External Inputs

Dumb Ways To Die

You know what no one tells you? That kindness can become a curse. That love—real love, the kind that wakes you up at 3 AM to answer a call, the kind that listens when your own mind is screaming—can kill you slowly when it's poured into hands that never meant to hold it.

I used to think that being there for people was my strength. Always present. Always available. Like some eternal light switch—flick me on when it’s dark, flick me off when you're done. I was the friend who listened, the sibling who understood, the lover who forgave without asking for apologies. I thought that’s what love meant—selflessness. I thought giving everything was how you kept people close.

But I’ve learned, painfully, that not everyone sees love that way.

Because the more I gave, the more they took. Not out of malice. No. That would’ve been easier, actually. It was worse—because they never even noticed. Not the late nights, not the emotional weight I carried, not the way I was fading trying to keep them whole.

You want to know what it feels like to pour your soul into someone and still feel like a stranger in their life?

It’s like screaming into water—your voice disappears before it ever surfaces. You end up exhausted, breathless, unheard. But they look at you like everything's fine. Like you’re just strong. Like being strong isn’t a thing that hurts.

And the worst part? You keep doing it. You keep showing up. Because maybe, just maybe, this time they’ll see you. This time they’ll thank you. This time… it’ll be different.

But it never is.

You start to notice it in the little things. The way your phone only rings when they need something. The way your comfort is expected but your pain is ignored. You bleed for them, and they barely notice the red on your sleeves.

And still, you make excuses. “They’re just going through something.” “They didn’t mean it.” “They’re not obligated to give back.”

No, they’re not. But neither am I.

It took me too long to understand that reciprocity isn't greed. That being loved back isn’t asking for too much. That I, too, deserve to be asked, “How are you?” without the conversation turning back to them in five seconds.

Because here's the truth: you can’t heal in a place that keeps reopening your wounds. And I’ve been living in that place for far too long. I’ve been giving CPR to relationships that were dead long before I arrived. I’ve been setting myself on fire to keep others warm, only to realize I was the only one burning.

I became a graveyard of other people’s problems. Their sadness made a home in me. Their disappointments filled my lungs. I let it happen, thinking it was love. Thinking that absorbing their pain made me important. Made me needed. Made me… enough.

But it didn’t. It just broke me.

You bend long enough, you crack. You give long enough, you empty.

And when you finally collapse, what do you get? Silence.

Not because they’re cruel. But because they never noticed you were breaking in the first place.

That’s what hurts the most—not the giving, not the exhaustion, not even the neglect. No, the deepest pain is realizing they never saw you in the first place. Just a role you played. The comforter. The fixer. The listener. The caretaker. But never the person. Never the one hurting, too.

So I’m done.

Not because I’ve stopped loving—but because I’ve started loving myself more.

I’m done carrying guilt for needing space. I’m done being afraid to say no. I’m done mistaking attention for affection, convenience for closeness, and dependence for love.

I’ve learned that love without boundaries isn’t love—it’s servitude. And I wasn’t born to serve everyone else’s healing at the cost of my own.

You know, people say, “Don’t change who you are.” But I will. I am. I’m not going to be the easy one anymore. The predictable one. The available-on-demand one.

Because I miss myself. I miss the parts of me that laughed without checking if everyone else was okay first. I miss my own voice before it was drowned out by everyone else’s needs. I miss the version of me that didn’t flinch when someone said, “What about you?”

So this is my goodbye.

Goodbye to the weight that was never mine.

Goodbye to being everyone's emergency exit while they never even learned my front door.

Goodbye to measuring my worth in how useful I am to others.

Because I am more than what I give. I am more than what I fix. I am more than what I carry.

I am worthy of love that doesn’t require me to disappear.

Let me repeat that—for myself, for anyone else out there who feels like a ghost in the middle of their own life:

I am worthy of love that doesn’t require me to disappear.

So if you're reading this—if you're reading this—ask yourself something real.

Are you loved, or are you just needed?

Do they see you, or just what you provide?

Are you still in their life because they cherish you—or because you make their life easier?

These questions are painful. But they’re necessary.

Because if you don't ask them now, you'll wake up one day a hollow version of yourself—resentful, tired, and unsure how you got here.

And the scariest part?

No one will even notice the difference.