what are you doing to be needed instead of loved?
there's a quiet trade some people make without realising it. they offer usefulness in place of vulnerability. they make themselves necessary so they never have to find out if they'd be chosen without the service.
every day there's one live question, the same for everyone. answer it anonymously, see what other people said. it's all gone in seven days.
answer today's question →write down the ways you make yourself useful to the people closest to you. the favours, the fixing, the anticipating what someone needs before they ask. now look at the list and circle anything you'd feel anxious about stopping. that anxiety is worth paying attention to. write about what you think would happen if you stopped doing those things. would you still be wanted. would you still be called. write honestly about whether you've built a role instead of a relationship. this isn't about becoming unhelpful. it's about noticing when helpfulness is a shield.
- write about a relationship where you're always the one solving things, and what you get from that.
- think about the last time you let someone care for you without offering something in return.
- consider whether your exhaustion in a particular relationship is actually a form of control.
this is for the person everyone relies on. the one who is always fine, always capable, and quietly terrified of what happens when they stop being either of those things.