In the past, I have had a very on-off caring method. It was really hard for me to move somewhere in the middle, it was either I gave it my all or I backed off a lot. This happened a lot when people were in trouble and wouldn’t open up to me or accept my help. It became really painful for me to continue pouring my heart towards a stone wall and so I just switched off.
I don’t think this was the right thing to do at all. But I just got so caught up, so invested in caring, that when they couldn’t or wouldn’t, it hurt me (maybe wrongly so). People have limits and when I was younger, it was hard for me to stand by and support people despite them, especially if they got in the way of what they wanted to change.
I think this was a pretty horrible way to do things. And I wonder if I do it today, actually I don’t really anymore. I’ve matured and gotten a lot better at it, but still I feel myself sometimes wanting to slip back in.
Lately I’ve gotten into the mindset of be the friend I want to have. So all the qualities I want in a friend, I want to be. It’s made me change a lot of things about myself and made me grow, I think. It’s harder now that a lot of my closest friends are so far away and we don’t talk as much as we did, but I am trying really hard.