There’s a part of me that’s been quietly asking:

Was I helping people… or was I just avoiding the truth?

And the more I sit with it, the more I realise:
A lot of what I called “helping” was really a strategy to stay in relationships I wasn’t fully aligned with—without having to face the pain of leaving.

With my mother, I think I played a role for a long time:
The emotionally intelligent one.
The helper.
The one who could manage, interpret, soften.

I don’t think I perpetuated the unhealthy dynamic out of malice. I think I was just trying to hold on to the idea that she was a good mother—and that I was lovable. Because if I stopped playing that role, I’d have to face something unbearable: that the love I needed wasn’t there in the way I needed it.

So I stayed in that role, and it kept me from growing. It kept us both stuck.

Eventually, I had to leave.
Not out of punishment—but out of necessity.
Because continuing to play that part would’ve meant denying my truth again and again.

And in my last relationship…
I think I see it now, even if it hurts.

I don’t think I really wanted to be with her as she was.
But instead of facing that, I tried to help.
I tried to “support her growth.” I tried to “empower” her.
But if I’m honest, I was just hoping she’d become someone I could finally accept—someone who fit my image of what I needed.

That’s not love. That’s fear disguised as patience.
And it placed me in a position that, yes, may have felt “superior”—because it protected me from having to admit: I’m not happy here.
It gave me purpose. It made me feel needed. But it wasn’t equal.

As time went on, I tried to change that.
I stepped back. I stopped over-functioning. I encouraged her independence.
And she changed—but not in a way that brought us closer.
In a way that made it clear the dynamic no longer worked.

Maybe she didn’t want to be changed. Maybe I didn’t want to be there.
Maybe both are true.

And now I’m here.
Not trying to rewrite the past.
Not needing to assign blame.
Just trying to tell the truth—to myself, mostly.

That sometimes, helping was a way to avoid leaving.
That staying busy with someone else’s pain kept me from facing my own.
That playing the role of helper made me feel valuable in relationships where I didn’t feel loved for simply being me.

And maybe… if I had walked away sooner, I could’ve spared us both the confusion.

But I didn’t know how. I wasn’t ready. And I forgive myself for that.

What I’m learning now is this:

Helping isn’t bad. Empowering others isn’t wrong.
But when it comes from fear—fear of leaving, fear of being alone, fear of being unwanted—it becomes a way to keep things going that aren’t meant to last.

And I don’t want to do that anymore.

I want to be in relationships where love doesn’t need fixing.
Where I don’t feel powerful for staying, or ashamed for going.
Where connection is built on presence, not performance.
Where leaving, when needed, is an act of care—not avoidance.

Because I don’t want to help people into becoming lovable anymore.
I want to love them—or leave honestly—exactly as they are.

And I want the same in return.