It’s a blessing and a curse.
Sometimes I think of how would people see me if I was not the way that I’ve always tried to be perceived. Would they be disappointed that their so-called ‘free therapist’ can’t even save herself?
Sometimes I regret creating that image for myself. That I can be there for everyone at anytime. That I can be their crying shoulder, the one who they can run to whenever they are lost and tired from their own problems and life.
Sometimes I think what could have been if I was not the way I am.
Its both a blessing and a curse to be this way.
It’s a blessing because it really does feel good being able to help someone even if its a small thing. I won’t deny, I really like hearing people say that I am the person to go to when they want to talk to someone because I know how to listen and what to say. It feels good being able to see and understand everyone and knowing that they feel safe to open up to me. To let go of the heaviness that their feeling and being called their ‘safe place’.
But I carry it with such heavy responsibility, that most of the time I forget I also have to look out for myself. Because when you try to understand everyone, take everyone’s feeling and thoughts, and be there for everyone, it gets too overwhelming for you that you don’t even get a second to process things on your own for your own.
Sometimes it feels like a curse to be like this. How can one person be so emphatic to everyone but when it comes to herself she can’t even spare a second and gentleness to care for her own? I am like this, people doesn’t expect me to run to them. They expect that I got everything under control. They expect that I can be there for them.
How can you explain to the people that need your help that you also need theirs? How can you explain to them what’s wrong when you don’t even understand what’s wrong with you in the first place.
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All of the problems, the emotions, the heaviness that I try to absorb from other people gets to me that sometimes everything gets too much. It gets too heavy. But who can I run to? People run to me. I don’t run to them. It doesn’t work the other way around. I am supposed to be the understanding friend. The one who helps them. The one who is always there for them when they are going through something. How can I say all of this to someone that runs to me when they are tired of what tehy’re growing through that I am exhausted and it’s all too much? When that is also the reason why they run to me.
Why do I understand everyone but not myself? My own thoughts?
I sometimes regret putting this strong and brave girl image. It feels so wrong when I try to open up to someone, and all I want for them is to see through my mask, but all they see is someone who can carry the world on her shoulder on her own. They never see pass me. They never see through me.
“You are so brave, understanding, and you handle everything so well. Sometimes I wish I was like you.” NO, you don’t wish to be like me. You don’t wish to become the person who struggled through her life trying to survive on her own. You don’t wish to become the person who had to through so much to become what the people around her needed. You don’t wish to become the person who struggles everyday in trying to keep her thoughts in line. You don’t wish to become the person who always had to put others first before her own because they need saving, and she thinks she can save herself better than others.
But for how long can she save herself on her own?
I’ve been fighting this battle for 8 years, and in those years, not one person fully understands what I had to go through. The feeling of heaviness on my chest I had to ease by myself. The noise in my head I had to shut down. The things that I had to stop myself from doing because it feels wrong.
Life doesn’t come easy for me. They might think that it does, and they might admire the way I handle things, but they don’t understand what I had to go through to become the way I am. To become what they need. When people look at me, all they see are the pretend mask that I put through the world. They don’t see the scars that I hide beneath everything. Not a single soul who knows me understand the way I understand other people. Not a single soul can see right through me the way I see through them.
Having someone like me in my life would actually be the best thing that will ever happen to me. Someone who sees through my facade, someone who knows when I reach my limit of being the ‘free therapist’ that people paint me to be.
No, I am not brave. I am not strong. I was forced to become the way I am now because if I hadn’t done what I had done to save myself, then the people around me wouldn’t have a person to run to.
So no, don’t paint me to become your free therapist. Because I am as messed up as you are, maybe even worse. I don’t deserve to be called that. It doesn’t feel right to be called that when I am in need of that just as much as you are. I don’t need the responsibility of having to live up to that expectation more than I already have.
I wish I could just give up.
