Let me preface this by saying yes, this is going to be a video game metaphor, but it's a pretty good one, so bear with me.

You probably already know by now that I play a lot of Overwatch. I absolutely love it, especially because it depends so heavily on teamwork for things to go right. Every hero has their own unique set of skills that they bring to the table that make things go well. Usually, I pick a hero of the Support class called Mercy. Mercy, as you might be able to guess just based on her name, is a healer. Her Caduceus Staff emits both a healing stream and a damage boost depending on which button you push. She can also fly directly to allies within range and line of sight, and she can even bring allies back from the dead (before they respawn, that is). She is probably the most picked and easiest to play of the support healers. However, being a healer means you get targeted a lot.

While zipping around on a map, I often find myself face to face with the much larger and more powerful enemies on the other team whose sole objective is to kill me on sight, because then the rest of the team starts to crumble. See, a lot of other characters cannot self-heal, meaning they either have to find a health pack or die trying if a healer is not around. So being a healer is difficult in two-fold: firstly because several people could be taking damage at once and you can’t heal them all sufficiently at the same time, and also because someone is constantly out to get you. If you play a healer often enough, you know that most of the time your efforts go without praise and you end up very very salty, as is the case with me. However, you don’t have to be a healer all the time.

Being a healer means supporting someone else and boosting them up while almost pretty much disregarding your own safety or wellbeing. The person you’re boosting and supporting may not even care at all about what’s going on with you until you stop boosting them (because you inevitably died to an enemy Roadhog). And sometimes, you’re left alone with nothing but your tiny Caduceus Blaster, trying to fend off two DPS characters, a tank, and a sniper, supporting yourself because no one else will support you. Being supportive of others is a wonderful thing, yes, but you must also remember that you a human being as well. You, just like everyone else, have needs and wants, and sometimes it involves being something or someone completely different than what another person wants you to be.

And I, for one, fully support you in that endeavor.

You should never be forced into a role just because someone else needs you to service them, you should be there of your own volition. If you want to be a healer, go ahead! Be a healer! If you don’t, you have that choice, too! Either way, just remember to take care of yourself. You can’t do things for other people if you’re falling apart at the seams.