why I became a social worker, and it was not to do math. We're literally teenagers, y'all. Somos unos um monklus can jugar, reír. Somos niños. But when we're high schools van persona que sus abuelos, I personally, or but needless to say, it was always instilled to us that we had to behave. We had to be mature. Even if we weren't mature. We had to pretend we weren't mature. That meant, you know, putting in the time and effort to make time to study. Not only our advanced classes, honors classes, but you know, the college stuff too. Although we were young teenagers and literally freshmen, we had to act like we were grown adults. And for me, I think that's when I had to start acting mature. And then some personal things happened in my family around this time too. And unfortunately it took it hit me pretty hard. Super hard. And responsibility got brought on to me that I didn't necessarily ask for. It's vivid dreams. It's sleeping heavily and waking up like I feel like I just went to sleep too much. And that is how I knew that I've taken on too much. But my work is being noticed, but how am I doing internally? Am I feeling okay? No. Because that's being reflected in my sleep and how I feel on a day to day and how things that once made me feel happy, I no longer feel happy. And then at some point I stopped asking myself what I needed and started focusing on what everyone else needed for me. And that's how I knew I was in trouble. When I stopped putting my needs first, when I wanted to start saving the world and saving everyone else except for me, that's when I knew I was in trouble. And when I say everything and everyone else before me, I truly, truly, truly mean everything and everyone else before me. And some of these things can simply be my siblings going through instead of doing a self-inventory of how are you? How's your day today? Can you mentally instead I'm like, mmm logo this cantas? Logo And then is it even really fair to them? Fair to them to only get half of my attention, half of my interest because I am struggling and I can't perform for them as I should. No, it's not fair. Everyone has needs. Everyone always needs something. But you can't be there for everyone until you've taken care of yourself. So this is your reminder. Take care of you. It is okay to put your needs first. It is okay to not respond to that text message. It is okay to not go have lunch with your friends if you wanted to go, I don't know, to the bookstore during your lunch. It is okay to say no because you come first. You can't expect to show up for someone else when you're not showing up for you. And I am guilty of that. Why? Because I am the eldest daughter. I've never felt like I could go first. I always felt like I had to put them first. Them, my siblings, them, my colleagues, them, my clients, them anything and everyone. But me, where did Maria fit? Nowhere. Because I was busy putting everyone before me. And that's not right. Because it's just not right. It's not. Because do you want to know what happens when you start to put everyone else first before you? You burn out. Burnout is right. Yeah, I'm humming and singing around to this because yes, I've also been a victim of why. Why you may ask. Why was I a victim of burnout? Because I put everyone's needs before times that I needed. Nope. Ms. uh fake name. Okay, I don't know anyone named Susie. Miss Susie over here needn't. I needed a go-to. Mind you, I've had a long day at work. We've uh I had a really I'm gonna say traumatizing, but that's probably not. You know what? It is because I work with traumatizing situations. Um I had a traumatizing family, it drained me. But you know what? Miss Susie over there needs me. So I need to go and tender her when I haven't even decompressed what I've seen or heard that day, and that my sisters is high- Honestly, burnout doesn't even have to be dramatic, okay? Sometimes it can literally look like being exhausted, but unable to and that's where what I was telling you guys about sleeping and feeling like I have gotten proper sleep because I was restless throughout the night. I was my thoughts were racing, I would wake up in the middle of the night and be like, okay, that's I got more time to sleep. Wake up again. Oh I guess I have more time to sleep. So by the time that wake up actually happens, I have not gotten any sleep, or at least good qual burnout can also look like you snapping at people you love. Burnout can also look like feeling numb or constantly thinking about the next thing, or feeling guilty when you're not productive because you know that you have a huge list of things that you need to conquer, but you're just choosing to just be numb, doom scroll, or just laying back, or let's face it, I prime example of this line, okay, y'all. This is me. This is me telling you, yeah, I'm fine. I'm just tired, and uh I am fine, I am just tired, but no one realizes that this tiredness is coming from burning out, zero have zero interest and things. So, how can we prevent that? How can we avoid getting there? I can tell you, it's putting yourself first, your needs first. It's okay to say no. And being the eldest daughter, I haven't always felt like I could say there's always someone that needs something. For example, there's always a document that needs to be translated, there's always a medical visit that needs to get translated. There's always a sibling who's needing some kind of help. And being the eldest daughter, it's hard to say no because you know your parents gave you this beautiful life. They literally put you up on a pedestal so you could thrive and shine and do great, and then you're just tired and burned out and overwhelmed. But how do you say no to these people who gave you everything? Who literally have nothing but gave you everything, or your siblings, the ones you feel responsible for? How are you just gonna let them hang like that, you know? Instead of being there to comfort and support. But you want to know something? You cannot help anyone before you help yourself. So let me say in a different way. In order to pour into someone else, you got to pour into yourself first. So being the eldest, we have this beautiful magical thing, thought, little voice inside our heads that we have to make our family proud. Somos el ejemplo a seguir, somos el mayor orgullo de nuestras familias. Nosotros sentimos que tenemos un deber de que nuestros papas se sienta tan orgullosos de nosotros. Andrew de todos los intentar balancear una profesión, relaciones profesionales, relaciones con cualquier persona que está cerca de nosotros y nuestros sueños no es fácil. Anyway? Because that's definitely what I heard. So I always felt like I had to do something, and if I wasn't doing something and my mom was coming, I would have to pretend to do something. Because being lazy or resting was not a thing. Because somewhere along the way, many of us learned that love meant sacrifice. And while sacrifice has its place, self-abandonment shouldn't be the price you pay for being loved. So this brings us into who takes care of you? La Fuerte, la valiente. Ser la valiente, ser la fuerte no todo el tiempo tiene que significarse que eres la única. What are you carrying right now that maybe wasn't yours to carry in the first place? Ask yourself, what are you carrying right now that maybe wasn't yours to carry in the first place? Just a moment of transparency. Here are some things that I'm personally learning about myself. Descansar is productivo. I feel like I have to say yes to everything. Yes to taking on this work assignment. Saying yes to signing up my kids for multiple clubs and feeling like I have to take them myself because I don't want to ask for help, even though my and this one, y'all, this one pidiendo ayuda is una forma de madurez. No de ser de So cuando tu pides ayuda porque no entiendes algo or no puedes con algo. And here's another one that I struggle with. So my worth is not measured by how much I can. Yeah. How much I'm worth is not measured by how much I carry. Yeah, yeah. I'm gonna let that one sink in with me. That's the one that I struggle with as well. Because I feel the need to take on a million things at once just to show people how strong I am and how I'm able to do all these things without asking for help. And then what happens? My sleep gets affected. I snap at people, I'm not present, I'm just numb. I am just a body. There we go. I am just a body. I deserve support. Yo merezco a yo soy digna the mere seda pollo. I am worthy. And just a concadino reminder. You're allowed to be loved in ways that don't require exhaustion. And as we wrap up this first episode, I just want you to think about this. If you've been feeling tired lately, maybe you're not failing. Maybe you've simply been caring too much for too long. And maybe this season of your life isn't about proving. Maybe it's about learning that you don't have to handle everything alone. Take what you need from this conversation. Be gentle with yourself yourself. And remember, healing doesn't always have to be loud to be powerful.