More Than Survival - A Young Caregiver's Journey
A roadmap for resilience and self-discovery.
Introduction: The Journey That Shaped Me
Personal Story
My name is Omarion Calloway. By the time I was ten, I wasn’t just a kid anymore. I was a caregiver. While other kids spent their afternoons riding bikes, playing video games, or running through sprinklers, I was scrubbing my nana’s back in the bathtub, measuring out medication for my uncle, and cleaning up things no child should ever have to touch.
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My uncle was paralyzed, and I was the one changing his diapers, cleaning his urine and feces with gloved hands, making sure every pill and every dosage was right. I had to learn his body the way other kids learned textbooks, memorizing his signals, his gestures, the subtle ways he tried to communicate when words failed him. Sometimes he hit me, not out of cruelty, but because frustration was the only language he had left when I didn’t understand quickly enough. Over time, I learned his code. I learned his body. And I learned to see the man behind the paralysis, not just the illness.
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It didn’t stop there. I memorized seizure protocols. I knew his full medical history by heart — diagnoses, medications, doctor names — because if something happened, I had to be the one to explain it. I cooked, I cleaned, I anticipated his needs before he could even ask. And at the same time, I cared for my nana. I bathed her, folded her laundry, held her stories in my hands while the water ran over her back. Her laughter kept me alive, even as her pain lived in the same space.
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There were no playgrounds, no sleepovers, no afternoons wasted on cartoons. My childhood was responsibility, exhaustion, and quiet tears on pillowcases. I cried silently at night so my mother, working two jobs just to keep us afloat, wouldn’t hear me. The same sheets I straightened every morning were the ones that absorbed my grief every night.
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And all of this — the caregiving, the grief, the weight of survival — happened under a world that told me Black boys don’t cry. Vulnerability felt dangerous. Weakness felt unacceptable. So I swallowed my pain, even as it swallowed me.
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By thirteen, my grandmother was gone. Before I reached college, my uncle passed too. Grief moved into me like a permanent roommate. And when relief came, relief that the long nights and exhaustion were over, I felt guilty for even that. Caregiving broke me in ways I’m still learning to name.
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But it also built me. My mother once told me, “Everything you thought was drowning you, actually taught you how to swim.” She was right. Every tear, every sleepless night, every impossible day shaped me into something I never expected: resilient, tender, capable of love that survives storms.
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This guide is for the young caregiver who feels invisible. For the one who’s wiping tears in silence. For the one who feels like childhood skipped over them. Inside these pages, you’ll find my story, my lessons, and my truth. Most importantly, you’ll find this reminder: your struggle matters, your growth matters, and you are not alone.
The first step in survival.
Understanding Your Role
No child asks to be a caregiver. It’s not something you plan for. One day you’re playing outside, and the next, you’re responsible for keeping someone alive. A parent, a grandparent, a sibling — maybe more than one at once. Suddenly, the weight of survival sits in your small hands, and somehow, you carry it.
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At ten years old, I didn’t know what insulin really did. I didn’t understand prescriptions or dosages. But I learned. I learned because I had to. I learned because there was no one else. I learned because love doesn’t give you the option to walk away.
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Caregiving is not just tasks. It’s the way you notice pain in silence, the way you translate a look, a sigh, or the smallest movement into meaning. It’s how you bury your own feelings so the people you love can keep breathing. It’s trying to be a student, a friend, a child, while “child” already feels like a word stolen from you.
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And the world rarely sees this version of you. Teachers look at your tired face and call you distracted. Friends think you don’t care when you cancel plans. Strangers see your smile and believe you’re fine. They don’t see the nights you cry into your pillow, the mornings you go hungry so someone else can eat, or the way you train yourself to hide pain because it feels easier than explaining it.
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I remember once buying baby food for my uncle. Because of his condition, he could only eat soft food, and I wanted to make sure I picked the right jars. A worker followed me through the aisles like I was already guilty of something. At the counter, I emptied the coins I had saved. The cashier sneered and counted them with a pen as if my money was dirty. Walking out, another worker stopped me and accused me of stealing. That moment stayed with me. I wasn’t seen as a child, and I wasn’t seen as a caregiver either. I was invisible in the worst way.
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But here’s the truth. Carrying this role does not make you weak. It makes you courageous in a way most people will never understand. It makes you resilient, even when you don’t feel it. You may feel invisible, but your work matters. The love you pour out matters. And the strength you are building will stay with you for the rest of your life.
Caring for Yourself While Caring for Others
Here’s the truth: you cannot pour from an empty cup. You cannot hold the world together if you are falling apart inside. But when you’re young and carrying the weight of caregiving, it’s easy to forget that. You wake up thinking about someone else’s needs before your own. You go to sleep exhausted, already preparing for tomorrow. Somewhere along the way, you convince yourself your needs don’t matter.
That’s exactly what I did. I spent years putting my nana and my uncle above everything — above my own mental health, my own emotions, my own childhood. I bottled up grief until it turned sour inside me. I hid exhaustion behind a straight face. I pushed through headaches, skipped meals, ignored my body’s cries for rest because stopping wasn’t an option. But here’s the blunt truth: eventually, the body will stop you if you don’t stop for yourself.
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And part of what made caring for myself so hard was this: as a child, I had no control over anything. I didn’t choose my life. I didn’t choose the responsibilities that landed in my lap. I didn’t choose the trauma that shaped me. So when I became an adult, I started sabotaging myself in small, twisted ways that gave me back a sense of control.
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For example, I stopped celebrating my birthday. My logic was simple: if I didn’t celebrate, nothing bad could ruin the day. If I didn’t expect joy, I couldn’t be disappointed. It felt safer to avoid happiness than to risk losing it. But that safety was a lie. All I was doing was robbing myself of moments I deserved. I wasn’t protecting myself — I was punishing myself.
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That’s what self-care really means. It’s unlearning the unhealthy ways you try to protect yourself. It’s choosing to embrace moments of celebration, even when it feels uncomfortable. It’s giving yourself permission to eat first instead of last, to laugh without guilt, to say yes to joy even when life has taught you to expect pain.
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Self-care is survival. Self-care is rebellion. Self-care is reminding yourself that you are more than a caregiver. You are still human. You are still worthy of happiness. And you deserve to enjoy life, not just endure it.
The roots of who I am. With my grandma, Alma Jean Calloway.
Mental Health Matters
Caregiving doesn’t just change the person you’re caring for — it changes you too. It leaves marks on your body, your spirit, and your mind. And the hardest part is that those marks don’t always show up right away. They sneak up on you, years later, when you finally slow down long enough to feel them.
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For me, those scars surfaced the summer before college. All the pain I had swallowed as a child came out in one of the biggest arguments I ever had with my mom. I told her the truth I had been carrying for years — that caregiving had broken me down in ways I couldn’t even explain. I told her about the nightmares, about how I felt disconnected from the world, about how the weight of it all had hollowed me out but left me moving anyway.
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We yelled until our throats hurt. We were both raw, both exhausted. I felt betrayed, like she had forced me into something no child should be asked to handle. But in the middle of my anger, I saw something I hadn’t seen clearly before: she was hurting too.
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She had lost both of her parents. She had family who showed up when it was convenient and disappeared when things got hard. She worked multiple jobs to keep us off the street. She wasn’t just “Mom.” She was a woman who had been through loss, abandonment, and struggle, all while trying to raise me.
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When the screaming finally stopped, something unexpected happened. We sank down to the floor, and she pulled me into her arms. I cried harder than I had in years, and she held me for over an hour. In that silence, something broke open inside me. I realized we weren’t enemies standing on opposite sides of the same pain. We were survivors sitting in the wreckage together. That night, I finally looked into therapy, because I knew I couldn’t keep carrying everything on my own.
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And let me say this directly: therapy is not weakness — it is survival. In so many Black households, pain gets swept under the rug. We are told to toughen up, to shut our mouths, to “just deal with it.” But pain that stays unspoken doesn’t disappear. It grows louder. It festers. Therapy gave me space to finally lay my burdens down. It reminded me that my story deserved healing, not silence.
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I also saw the cost of silence by watching my mother. She sacrificed her dreams so that I could dream, but that sacrifice left its fingerprints on her. I saw it in her tired eyes, in the heaviness of her voice, in the way exhaustion followed her from dawn to dusk. She wasn’t unkind — she was overwhelmed. She was drowning in a society that demanded she be everything at once: strong, unshaken, never broken. Watching her struggle taught me that if you don’t tend to your mental health, if you never let yourself release the weight, it will crush you from the inside out.
How to Protect Your Mental Health as a Caregiver
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Seek support. Therapy, counseling, mentors, or teachers. There are often free or low-cost resources, but the most important thing is finding someone who will listen without judgment.
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Set boundaries. Saying “no” doesn’t mean you’re weak. It means you are protecting the little strength you have left.
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Build small rituals. A song, a journal entry, a walk, a prayer, a moment of silence. These little acts remind you that you exist outside of caregiving.
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Name your feelings. Stress, anger, sadness — don’t bury them. Naming them takes away some of their power.
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Redefine strength. Real strength isn’t about holding it all in. It’s about being honest, admitting when you’re breaking, and giving yourself the grace to feel.
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Break the cycle. By caring for your own mental health, you’re not only helping yourself. You’re refusing to pass down silence and exhaustion to the next generation.
Little Lifelines
Caregiving isn’t just about getting through the tasks. It’s also about finding ways to stay human while doing them. You can’t always change the weight of your responsibilities, but you can create small moments of relief, even if they only last a few minutes. Think of these as little lifelines you can hold onto when things feel overwhelming.
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Music as a Lifeline
Music saved me on more days than I can count. Washing dishes, cooking, folding laundry, I’d let the music carry me. Some days it was gospel to remind me I wasn’t alone. Other days it was rap or R&B, something loud enough to drown out the noise in my head. Build playlists that match your moods: one for strength, one for peace, one for when you just need to cry and let it all out.
Journaling or Voice Notes
Don’t underestimate the power of getting your thoughts out of your head. I used to grab an old notebook and write down everything: frustrations, gratitude, even one sentence like “Today I’m tired but I survived.” On the days I couldn’t write, I’d open my phone and record a voice memo. It wasn’t for anyone else. It was for me, proof that I made it through.
Breathing Spaces
Caregiving doesn’t stop, but you can still steal moments for yourself. Step outside and let the sun touch your face. Sit in the bathroom for five minutes and let yourself cry or breathe in silence. Even those small breaks matter. They remind you that you are more than the work you do.
Stories and Escape
Books, movies, silly TV shows — they aren’t a waste of time. They’re medicine. I’d put on something light after a hard day and let myself laugh, even if only for twenty minutes. That escape gave me the strength to keep showing up the next morning.
Creativity as Release
Draw, sing, dance in the kitchen, write a poem nobody else will ever see. Creativity isn’t about being good at it. It’s about release. It’s a way to say, “I exist beyond this role. I have something inside me that belongs to me.”
Faith, Prayer, and Intention
For some, prayer is where they put the pain. For others, it’s meditation or just speaking out loud: “I can do this.”Whatever grounds you, lean into it. Caregiving is heavy, but connecting to something bigger than yourself can make the load feel lighter.
Keep a Grounding Object
Sometimes the weight of caregiving gets so heavy that you need something small to remind you of who you are outside of it. For me, that meant keeping a simple object nearby — a keychain, a necklace, even a notebook I could write in. It doesn’t have to be fancy. It just has to mean something to you.On the worst days, holding that object can feel like holding onto yourself. It’s a reminder that you’re still here, still human, and still more than your responsibilities. For someone else, it might be a photo, a bracelet, or even a stone they picked up on a walk. The object doesn’t erase the pain, but it gives you something solid when everything else feels shaky. Think of it as your anchor.
Stay Connected
Isolation is a dangerous weight. Text a friend. Call someone who makes you laugh. Talk to a mentor. Even if people don’t fully understand what you’re carrying, their presence can remind you that you’re not fully alone.​
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These little lifelines don’t erase the struggle. They don’t fix the long nights or the exhaustion. But they carve out pockets of peace in the middle of the storm. And sometimes, those pockets are enough to keep you going.
This angel isn’t just an object, it’s a survivor just like me. When my childhood home caught fire and everything we owned turned to ash, this angel was one of the only things that made it out. We lost so much that day, not just walls and a roof but a sense of safety, normalcy, and home. I remember standing there, the smoke still hanging in the air, thinking that nothing would ever feel the same. We were forced into homelessness, carrying what little we could salvage and holding onto each other because that was all we had left.
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Somehow this angel endured. Charred but still whole, it became a symbol I clung to when life felt too heavy. It reminded me that survival isn’t about what you lose, it’s about what you carry forward. Every time I looked at it, I thought of resilience, of grace, of the possibility of still standing even when the world tries to burn you down.
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This angel is more than porcelain. It is memory, it is hope, it is proof that not everything was taken from me. It taught me that even in the darkest moments, some pieces of light can survive the flames. And sometimes that’s all you need to keep going.
Looking Ahead: Building Your Future
When you grow up a caregiver, you forget what it feels like to just be a kid. You wake up with responsibility sitting on your chest before you even brush your teeth. You learn to measure pills before you learn to measure your own worth. And after a while, you start to believe that maybe this is all your life will ever be: service, sacrifice, silence.
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I thought my life was already written. I thought the grief and exhaustion meant my dreams didn’t have a place in this world. What I learned is that caregiving didn’t bury me, it built me. It carved me out, raw and jagged, but strong in ways most people will never understand. The weight that almost crushed me became the muscle that carried me forward.
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I earned over 1.3 million dollars in scholarships. I don’t say that to brag. I say it because it is proof that a story like mine is worth something. It’s proof that a boy who spent his nights crying into the same sheets he had to wash in the morning could still be seen, still be valued, still be chosen.
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Those scholarships led me to my dream school, New York University. Walking across that campus for the first time felt like stepping into a life I never thought could belong to me. The classrooms, the professors, the students around me reminded me that my past didn’t trap me. My years of caregiving had taken so much, but they could not take my future. NYU is proof that even when the world strips away pieces of your childhood, it cannot erase your right to dream.
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Along the way, I found myself standing in spaces I once only dreamed about. I worked with the NAACP, helping to amplify Black excellence and uplift stories that deserve to be heard. I walked into the studio of The Sherri Show, stood under the bright lights, and shook the hand of Sherri Shepherd herself. To be part of something so far removed from where I started was a reminder that the impossible is never as far away as it feels.
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Then came the moment that left me speechless: meeting Omarion the singer, the man I was named after. For years, my name was just my name. But standing in front of him, introducing myself, and hearing it repeated back was different. It was life completing a circle, connecting the boy who once felt invisible to the man who was finally being seen.
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None of these moments were handed to me. They weren’t luck. They came from choosing to believe that my story could stretch further than my pain. They came from refusing to let caregiving be the last chapter of my life.
A full-circle moment: meeting Omarion on The Sherri Show | Photo by Jocelyn Prescod
Advice for Building Forward
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Your story is not a curse. The nights you survived, the weight you carried, the grief you endured are your proof of strength. They will set you apart in every room you walk into.
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Tell your truth. Don’t hide what you’ve lived through. Your story is not something to be ashamed of. It is what makes you unforgettable.
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Walk into fear. I was never fully ready for the NAACP, for the Sherri Show, for NYU, or for meeting Omarion. I showed up anyway. And that’s when everything began to change.
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Stay humble. Achievements are important, but what lasts is character. Never forget where you started, who sacrificed for you, and the moments that shaped you.
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Give yourself permission to dream. Dream loudly, dream wildly, dream beyond what you think is realistic. Caregiving may have stolen your childhood, but it does not get to steal your future.
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Believe in possibility. I went from giving insulin shots and scrubbing dishes as a child to standing in boardrooms, television studios, and college classrooms. If my story can stretch this far, yours can too.
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Caregiving will always be part of me, but it is not all of me. And it doesn’t have to be all of you either. You are more than what you’ve survived. You are proof that broken beginnings can still lead to beautiful futures. The road ahead may not always be smooth, but it will be yours. And that alone makes it worth walking.
To the One Still Standing
If you’re reading this, it means you made it to the very end of my story. That alone is powerful. It means you carried my words all the way here, and maybe, just maybe, you saw pieces of yourself in them. That matters. It matters because if you’ve carried this far, it tells me you are someone who knows how to endure, how to hold weight, how to survive storms that would break most people in half. And I don’t want you to miss this truth: survival itself is something to honor. It is not small, it is not ordinary, it is not “just what you had to do.” It is sacred.
And if you’re here reading this, you’ve already proven you have what it takes to keep going.
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I know what it feels like to move through life unseen, to wonder if anyone notices the sacrifices you’ve made or the childhood you’ve had to give up. I know the quiet tears, the swallowed anger, the exhaustion that makes you feel fifty years old even though you’re still a kid. I know how heavy it gets when everyone else goes on with their lives while you are stuck in survival mode. But I also know this: your struggle does not erase your worth. It does not mean your story ends in the same pain it began with. You are not broken for feeling tired. You are not weak for wanting more. You are human, and being human is enough.
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Caregiving may shape you, but it doesn’t have to trap you. You are not only a caregiver. You are not only the kid who grew up too soon. You are not only the one who held everyone else together. You are a dreamer, a builder, a creator, a leader. You are someone who can take what you’ve lived through and use it as fuel, not as a cage. Even if no one ever told you, hear me now: you are allowed to imagine something bigger than survival. You are allowed to want joy. You are allowed to want peace. You are allowed to want a future that belongs only to you.
If you’ve made it here, I want to give you permission that maybe nobody else has given you before. Permission to dream recklessly.
Permission to laugh without guilt. Permission to rest without shame. Permission to tell your story and stand in it without apology. The world will try to convince you that your only identity is strength, that your only value is sacrifice, that you must always keep giving until there is nothing left of you. Don’t listen. You are more than what you’ve done for others. You are more than what you’ve lost. You are more than the silence you’ve been forced to hold. Your future is wide open, waiting for you to walk into it.
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So if you’re reading this, let this sink in: I am proud of you. Proud of the days you didn’t give up. Proud of the way you carried love on your shoulders, even when it was heavy. Proud of the way you are still here, still breathing, still choosing to move forward. You don’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to have it all figured out. You just have to keep going. Because one day, you’ll look back and realize you didn’t just survive — you built something beautiful out of brokenness. And when that day comes, I hope you celebrate yourself the way I am celebrating you right now.
Signing out,
Omarion Calloway