You’re the one people call when things get tough. You’re an excellent listener, you ask the right questions, you remember details people told you, and you somehow always know what to say and do when your loved one is upset. You’re kind of like the therapist of your friends, family and even work colleagues. But when things are tough for you, you don’t call anyone. Maybe because it doesn’t feel like a big enough deal. Maybe because you wouldn’t know what to say or where to start. Maybe because you don’t want to feel like a burden. Maybe because even the thought of sharing when you’re feeling vulnerable is simply unthinkable. 

Needing support is not weakness 

Feeling safe enough to reach out when you are vulnerable is a big deal. It is also learned. Whether we reach out for support, and how safe that feels, is shaped early in life by what happened when we needed help as young children. When families do not respond with enough care, comfort or attunement, this can become emotional neglect, even without anything dramatic happening. Nobody has to shout for a child to learn that needing help is risky. Sometimes it is enough that nobody has noticed. 

Over time, many of us learn to compensate. It can get complicated. Children inherently want to be close to their caregivers; they need to be for survival reasons. Children can and do learn that reaching out for help is not safe, but being the one who is easy, helpful or comforting to their caregiver can still get some of their needs for closeness and care met. This is where children may learn that helping others is a far safer place to be. Anticipating what everyone else needs, becomes a kind of currency: proof that you belong, proof that you are worth keeping around, even when nobody is asking you to prove anything at all. 

In Schema Therapy, Jeffrey Young describes this as a self-sacrifice or subjugation pattern: a tendency to meet the needs of others at the expense of your own preferences and needs, often to avoid guilt or fear, or to preserve a connection that feels conditional. These are highly motivating emotions. This is actually a sophisticated coping strategy. Thank the universe that little children have the capacity to adapt to keep themselves safe. It is not weakness. It is a strategy that worked for a long time, but now it may be becoming apparent that it costs more than it helps. 

Understanding the pattern is not blaming yourself 

The cost tends to show up subtly too. Feeling depleted in a way that rest does not help. A creeping resentment that’s hard to explain but definitely has you snapping at people or avoiding things altogether. A sense that you no longer know what you actually want, or who you actually are, because nobody asks and you didn’t realise this was something you could or should explore, identify, or prioritise. This can feel very lonely. You’re the one holding everyone else, with no one showing up for you the same way.  

It is possible to unlearn this. As a little invitation to you, I want you to start small: building awareness in your day to day about how you feel, what you think and what you do. Start noticing the moments in which you automatically say yes before you have even checked in with yourself. Start noticing the moments when you feel depleted; do a quick scan of your day or week and start to get curious whether you have suppressed your own needs for the sake of others. Start noticing if you are snapping at people or avoiding them or situations, get curious about this and ask yourself ‘What am I believing about myself, or this situation right now?’ Start framing this as curiosity and the emotions and beliefs that come up as very important information trying to tell you something. To make changes, the first step is building genuine self-awareness, and this is how you start.  

Your needs are information, not a problem 

If this is landing for you, you are not alone! We see this pattern play out time and again for the people we work with. What we do know is that whilst insight and awareness are absolutely an important first step, they rarely shift a pattern this old on their own. These are the kinds of patterns that respond well to therapeutic support, like Schema Therapy, Emotion Focused Therapy and EMDR, where insight and awareness meet a felt experience of processing and unlearning these patterns and connecting with the parts of you who can make healthy alternative choices. At CSC, we offer traditional therapy sessions, as well as extended sessions and EMDR Immersive programs, and our retreat programs where you can dedicate a block of therapy to get real momentum on these challenges. You can reach out to book in a 15 minute enquiry call with Hannah, our wonderful Admin and Client Support officer, who can answer your questions, introduce you to our clinicians and therapeutic approaches, and book you in should you be ready.