Diary Entry of an Eternal Helper

I need to help them. I'm not going through much myself anyway. It's okay if they can't always listen or understand me, I'll be the bigger person and support them till they get through their shit. Maybe then, they will be able to listen to me? If nothing, they'll probably get better in their life and that would be good because they won't need me to help them then. What would be I worth anyway if I don’t help anyone? I definitely must help them.

Does this sound like you?

If it does, I have some news for you. You are probably the saviour of your friends, the therapist of literally anyone who walks up to you, a mentor of any junior who knows you, and probably the best friend of every friendless person who knows you. You’re the compulsive helper this post is on.

And it is burdening, isn't it?

The people you actually want to talk to you come last in your priority list because they don't need you. You end up staying with people who need you and not those you need or want to be with - and that's because you help while repeating patterns of earlier helplessness.

Let's elaborate with my story. I help people out of a compulsiveness which disallows me to reject someone's genuine requests even if fulfilling those would mentally erode all of me. My compulsiveness stems from the times when I was a child and couldn't protect my mother from the abuse she went through. I was helpless because I was a child. And I coped with that trauma by recreating the situation every single time someone asked for help and compensating for my previous helplessness by going all-in with helping anyone who asked. It happens every single time with loops and loops of me trying to rectify incidents I had no control over. I was a child of 5, I couldn't have protected my mother in any case.

If only the mind listened to reason. More often than not, our mind listens to wired ways of thinking and picks up coping mechanisms that suit one's demeanour the best. I was the responsible eldest child at home and so I became everyone's second mom in my friend circle. It got so intense that my friends started referring their friends, cousins, and juniors to me so that I could help sorting their issues too. Till now, I don't have the ability to act like I don't care because in every survivor of abuse, I see an opportunity to compensate. The logic governing this is similar to a poor man suddenly becoming rich and starting to spend lots on luxurious products to show off. The man wants to compensate for the earlier social stigma felt by feeling socially much superior to everyone now.

Isn't everyone trying to get stronger? Better than their past?

Almost everyone, I guess. The point is that it is difficult to get out of wired responses to stressful situations and coping mechanisms that hurt more than they save. In my case, my psychologist and I have been working for months on my tendencies to self-harm and self-sabotage in the name of helping others and doing good. In the end, I somewhere wish to punish myself for being so small and so useless that I couldn't help my mother. Despite thinking that trauma is not the centre of my life anymore, it still is.

And that's okay. Trauma is more than the abuse that happens. Trauma is also the aftermath – including triggers, processing the abuse, coping mechanisms, and mental shutdowns. It is crucial to understand that trauma-centric behaviour can also be constructive. It is not possible to simply act like the abuse never happened in the first place. My reasoning is as simple as drawing this analogy - when your leg fractures, you forever take extra care of that traumatic physical injury. Coping mechanisms can be bad but ultimately, if you make hospitalization a turning point and become a doctor specialising in treating fractures, would it be so bad?

The problem lies in identifying the difference between destructive and constructive responses. To be realistic, lots of people don't even know their self-destructive behaviour is a coping mechanism or a response to something hurtful they faced. Expecting everyone to realise that you are a person dealing with constant helper's fatigue and that helping costs you emotional stability is asking a lot when they cannot understand their own behaviour patterns properly. The only solution is to be self-aware and take steps for 'system-maintenance.'

I don't mean to dehumanise survivors. It is just that many of us don't really consider ourselves worth any consideration, not even worth as much as a machine working the same amount should get. That is why the narrative of self-care or even self-preservation doesn't scratch any sense on our traumatised brains. However, 'system-maintenance' oddly works in our favour as we start recognising ourselves as useful objects. Of course, this narrative doesn't stop our self-dehumanisation but it is still progress from blatantly self-sabotaging ourselves (and others close by).

Hence, these days, I'm out on a quest to achieve optimum levels of system-maintenance. I have been back-tracking on unhealthy friendships, listing my priorities according to my needs, and slowly telling myself that I'm the one who matters underneath all my clothes and appearance. Obviously, it is not easy. Especially because my boundaries were so vague before, people around me have had their own bad times trying to keep up with my sudden unhelpful unsociable ways. I have been breaking bad friendships, spending less energy on fixing everything wrong with my acquaintances, and giving myself a well-deserved break from some stuff. Trying to focus on myself despite it being so excruciating painful sometimes is a challenge. When you grow up convinced that your wants do not matter, it is difficult to change your entire system of beliefs in adulthood.

The highest Fatigue-mountain in a Helper's life is that well-intentioned friend who constantly needs guidance, assurance, help, and watching. In short, they need tonnes of professional help. And these friends are awesome people hurt by society making it so difficult to refuse to help them because they are so good-intentioned.

And the path to hell is paved with good intentions, isn't it?

These friends will come to you for anything and everything. It is difficult to detach and remind yourself that you're not their caretaker. Refusal to care for them or listen to them will feel like abandoning them and your compulsiveness will eat your head trying to make you re-track patterns of the past while helping that friend in the present. You will never be able to tell them your own issues or ask for their help because they will always be in need of your help and.. haven’t you already learnt to always put others above yourself by now??

It's sad.

All you want is to convince yourself that you would have helped your whomever in the past but you only couldn't because you were helpless too. Your brain hates you because it never gets convinced. Instead, it makes you move in similar patterns and demarcates a forever entrapping loop for you to follow till you die. Getting out of this is messier than finding Philosopher's stone by looking into a mirror.

But a mirror is exactly what you need. To see why and how you behave the way you do, to notice your self-sabotaging tendencies, to follow up on the changes you resolve to bring in your life.. You don't have the time to be a caretaker of others, do you? Isn’t it college already?

Charity starts at home. And caretaking starts from the self. Get a psychologist, spend time in sessions, distance yourself from eternal seekers of attention, help after accessing the entire loss to your own emotional stability, and be aware in general. You can still regain your existence as a healthy person. Do NOT let the boundary-abusers glorify your self-abuse as selflessness. Selflessness does not and should not cause anyone such pain, not even to your own self. The only people calling you selfless would be your beneficiaries acting like parasites, whether in capacity of unintentional fools or in capacity of entitled disgusting pricks. Trust me, you don't need validation from either of the lots.

Hold your hands yourself if it comes down to it because being alone is the most freeing experience on earth. Your real friends don't like you for how much you stifle in or how you never ask for personal space. Such reasons won't even make to the top 50 reasons' list of why they like you. It is okay if you cannot help anyone. You can’t save the world if you end up burning out and killing yourself at 30. Don’t do that to yourself.

It is high time to let go.

It's okay. Breathe in.

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By

- Arushi (Junior Editor, RGNUL Cosmos)