Sometimes I get caught up on things. And by things, I usually mean people. I don't know who cursed me with this attribute, but I always feel the need to fix everyone else's problems but my own. Recently, I've been going through a time of uncertainty, anxiety, fear, and heartbreak with a group of my closest friends. It wasn't until recently that I realized that I had spent all of my energy focusing on whether they were okay, or if they needed anything during this time. I had completely ignored my own mental well-being, which has caused me extreme stress and exhaustion.
I tell myself all the time to mind my own damn business, but I feel like my brain wasn't hardwired that way. Is it because I care too much? Do I like to save people? Either way, attending to the needs of others has always given me a feeling of self-validation. I'm nobody if I'm not worrying about someone or something. Maybe this just the way I cope or deal with my emotions. I feel everything at once, and I feel everything with such overwhelming extremity that I take all this energy and attempt to turn it into something positive. I want to help you. I want to help you. I want to help everyone.
Photo by Cristian Newman on Unsplash
I know you're probably thinking, "Why is this a bad thing? Wanting to help everyone a great trait to have!"
Here's where you're wrong.
When I take on this role, I forget about myself completely. I'm suddenly thrust into a world where my body, thoughts, and anxieties are not my own, they are being controlled by someone else, and that is extremely unhealthy. All I can focus on is trying to fix somebody's problems. Scratch that. I'm trying to fix someone, and people take advantage of my emotions.
Often times the people I'm trying to fix manipulate me into thinking I'm helping, or try to get something I can't give out of me. It's manipulation. It's heartbreaking, and even today it still happens. I pour my heart in soul into people, but no one comes to replenish the amount of energy that I put into my platonic relationships. I am constantly disappointed by the people I try to fix, and I take it out on myself. Maybe it's me, maybe I'm the one who can't get it right. But then I realize that someone was lying to my face the whole time, I've created a version of my friend that doesn't exist and I can't get any of my time or energy back.
It took me many years of heartache, sadness, and anger to realize that in reality, I can't fix anyone but myself. I still struggle today. The reality is that you can only do so much as a friend, partner, or even family member. People don't change without changing themselves first.
Photo by Andrik Langfield on Unsplash
You can always be a hand to hold, a shoulder to cry on, but fixing people is something that no one should try to do. It leads down a dark path of disappointment, and as a person, you get walked all over. It's taken me years to understand that the best thing I can do is be there, but it takes something much bigger than me to help someone who, in all honesty, does not want to be helped.
