Self-reliance becomes healthier when it stops needing to prove anything.

Self-reliance that still needs an audience is doing a second job, and that job is exhausting. You end up refusing help you want, working visibly hard, and being quietly annoyed when the effort is not recognised. The version that is actually restful asks nothing from anyone, including their acknowledgement of how little you ask.

Watch for the small ways you make your independence visible, the mentions, the not-quite-complaints, the pointed decline. Try doing the same things without any of it. What remains is the part that was genuinely for you.