the awakening

Do you know how it feels to run into a burning building to rescue people who are already standing outside complaining about the weather? For the longest time, I have operated as an emergency response unit for everyone else’s hard edges. When my own life is collapsing, when my home is an emotional desert, when my father dies in the ICU, when my ward partner walks out, when I am literally limping across London with a sprained ankle and a fever... I apologize for taking up space. I delete my messages. I follow my deepest cries for help with, "Sorry for disturbing." Who was I even being? On the other end of the line sit others—practical, unbothered, flat on their backs, answering my paragraph-long existential crises with a brief "good night" or letting me know they are busy in the bathroom. We built an entire dynamic out of a profound misunderstanding: I thought I was building a soul connection, and they thought they were maintaining a very convenient, occasionally exhausting, workplace friendship. Then came July. It was an "oh no" muttered to an empty room when I was in Paris. There I was, walking twenty-two minutes in the summer heat with an injured ankle, dodging crowds on Bastille Day, standing in line at a luxury boutique to hunt down specific items, making sure the box had a pretty ribbon, calculating tax refunds to the exact euro cent, while someone sat back and simply texted, "Check the zip, the whole bag, and make sure there are no scratches." I used my fifteen years of saved airline miles to fly suites for my graduation—a milestone no one in my personal life burdened themselves to celebrate with me. Yet, I spent a massive chunk of that sacred trip acting as an unpaid luxury concierge for someone who had the nerve to lecture me about "obligation" afterward. Then came National Day. I worked a thirteen-hour shift with chills and a fever, trapped in the ward until 10 p.m. dealing with a violent incident, security, and the police. I was completely broken, reaching out into the dark, just wanting to hear a friend say, "I see you, you survived, it’s going to be okay." Instead, they clocked out, saying they were tired and wanted to sleep. When I finally snapped and sent that fateful, messy, sarcastic line, this person didn’t see a friend in agony. They saw a violation of their boundaries. They withheld all affection. And instead of letting them sit with their coldness, I spent the next three days trying to repair it, sending essays of self-blame, apologizing for having the audacity to need them. That wasn't just a fight. That was the moment the mirror cracked. I like to think of myself as a low-maintenance, simple, hyper-resilient giver. I tell myself, "I'm very simple, actually. Doing things for you made me happy. I never did them because I expected you to owe me anything in return." But that is a lie I tell myself so I don't feel humiliated by how much I give. I don't give selflessly; I give defensively. I buy gifts, deliver snacks, plan events, run errands, and anticipate everyone’s needs because deep down, in a place that dates back to my childhood home, I believe I am fundamentally unlovable for just existing. If I believe I am a mistake, then the only way to earn my stay on this earth is to be indispensable. I become the super sibling, the super parent, the friend who brings back the limited-edition toys and bags that are sold out everywhere. I try to purchase an insurance policy against abandonment. And look at my tell: the deleted messages. Hundreds of them. I type out my truth, my terror, my relationship problems, my childhood neglect, the reality of what happens at home, and the second I send it, the panic sets in. I’m too much. I’m a burden. They are going to leave. So I press delete. I delete myself before someone else can reject me. This person plays the role of the mature, grounded, "no-nonsense" realist in a sea of emotional drama. They pride themselves on not caring about office politics, not gossiping, and setting clear boundaries, operating on the philosophy that everyone has their own needs and priorities. They aren't evil. They aren't a villain. In fact, they often give me very solid, clear-headed advice: leave my toxic partner, stop giving away my money, don't bypass my boss, ignore the ward gossip. When they like something, they are enthusiastic: "Best gift so far, wow I am proud of you." But their fatal flaw is emotional stinginess. They treat relationships like shift schedules: they clock in when they have bandwidth, and they clock out the absolute second they feel tired. When I am drowning, they don't throw a life vest; they simply text, "Light is always at the end of the tunnel," and go to sleep. They accept my staggering generosity as if it is merely a pleasant convenience, completely blind to the fact that I am bleeding out on their doorstep. When I finally demand emotional reciprocity, they act offended that I expected them to do something that wasn't on their calendar, bringing up "obligation." The painful truth is that I did ninety percent of the emotional and logistical heavy lifting in this friendship, and they got one hundred percent of the credit just for saying, "Thank you." I taught them that they didn’t have to work for my love. I taught them that they could be dismissive, delayed, and blunt, and I would still show up for them at 7 a.m. with a hot mocha and a bag of presents. Eventually, I started sending my clearest, most devastatingly honest messages. I finally stopped hiding behind cutesy stickers and named the elephant in the room. They texted me: "Dinner—I was sick, rushing for assignment and work. Is not easy. So this will not be my priority (to be very honest)." I need to read that line again. I need to print it out and tape it to my desk. "This will not be my priority." They told me the absolute truth. They didn't dress it up. They didn't apologize for missing my birthday dinner. They told me plainly that making time to sit down with me and hear my heart is simply not at the top of their to-do list. The tragedy wasn’t that they said it. The tragedy was that twenty-four hours later, when someone else bought them throat spray, I was right back to asking if they wanted me to leave a delivery at their office door. I swallowed my pride, took the blame for being "insensitive," and stepped right back into the role of a delivery person. I need to stop auditioning for people who have already cast me as an extra. I need to look at my life and what I have accomplished in these last ten months. I ran a hospital ward through a brutal staffing crisis, shielding my junior nurses from toxic leadership. I de-escalated violent situations that security was too cowardly to face. I held dying children in my arms so exhausted mothers could eat breakfast. I completed a Master of Business Administration, writing a 10,000-word dissertation while working full-time shifts and raising three kids. I flew myself to Edinburgh, walked across that graduation stage with my head held high, and bought myself a luxury handbag with my own hard-earned money. I am a powerhouse. I am brilliant, fiercely capable, funny, deeply creative, and astonishingly resilient. So why on earth am I begging for breadcrumbs from people who treat me like an afterthought? I tolerate a partner who steals my peace, takes my money, and yells at my children. I tolerated a ward partner who abandoned me without a word of warning. And I bend over backward for a friend who leaves the exact second I express messy, inconvenient grief. I am treating other people the way I wish someone had treated my younger self when I was hanging off the window grills crying for my father. I am desperately trying to be the protector, the nurturer, and the gift-giver I never had. But I am giving that immense, sacred love to people who just use it to decorate their shelves—or worse, who clear those shelves because they feel I'm not even worth the space. Notice how my dynamic shifted when I stopped sending fifty messages a day and started keeping things lighter. I talked about my loved ones, my new hackathon team, and my trip to Busan. Look at the people I thought were soulmates: when I pulled back, they didn't chase me, but they remained steady in their limited, concrete way. They answered my questions with simple, practical wisdom. The person I love isn’t a monster. The problem was never that this person failed to be my best friend; the problem was that I asked an ordinary person to heal wounds that were inflicted on me decades ago.