Reacting to people relying on you

[FreyasSpirit]

Take care of yourself first. In the past, we have overcommitted ourselves in situations like this and let it reach the breaking point where we couldn't handle it any more. At that point, we had to forcibly remove the commitments from our life, resulting in a very ungraceful ending as we suddenly cut ties. In retrospect, if we had respected or even known our limits, we would not have ended up in that situation. These days, we assert boundaries early and often so we do not end up here. The way we think of it is that we can be there for another when they need it, but if they expect us to be there when they only want us there, but do not need us to be there for them, we will be too burned out to be there for them when they actually need it.

Reading about feeling trapped in a caregiver situation being a potential cause of cPTSD also helped us realize that we could never be a long term caregiver for another.