The conversation has been sitting in your chest for weeks. You know what you need to say. And then you get on the phone, or you walk through the door, and something in you goes completely quiet. You say yes. Again. This is not weakness. This is what happens when you were raised in a system that had a word for loyalty and no word for limits. A therapist in Connecticut explains what familismo is, why the current moment is making this harder, and what it actually looks like to honor your culture without disappearing inside it.