The curse of the helper

Everything felt infused with irritation. I was doing all the things for everyone else that I thought I should be doing. I was doing all the acts of service. I was, technically, loving those people. And yet. It felt like every act I did, rather than being infused with love, was infused with a shards of glass shooting out of every plate I stacked.

I'd always been the type to serve others. Always the one thinking about what everyone else needed. Always the one booking the dinners, the holidays, planning the weekends. I was always the one checking in, always the one remembering birthdays and important appointments. Always the one turning up early to help prepare, and the one leaving late after helping clean up. I was always the yes person.

Of course I'll help.

Of course I'll come.

Of course I'd love to.

It was part of the fabric of who I was. The helper. The one people could turn to. The reliable one. The unflakey one. Lucy, she'll always be there. She'll always turn up. She'll always help.

And I did.

And I loved how it made me feel.

Useful. Needed. Wanted. Important.

Of course, there was a part of me that did it because I loved the people and wanted to help and be a good friend, partner, sister, daughter.

And yet.

As is often the case with this whole being a human thing, there was duality to it.

There was also a part of me, deep down in the depths of darkness right behind the rib bones, that was doing it... because the idea of not doing it filled me with dread.

The idea of saying no, the idea of listening to the murmurs within me asking me to do something else, was unfathomable. Impossible. Selfish.

I couldn't possibly say no.

Why?

I told myself it was because I was a kind person and that's what kind people do - they show up for other people.

But the truth of it... was that a part of me that believed nobody would really like me or want to hang out with me if I didn't do it.

And so, the spiral continued.

Do what everyone else wants me to do.

Continue to get a surface level pang of 'wantedness' from doing what everyone wants me to do.

Feel momentarily better.

Until the depth of me starts to speak again, at first in a whisper and then in a howl...

THIS IS NOT YOUR LIFE.

But I kept doing it, stuck in the spiral of validation and self abandonment. The equation in my mind telling me that the more I did what everyone else wanted and ignored what I wanted, the more I served others, the more I'd be validated and loved.

I mean it's low level manipulation if we're honest - let me do this for you so you like me.

And the problem with it, is that even if we continue to play this game of validation seeking, eventually, the part of us that we have entirely ignored and abandoned in the process of serving everyone else, will start to howl louder and louder in a desperate attempt to get us to listen.

And what makes it worse, is that this part of us doesn't know the language of boundaries and lovingly saying no. It only knows the language of resentment. It only knows how to speak in sly eye rolls, in sighs, in withdrawal, in silence, in huffing and puffing, in our icey presence through the so called acts of love.

The language of resentment is the most poisonous of them all. It will seep into relationships and dissolve them from the roots up. The silent killer of intimacy and trust.

Resentment is a messenger. It will show us where we are abandoning ourselves to get validation from others. It will show us where we are shape shifting. It will show us where we are hiding behind shiny masks of the 'nice one'.

But however much you hope that this mask will win you favour and love, the truth of it is that the love and favour will only ever be as deep as the mask. It will never hit the depth of you existing beneath it. It will never fill the void.

We must learn to listen to resentment. Resentment comes to serve our relationships.

To remind us where we are hiding in self abandonment and to ask us to step boldly into the truth of who we are and to ask others to meet us there, both in the honest truth of who we are, no masks.

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L x

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