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“You’re right. I think people did change us because there was a time when I was a sweet and kind person.”

 

I just dove right in with this one. That’s not an official quote, but roughly accurate and pretty wild words I said to my husband and mother on our drive this Saturday that I absolutely meant.

 

This is the episode that I tell you how I got here. I’m not asking for permission to feel this way. That ship sailed a long time ago. I just figured I’d share because I bet some of you are going to feel this to your core and I’m all for trauma bonding lately.

 

Life hardens us. It takes a real toll on us. People use us up and spit us out. I’m sure sometimes it’s completely by accident, but sometimes it’s on purpose. The problem is, either way, those of us getting spit out are the ones getting hurt and after years of this, I’m afraid I’ve become a bit cynical. It took me well into my 40s to become this person, but I have very dramatically decided that IT ENDS WITH US, RIGHT NOW. Well, to be fair, I think we actually put a stop to this a little while ago and people are just starting to notice.

 

I feel like this particular episode has been brewing for some time now. I have these thoughts about sharing some of my experiences with mental health popping into my head quite frequently, but every time I try to get them all out, I end up overwhelmed and unable to communicate effectively. I guess I just need to take this one step at a time and break it down into multiple episodes. It feels like each deserve their own space anyway. So, we’ll start here today and then move on to some of the heavier mental health stuff later.

 

So, back to the conversation I had with my husband and mom during our drive on Saturday. What started as us just chatting about our day, quickly turned into a very big conversation. Mom and J have both been with me through every stage of this descent of becoming this cynical version of myself. They know exactly who and what got me here and truth be told, they are here sitting in the cynical pool with me too. So how did we get here? Well, give me a few more minutes and I’ll do my best to explain it.

 

First, let me tell you a little about me. “I was a sweet and kind person.” You’ve already heard that quote and it’s pretty true. I went out of my way to include everyone. I tried to make everyone feel special. I tried to be there whenever someone needed support. If something was wrong, I tried to fix it. I stepped in even when I was well past my own breaking point. I was pretty naive throughout most of my life with stuff like that. My mom was like that too. Actually, she was still like that until recently. I guess that’s where I got it from, but like I said, life hardens us. It teaches us lessons, slowly, but surely.

 

So, what got me here? Well, let’s take a quick stroll through the last 8 years…

 

I’ve been a mom to kids that weren’t mine. Making sure they had a safe place to sleep at night, warm meals to fill their bellies, two adults to help them navigate the not ideal situations they were put in, and a little extra love because they more than deserved that.

 

I didn’t hesitate to open our home to my husband’s mother when she was struggling. I tried to mend the pieces of her that I hadn’t broken, even though I knew the toll it would take on my husband and our marriage. I supported her, helped her dream bigger, talked her into therapy, and I even walked with her through darkness that scared the crap out of me.

 

I dropped everything countless times to clean up my father’s messes, while going to battle against a broken system to get him help while he fought me every step of the way and then treated me like I was the problem and everything was my fault.

 

I’ve rushed in to stand beside my mother, twice now, when she lost everything, hit rock bottom through no fault of her own, and had to learn to fight for herself. I helped her pick up all of the broken pieces of her life, move them into our home, and give her unconditional love and support while she became a version of herself that surprised us all, most importantly herself.

 

I’ve had too many friends and family members that loved how I showed up for them, but they couldn’t be bothered to do the same for me. I would go out of my way to show up for them. They didn’t even have to ask. I freely gave to them, what I always hoped would come back to me one day. I spent so much time breaking myself for people who couldn’t even shoot off a quick text asking how I was doing. I swam to people drowning who couldn’t even be bothered to throw out a life vest while they drove by on their boat. Once you see stuff like that, you can’t unsee it. It breaks you a little bit. It makes you look at who you are, who you want to be, and who you want to surround yourself with.

 

You don’t realize what the slow and steady drainage does to you until it’s too late. One day you are sitting face to face with someone you love dearly and they are telling you another sad story and, in your mind, you know they want sympathy from you. They want you to understand them and to give them hope and clarity. Maybe even help to fix the situation, but you’re tired. You realize you’re not their therapist. You’re not their mom. Somewhere along the way, you decided you are no longer the person they can spit out but then come running back to when their world gets turned upside down. It doesn’t mean you don’t care, because you do. At least I do. I just know that it means, I am now swimming in my own little cynical pool and I see more clearly how we keep getting here.

 

I don’t know about any of you, but I know that I am really tired. The kind of tired that starts as soon as you wake up. You’ve gotten sleep, but just the thought of the day and what it might bring has you feeling exhausted. Mentally, I am checked out. I’ve been doing math for years and I hate math! I was terrible at it too. I have been calculating what everyone needed, what their moods mean, and what might become an issue for them for years. I have been feeling like I need a nervous system reset for a long time now. It’s cost me a piece of myself. I kept asking what everyone else wanted or needed and kept showing up for people, but I neglected to look after myself.

 

And the toll all of this has taken on my marriage isn’t anything to laugh at either. I mean, J and I have spent a lot of time trying not to let each other drown while almost drowning each other. Does that even make sense? We’ve been over here trying to keep everyone else afloat while slowly sinking.

So, when I say it ends with us, right now – this is why. It’s not because I don’t love all of those people still. I could never stop. It’s because I finally started looking around and seeing that I was paying a very hefty bill and I’m tapped out.

 

The cynic in me now approaches each situation differently.

 

I can approach a situation and fully acknowledge how heartbreaking it is or how unfortunate it is, while also acknowledging that it’s someone else’s responsibility to fix or work through. Even the most devastating things because here’s the deal. We are all dealing with heartbreaking and unfortunate things and even though it would be nice to have someone be there for us, no one else can walk our path for us or fix what’s broken for us or do the work for us. We have to do it for ourselves. More importantly, we have to want to do it for ourselves. It’s called accountability and who has ever fully appreciated something they didn’t actually work for? So, here I am, with every person in my life, including my own children, pulling myself back a little. I’m not saying I don’t love them, I won’t help them or be supportive of them, but I am saying they have to they have to work on it themselves.

 

I cannot want something for someone else more than they want it for themselves. If someone doesn’t care enough to change something or fix something for themselves, that’s on them. I can’t continue to lose sleep over something that clearly doesn’t mean as much to them.

 

I cannot force anything onto anyone, meaning, I can lead you there or I can point you in the right direction, but I can’t force you to do it. It’s just like leading a horse to water, but you can make them drink. Right? I will speak my opinion to you once, after that, you choose what you are doing. I’ve got other things to move on to.

 

I cannot make someone understand something they are hell bent on misunderstanding. Maybe they are just stuck in their own ways. Maybe they just don’t trust anyone else. Or maybe they just refuse to look through a different lens. Whatever their excuse is, it’s not on me.

 

So back to those wild words I spoke to my husband and mom on Saturday…“You’re right. I think people did change us because there was a time when I was a sweet and kind person.”

 

I take accountability for the change in me to this person, but each of those people who needed so much from me for as far back as I can remember that couldn’t be bothered to even check in during these last 8 years or to the people that added to my struggle because they couldn’t help themselves…you also helped get me here. Actually, you helped my husband and my mom get here too. Goodness, one could even say you helped my children realize who they didn’t want to be like and they too put some boundaries in place. You see, things have a rippling effect. While I get to control who I am and what people get from me, outside influences have had their effect on me.

I wrote this Instagram post back in May. I’m not going to read all of it, but I give a little snippet. It was essentially talking about J and I putting everyone else first and when it finally hit me that maybe it’s time for us to put ourselves first. It said…

 

“That’s when I really thought about it and a flood of past memories came flooding in.
I had to sit with that for a minute. If I’m being honest, I’ve been sitting with it for months while it’s been getting louder and louder. Wrapping my head around “Maybe it’s our turn” doesn’t mean that I think we are done being parents, children, or humans who try to do good, but I think it means that maybe, just maybe, it’s okay for us to choose ourselves now.”

 

I think all of those years of putting ourselves out there too much and all of those years of others not really noticing pushed us here.

 

Yeah, we’ll still be there for people, but there will be boundaries in place. We will not do the work for anyone else anymore. We will not put the extra effort in if there’s no effort being returned. We will no longer fall for manipulations or flat out laziness and if that stuff makes us cold and cynical and people want to talk…go ahead and talk. We no longer care. You helped get us here so deal with it.

 

We deserve happy moments too.

 

We deserve people who want to be in our lives for nothing more than just being around us. People who value us without the expectations that we will keep giving and giving and giving until there’s nothing left. We are not the giving tree.

 

We’re not writing people off. We’re not saying we don’t love those that have helped us get to this cynical place, because we do. That will never change, but two things can be true at the same time…we can love you while still seeing you for who you are and know that we don’t want you to have unlimited access to us anymore.

 

There was a time I was a sweet and kind person. Maybe that person is still there, just suited up in a little more armor now.