The Journey of Self-Preservation: Letting Go of Draining Relationships

I’ve been a natural giver for as long as I can remember. Making myself available to everyone in my life, whether they are in the inner circle, or not, everyone had access all hours of the day. I remember being in school listening to a friend babble on about the same worries for 2h a day every day after school finished, telling me how horrible some of the girls treated her and she still wanted to be their friend. My mum would force my to hang up each afternoon because I never knew when it was enough. But after 1.5y of this exact conversation, I finally said to her what she didn’t want to hear. I said it’s time to make friends with the girls who actually want to hang out with you and let go of trying to befriend the mean girls. She didn’t like hearing what I had to say and told me where to go. I remember being in shock thinking, I wasted every single afternoon for a long period of time, trying to console you but you never wanted advice. 

And with each set of friends, I would hear them out. Help them expose their worries, fears and stress to be  e told at the end, that they never wanted my advice. People would call me 12am, 3am or 4am after benders, crying. But after time, and all the hours of consoling and advising, I realised people never wanted my advice. They just wanted to dump their shit and feel some sort of relief because they weren’t committed to taking the action to change. The needed to release the bulk of the energy to go back and do it again. 

I look back at all the scenarios, even to this day, and I wonder why I’m so caught up on letting the people go? Why do I feel guilty if I don’t speak to someone to not check in, to not see if they need help? The guilt consumes me but I learnt that so many are just taking from me. 

When was the last time all these people actually called me to see how I’m doing? How am I tracking with my goals and dreams? Am I happy or when can we do something fun? 

I’ve started to weigh the scales with each of my relationships and realised that there are barely a handful of friends who are truly all for my success, who help me see what actions I need to take to propel forward in my life and who offer ideas to get me taking the steps to become a better person. 

I’m setting my boundaries. Saying no and not having guilt, because my energy time and dreams are the critical for me to enjoy my life. And for those that want to interrupt that path will no longer have a role in my life.