At Some point, leave them

It's a beautiful thing to be the one that helps someone get better. If your loved one goes wayward, it's actually an act of love to help them do the right thing.

But whether it's your loved one or someone in your life, truth is, some people are deeply damaged inside and there's really nothing you can do to fix that. Yes, anything is possible, but, there's a realm of possibilities and realm of impossibilities.

Perhaps they've gone through something so devasting that they can never be the same again, or they're just born that way, too stubborn and arrogant to listen to any advice regardless of how wise the advice may sound. Some are also so proud, they reject the change you try to bring.

If it's a loved one, you're sure to get bothered by this behavior. Perhaps they've gone through pain that turned into anger, a thirst for absolute power and control, or cruelty toward others.

Yes, you may see the good in them, but that doesn’t mean they will act on it. The reality you should accept is that people will change only when they decide to, not when someone else wants them to. So by inference, you trying to save someone who doesn’t want help will only drain you.

You can just choose to care about someone without having to take responsibility for their healing. If you notice all your efforts are backfiring, you can try and say I won't quit on you just because you're being stubborn, but the question is how long do you think it'll take for you to finally force them to do what they don't want to do?

Also accept that it's not unkind to walk away from people who keep hurting you and refuse to change. Your love, no matter how strong it may be, cannot replace therapy, self awareness, or accountability of another person.

You'd be surprised to know that the person you're trying to straighten up or make do the right thing actually enjoys their craziness because it gives them power or it gives them attention.

Nobody's stopping you from offering support, but sometimes you should just let them face their own darkness and learn by experience. If experience can't change someone, you sure as hell can't. You can't beat experience at teaching.

There are so many broken people who will reject real help because it poses some sort of threat to their comfort zone. Your high hopes that such a person will change over time usually turns into a cycle of disappointment and guilt for you. And the longer you stay in that cycle, the more you lose yourself and lose the efforts you can put in other people that would actually listen to you.

Also remember that the boundaries you set are not punishments, it's self respect in action. Choosing to let the person keep going in that wrong direction doesn't make you a cold or heartless person, if you try over and over and they keep rejecting your help, consider that maybe they don't want it and you forcing it on them just affects your peace and theirs.

So let them be them and let the better teacher which is life and its experiences do the job.

Your attempt to heal someone else’s wounds should not come at the cost of reopening your own wounds. So it's totally fine to let professionals or time handle what you cannot.

If all your efforts don't change them, move on with your life. Accepting people as they are doesn’t mean accepting their damage into your life, remember that when you're caught up in this situation.

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