Disclaimer:
This article is NOT meant to be a mere exposition of my character traits, or those of anyone I know. I had written this when I was in a state of venting out. While reading, if you think that I’ve written this with a motive of garnering pity, you are reading it the wrong way.Foreword:
The past few months have been... weird. I’ve lost touch with a lot of people I once thought would be my constants forever. I have hurt myself over getting too attached to every single person that made me smile, and watching them go away without any closure. There have been moments when I’ve felt disillusioned, spent, wasted, or without a sense of purpose.
This article is inspired by the many beautiful subreddits and Tumblr posts that have given me company when I felt there was no one who could understand me.
And for those few people who cared enough to keep in touch, I dedicate this article to you.
***
Meet Stu.
Stu isn’t good at asking for help. He sucks at it.
This is because he is used to being “the helper”.
All his life, he has experienced an unbalanced give and take, so his natural instinct is usually -
“I’ll figure it out on my own."
The self-reliance is all he has ever known.
What bothers him the most is the fact that almost all of his relationships are one-sided.
“My friend W is going through a rough phase in her personal life, which is why she is unable to sleep. I should make sure to comfort her every time we meet. She deserves to know that someone cares about her.”
“My friend X is having a really hard time in his academics, which is why I should try my best to study with him and make him understand concepts better. I don’t care if that messes up my daily study schedule.”
“My friend Y is feeling lonely, and he has asked me to talk to him in the evening. It will be best if I cancel the party plans I had with my roommates, otherwise I won’t be able to talk to him, and that won’t make him feel good.”
“My friend Z had a really bad mental breakdown yesterday. It is right for me to keep checking on her at regular intervals. I should stay up until late at night just in case she wants to talk, even if that fucks up my sleep schedule. No one else knows her better than I do. And after all, who else will.”
He is so used to thinking like this, that when he himself faces a problem in life, he considers seeking emotional support from others as... not normal.
He has had such deeply rooted issues with his self-worth for so long, that he thinks his only redeeming feature is being “an unconditional giver,” and he gives himself guilt pangs every time he asks for anything more than the barest minimum in virtually any relationship, because asking for things might negate his only good quality which is just - “doesn’t ask for things”
He is so far gone with experiences of him being taken for granted, that he stops believing he can be loved by someone.
So he settles for being useful.
Everyone enjoys being appreciated. Everyone wishes that someone tells them how much they mean to them. Who doesn’t like compliments?
But he has spent such a huge chunk of his emotions on others, that there is little left to fill the void that is “self-love.” This makes him even more desperate to seek someone who reminds him about how good he is, because he himself has no emotions that can help him do it. And because he doesn’t have anyone in his life who does that, the feeling of not being adequate, or not being good enough, eats him from the inside.
What does Stu hope for?
He hopes that someone understands how important it is to appreciate him. He wants to hear it. Don’t get me wrong, this is not validation. In fact, this is far from it. He wants that people acknowledge him and do the absolute bare minimum of thanking him for whatever he does. Because he doesn’t have the habit of being appreciated, he has learnt to seek happiness in the smallest of things.
Stu has always been someone who trusts people very easily. He may not know you at all personally, but if you guys have a really enjoyable conversation even once, welcome to Stu’s world of friendship !
As you might have guessed, this fucking sucks. This is basically him laying his self-esteem on the road and requesting the bulldozer to roll over it.
And on top of all this is arguably the most hurtful and the most painful realisation one can ever have -
“They don’t care about me as much as I care about them.”
This realisation hits Stu like a stab to the chest. Not once, not twice, but multiple times.
Stabby stabby stabby stabby stabby.
He looks for ways to stop the stabbing. He looks for ways to curb the self-harm.
He wants to be selfish. He wants to think about himself first.
He hopes that he collects the crumpled pieces of his self-esteem that are lying on the road and puts them back inside his heart. He hopes there is some space left for self-love inside him, in between the huge blobs of self-pity.
How much hope does Stu have?
The answer is - not a lot.
But on days he does have much hope
He chooses to share it with people
He chooses to give it to them
And on days there is misery
In all the four pockets of his rusty jeans
He mostly chooses to keep it to himself
Perhaps that way, he can justify that he is trying to be a bit selfish after all.
The self-reliance is all he has ever known.
What bothers him the most is the fact that almost all of his relationships are one-sided.
“My friend W is going through a rough phase in her personal life, which is why she is unable to sleep. I should make sure to comfort her every time we meet. She deserves to know that someone cares about her.”
“My friend X is having a really hard time in his academics, which is why I should try my best to study with him and make him understand concepts better. I don’t care if that messes up my daily study schedule.”
“My friend Y is feeling lonely, and he has asked me to talk to him in the evening. It will be best if I cancel the party plans I had with my roommates, otherwise I won’t be able to talk to him, and that won’t make him feel good.”
“My friend Z had a really bad mental breakdown yesterday. It is right for me to keep checking on her at regular intervals. I should stay up until late at night just in case she wants to talk, even if that fucks up my sleep schedule. No one else knows her better than I do. And after all, who else will.”
He is so used to thinking like this, that when he himself faces a problem in life, he considers seeking emotional support from others as... not normal.
He has had such deeply rooted issues with his self-worth for so long, that he thinks his only redeeming feature is being “an unconditional giver,” and he gives himself guilt pangs every time he asks for anything more than the barest minimum in virtually any relationship, because asking for things might negate his only good quality which is just - “doesn’t ask for things”
He is so far gone with experiences of him being taken for granted, that he stops believing he can be loved by someone.
So he settles for being useful.
Everyone enjoys being appreciated. Everyone wishes that someone tells them how much they mean to them. Who doesn’t like compliments?
But he has spent such a huge chunk of his emotions on others, that there is little left to fill the void that is “self-love.” This makes him even more desperate to seek someone who reminds him about how good he is, because he himself has no emotions that can help him do it. And because he doesn’t have anyone in his life who does that, the feeling of not being adequate, or not being good enough, eats him from the inside.
What does Stu hope for?
He hopes that someone understands how important it is to appreciate him. He wants to hear it. Don’t get me wrong, this is not validation. In fact, this is far from it. He wants that people acknowledge him and do the absolute bare minimum of thanking him for whatever he does. Because he doesn’t have the habit of being appreciated, he has learnt to seek happiness in the smallest of things.
Stu has always been someone who trusts people very easily. He may not know you at all personally, but if you guys have a really enjoyable conversation even once, welcome to Stu’s world of friendship !
As you might have guessed, this fucking sucks. This is basically him laying his self-esteem on the road and requesting the bulldozer to roll over it.
And on top of all this is arguably the most hurtful and the most painful realisation one can ever have -
“They don’t care about me as much as I care about them.”
This realisation hits Stu like a stab to the chest. Not once, not twice, but multiple times.
Stabby stabby stabby stabby stabby.
He looks for ways to stop the stabbing. He looks for ways to curb the self-harm.
He wants to be selfish. He wants to think about himself first.
He hopes that he collects the crumpled pieces of his self-esteem that are lying on the road and puts them back inside his heart. He hopes there is some space left for self-love inside him, in between the huge blobs of self-pity.
How much hope does Stu have?
The answer is - not a lot.
But on days he does have much hope
He chooses to share it with people
He chooses to give it to them
And on days there is misery
In all the four pockets of his rusty jeans
He mostly chooses to keep it to himself
Perhaps that way, he can justify that he is trying to be a bit selfish after all.
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