There’s a possibility I’ve been carrying an energy for years that quietly pushed people away—an unconscious urge to fix, soothe, or gently nudge them toward growth.

Not because I thought I was better.
Not because I didn’t care.
But precisely because I cared. Maybe too much.

I think it was my wounded inner child trying to keep people safe, the way no one really kept me safe. I wanted people to heal so badly. To feel loved. To feel whole. And maybe, in my own roundabout way, I thought that if I could help others feel better, I might finally feel safe myself.

But that kind of care—when it’s coming from unhealed places—doesn’t always land as love.

It can feel like pressure. Like subtle judgment. Like you’re not okay as you are, but I’ll stay with you until you are. That’s not connection. That’s a role. And I didn’t mean to play it, but I did. Often.

No one ever really called me out on it. Maybe they didn’t have the words. Maybe they didn’t care enough to reflect it back. Or maybe—most painfully of all—they sensed I wasn’t strong enough yet to receive that truth without collapsing. So instead, they just stepped back. Quietly. And I was left with a growing loneliness I couldn’t explain.

Now I can.

And it’s hard to sit with.

There’s a kind of grief in realizing that my attempts to love may have created distance. That something I thought would build connection may have quietly chipped away at it. But I’m not going to shame that part of me.

He was doing his best.
He wanted to feel useful.
He thought love meant fixing.
He thought safety meant control.
He was just trying to help.

Now, though, my adult self—the one I’ve been steadily growing—can see something else. It believes I’m okay. And you’re okay. It knows that presence matters more than guidance. That being with someone in their pain is far more healing than steering them out of it.

And maybe this truth didn’t come sooner because I wasn’t ready for it. But I am now. I can hold it. I can feel the weight of it without falling apart.

I don’t need to rescue people anymore to feel worthy.
I don’t need to guide people to feel safe.
I don’t need to fix anyone to feel loved.

I just need to stay.

And trust that the space between us can be filled with something more honest than control—something quieter, but far more real.

And maybe the real shift now is permission.

Permission to let go of the part of me that always had to be strong, insightful, or useful. I don’t need to offer anything unless it’s truly needed. I don’t need to perform my strengths to feel safe. I can hold them quietly, and trust that who I am—without fixing anyone—is enough.

It also gives me clarity on why so many of my relationships felt strained. I was holding on, hoping people would change, because I couldn’t fully accept them as they were. But the truth is, if I had accepted them, I may have had to walk away. And I wasn’t ready for that.

I see now that I wasn’t bad. I wasn’t unlovable. I was just running an old strategy to feel safe. And that strategy pushed people away—not because I was broken, but because I hadn’t learned another way yet.

Now I’m learning.

And with that awareness comes choice, and with choice comes hope.

Because if the space between me and others was created by a strategy I no longer need, then maybe what I thought was rejection…
was just a misfiring of love.

And maybe, now, I can start again—from presence, not pressure.

It’s also not lost on me that the people who stayed in my life the longest were often those who felt broken in some way—sometimes consciously, sometimes not. And maybe they felt drawn to me because I mirrored something familiar: someone who could help them, fix them, carry the weight.

And I did. For a while. We kept each other stuck in a dance that looked like love but was built on unspoken roles: helper and helped. Fixer and broken. Caregiver and dependent.

But that wasn’t love. That was survival.

And when I began to step out of that identity—when I could no longer carry their pain for them, or pretend I was okay doing so—they left. Or I did. And it hurt. But now I see: those relationships weren’t failing. They were completing. Ending the moment I started to see clearly.

What remains now is space. And the hope that what I build next is grounded in presence, not performance.

I don’t need to lead with insight. I don’t need to posture as someone who knows more than others. That was never real. It was just a layer of protection—one that kept me safe by keeping me separate.

And now, I want to come closer.

Even if I’m still figuring it out. Even if I have nothing to teach today.

I want to live from the kind of truth that doesn’t need to fix or prove anything.
The kind that simply says: I’m here. And I trust that’s enough.