Feeling Lost Looking After Everyone Else?

Most of us would like to think of ourselves as kind people. We want to be supportive, considerate and thoughtful towards others, and there's nothing wrong with that. Sometimes being "nice" can come at a cost.

Perhaps you find yourself saying yes when you really want to say no. You apologise even when you feel you've done nothing wrong. You worry about disappointing people, avoid conflict whenever you can, and find yourself carrying a sense of responsibility for everyone else's feelings. From the outside, you may appear calm, capable and endlessly giving. Inside, you might feel exhausted.

People often describe feeling as though they've lost touch with themselves, or that they don't even know who they are if they're not looking after everyone else. They know what other people need, but struggle to answer a fundamental question:

What do I need?

For many people, putting others first was once an important way of maintaining relationships or feeling emotionally safe. As children, we learn how to adapt to the environments we're brought up in. Sometimes we discover that being helpful, agreeable or easy-going earns us approval, reduces conflict, or helps us feel connected to the people we depend on. These ways of relating can become so familiar that we carry them into adulthood without even realising.

Over time, relationships can begin to feel unbalanced. You may find yourself overthinking conversations, worrying that you've upset someone, feeling as though you're walking on eggshells, struggling to set boundaries, or feeling responsible for keeping everyone else happy. The difficulty isn't kindness itself. The difficulty comes when kindness towards others begins to mean abandoning kindness towards yourself.

Therapy isn't about becoming less caring or learning to put yourself first at everyone else's expense. Instead, it offers an opportunity to become curious about where these patterns began, what purpose they've served, and whether they're still helping you now. As your understanding deepens, it often becomes easier to recognise your own needs, tolerate the discomfort that can come with setting boundaries, and develop relationships where care can flow in both directions. Being kind doesn't have to mean disappearing. Sometimes the most compassionate relationship you can begin is the one you build with yourself.