Man, I’m sorry you’ve been through this, friend. It’s so hard to live under such pressure day-in and day-out. To have people in your life making you feel as if you are meant to be used instead of being valued for who you ARE. At first, it can feel great to feel like you are supporting the ones you love. There’s something gratifying in it and meaningful. But when it turns out to be the core of your relationships, it feels like there’s just less and less room for the person you are to simply be. It’s like progressively your own voice would be silenced, for people around you would only welcome what they want to hear from you. But on your side you ARE a human being. You have feelings, emotions, ups and down, you carry wounds like anyone else and you feel this need to take care of it. But healing would mean slowing down, taking time for you, maybe even being called selfish? And that perspective is absolutely frightening.
I’m personally a people pleaser (on recovery), and I can’t count the amount of times I have been in your position of feeling like “I” or “no” are words that shouldn’t be a part of my vocabulary. I could see the wrong in it and how it was damaging to me, but considering to put myself as a priority felt like creating a distance with others, maybe even taking the risk of losing them. Because if I’m not there to provide anymore, then would they even be interested by sticking around? How could they want to stay if they don’t even see who I am beyond what they take out of me?
It freaking hurts to feel like having life being slowly taken away from you. As if you were meant to function, function, function for the sake of others without ever truly living for you. It feels almost as if thinking of your needs is a forbidden and scary world that would just cost too much. How you feel makes sense friend in light of your story here. It’s such a hard position to be in, and the contradictions it makes you face are so painful too.
I don’t know if you ever heard this before… but you do matter. Your health - physical and emotional - absolutely matter. You deserve to have a voice. You deserve to feel like it’s okay to take a pause, to rest, to breathe. You deserve to feel what it’s like to not live under this constant pressure. Sometimes, people are used to others functioning that way, and they get a wake up call once they truly see the depth of our pain, when we dare to show it to them, when we just can’t take it anymore and tell them. Sometimes it’s taken the wrong way, but it also reveals how much efforts someone in your life would be willing to truly starting seeing you and hearing your needs too. In any case, you would never be wrong for trying to put your well-being as a priority, even if there’s other people who might be telling you otherwise.
I see you. I hear you. I see the life in you. And I wish with all my heart, for you, that you will find opportunities to let your heart thrive, to find healing, to explore pathways where you would also learn to be a great ally to yourself. You deserve nothing but love, care, support. 
Hold Fast.
-Marie-Anne
HS Staff
