Why are you letting other people ruin your life? Like, genuinely, what are you doing?? This is your one life, your one freaking shot at being a real person, not a background character in someone else’s plotline, and you’re spending it asking yourself if you're allowed to rest, if you're allowed to say no, if you're allowed to be mad, if you're allowed to just exist without making everyone else comfortable first? no, no, no, no. I’m tired of watching you dim your light and call it peacekeeping. I’m tired of seeing you break your own heart and call it patience. I’m tired of you waiting around for someone to finally choose you when you don’t even choose yourself. Like, do you hear how sad that sounds? You're sitting here editing your personality like a resume, just so someone might “approve” of you while you're slowly falling apart inside. You’re skipping meals, overthinking texts, walking on eggshells, burning out emotionally, and still telling people "no, no, it’s fine, I’m okay" when you're absolutely not okay, and for what? For what? To keep someone who wouldn't notice if you stopped talking? To impress someone who only reaches out when they're bored or lonely or need something from you? I need you to be serious for a second. Why are you treating your own existence like it’s a negotiation? Like your joy, your peace, your comfort, have to be earned by being more useful, more easygoing, more likable, more quiet, more “chill”? Since when did taking care of yourself become something you feel guilty about?
You are not a mirror for other people to feel better about themselves in. You are not a doormat for their inconsistent love. You are not a vending machine for validation, where people press the right button and boom, you perform. You're not here to be agreeable, to be digestible, to be quiet just because someone else can’t handle your intensity or your honesty or your fucking needs. I’m sorry, but it makes me so angry that you’ve convinced yourself that being low-maintenance makes you worthy. Like “Oh, look at me, I don’t need anything, I never complain, I’ll adjust to whatever you want, just please don’t leave.” Stop it. Seriously, stop. Do you know what you're doing? You're building your entire identity around being convenient for other people and then wondering why you feel so lost all the time. You’re making yourself small and calling it love. You’re disappearing in plain sight. You’re turning yourself into the type of person people use, not keep. And I hate that for you. Because I see how much you give. I see how much you carry. And I see how little you get back. And I’m telling you right now, you don’t need to keep performing worthiness. You were worthy before anyone clapped. You are not meant to be a 24/7 support system for people who wouldn’t even show up for you on a bad day.
You keep acting like someone’s going to give you a medal for being so selfless, so low-maintenance, so emotionally available. No one is coming. No one’s printing out awards for the person who tolerated the most. No one is writing a eulogy that says, “She/He never upset anyone, she/he never asked for help, she/he was so easy to ignore.” Stop treating your comfort like an inconvenience. Stop sacrificing your peace just to keep a relationship that’s already draining you. Stop begging for crumbs of validation when you’re the one baking the whole damn cake. You have to be the one who says: this is enough. Not because they finally noticed your worth, not because they changed. But because you got tired of betraying yourself just to feel wanted.
And you want to know what’s revolutionary? Not being available. Not explaining yourself. Not over-apologizing for choosing rest. Not fixing other people’s problems while yours pile up like laundry in the corner. I want you to log out, cancel plans, take a nap, cry at 3 p.m. for no reason, block them, un-send the paragraph you were going to send, drink water, scream into your pillow, post that selfie, leave that group chat, say no without a 3-paragraph explanation, and stop asking people to love a version of you that doesn’t even exist. Love the real you. The complicated, sensitive, moody, opinionated, overthinking, deep-feeling, boundary-setting, soft-hard-honest you. The one you’ve been hiding under layers of “I’m fine,” the one who deserves softness. The one who deserves to rest. The one who deserves to come first without guilt.
Because at the end of the day, no one is coming to save. No one’s coming to say, “hey, you’ve done enough, now it’s your turn.” No one is going to rearrange their life to make you feel like a priority unless you do it first. So do it. Rearrange everything. Burn the bridge. Walk away mid-sentence. Reclaim your time. Take the long way home with music blasting. Romanticize your healing. Be the villain in someone else's story if that means being the main character in your own. I’m not even asking you to be perfect. I’m just asking you to stop being invisible. Show up. For you, not because someone finally gave you the permission, but because you stopped waiting for it.
Make yourself a priority. unapologetically.
Set boundaries like your life depends on it, because it kind of does.
Say no like it’s your native language.
choose yourself every time, even if it pisses people off.
because guess what? The people who get mad when you take care of yourself? They are the ones who benefited when you didn’t.
So, make yourself the damn priority.
Make your joy louder than your guilt.
Make your rest sacred.
Make your energy expensive.
Make your peace non-negotiable.
And don’t you dare apologize for it.
because the most radical thing you can do in a world that profits off your self-doubt is to love yourself without a single excuse.
So scream it with me one more time:
MAKE. YOURSELF. A. PRIORITY.
This line... 😞 "Since when did taking care of yourself become something you feel guilty about?"
Reading this felt like a hug I very much needed.....