Leah, I Fight for Others but Not for Myself... Unpacking the Paradox

You can write the boldest email for a friend. You can speak up in a meeting when your colleague is being dismissed. You can argue your sibling’s case, defend a stranger on the internet, advocate fiercely for your child or client or partner—and mean every word. But when it comes to your own needs, wants, feelings… your throat closes. Your inner monologue spins with doubt. You freeze. You placate. You shrink.

Sound familiar?

You're not alone.

In fact, I see this all the time—especially in people who are smart, kind, and emotionally generous. They give, protect, defend, uplift everyone else. But when it’s time to speak up for themselves, something gets in the way. The words disappear. The boundaries blur. The needs feel... optional.

The Inner Voice That Says “You’ll Survive, Don't Be a Burden!” - so you self-abandon

For many, this struggle doesn’t come from a lack of courage or clarity. It comes from a deeper emotional wound—one that whispers:

“Don’t be a nuisance.”

“Don’t make it worse.”

“Don’t ask for more—be grateful for what you have.”

“You’ll survive.”

And yes, you did survive. But you did it by suppressing your voice, your needs, your feelings. That survival strategy became your default operating system—one that now silently governs how you show up in your relationships, your workplace, your family, and even your internal dialogue.

Often, these wounds begin in childhood.

Maybe you grew up in a home with a narcissistic parent—where love was conditional, where affection was earned by being pleasing or useful, and where your feelings were either dismissed or used against you. In those environments, advocating for yourself wasn’t just discouraged—it was dangerous. The more you asked, the more likely you were to be punished, shamed, or gaslit. Over time, your system learned: it’s safer not to need. Not to ask. Not to expect.

Or perhaps your caregivers weren’t overtly cruel, but emotionally absent. The kind of neglect that doesn’t raise alarms but leaves lasting scars. You might have learned that your emotions were too inconvenient for busy or distracted parents, so you stopped sharing them. You became “independent,” “resilient,” “mature for your age”—labels often worn like badges, but built on the foundation of emotional neglect.

Then there’s the kind of wound that comes from outside the home—bullying at school, on the playground, in friendship groups. Especially when those who were supposed to protect you—teachers, parents, other adults—did nothing. When the message you received was: “It’s not a big deal,” “Ignore it,” or worse, “You probably provoked it.” These early betrayals can crystallize into a core belief that you are alone, that your pain is invisible, and that your needs don’t matter enough to be anyone’s priority.

What comes next in Adulthood?

These experiences don’t just disappear. They echo forward into adulthood, shaping how you navigate conflict, intimacy, boundaries, and belonging. You might now be the one who shows up first for others but last for yourself. The one who keeps the peace even when your insides are screaming. The one who gets applauded for being so “understanding” and “easy to work with,” while quietly eroding under the weight of unmet needs.

And here’s the kicker—when you grow up believing your needs are too much or not welcome, you unconsciously gravitate toward environments and relationships that confirm that belief.

It’s no surprise, then, that so many people with these histories find themselves in toxic work dynamics and painful romantic relationships. When being the helper, the fixer, the giver is all you’ve ever known, you become a magnet for those who take advantage of that. Exploitative bosses, emotionally unavailable friends, narcissistic partners—these people tend to center themselves and gladly hand you the supporting role, the emotional labour, the caretaking, the bending and twisting.

And because it feels familiar, it doesn’t raise red flags. In fact, it can feel like home. It feels normal to be last. Expected to tolerate the intolerable. Reasonable to be the one who adjusts. You may even feel guilty when you want more, or ashamed for needing anything at all. After all, what did you expect?

You may also notice that when you do begin to advocate for yourself—when you finally say no, set a boundary, or ask for something that matters—you’re met with backlash. Anger. Guilt-tripping. Silence. Rejection. Punishment. And this is the part that cuts the deepest. Because it reinforces the very wound you’ve spent your life trying to bury: “You don’t matter. You’re only loved when you’re useful. Don’t make it about you.”

The result?

You shrink again. You silence yourself. You overcompensate. You internalize the abuse as a reflection of your worth—and the cycle continues.

But here’s the truth: This isn’t your fault. These patterns were carved into you by repetition, neglect, and environments that never taught you what safety, reciprocity, and mutual respect even looked like.

And while the damage wasn’t your doing, the healing can be your choosing.

Awareness Is Not Enough

There’s plenty of advice out there: Use “I” statements. Practice saying 'No'. Set boundaries. And yes, those tools matter. But what no one tells you is that they rarely work unless the deeper wound is acknowledged and healed.

You can read every book on assertiveness. You can take a communication course. You can copy-paste someone else’s fierce words. But if deep down you still believe your needs are inconvenient, your voice is too much, or your worth is conditional—none of it sticks.

Because when the belief underneath is “I don’t matter,” you’ll keep not drawing but actively choosing the short stick. You’ll keep being the one who bends, who waits, who accepts less. You’ll call it a compromise. You'll call it understanding. But often, it’s just emotional survival dressed up as empathy.

The Saboteurs: Within and Around Us

One of the hardest truths to sit with is this: even when we want to change, even when we know we deserve better, we often sabotage ourselves.

Not because we’re broken. Not because we don’t actually want it. But because something inside us is terrified of what life might look like if we truly believed we mattered. If we stopped pleasing. If we stopped performing. If we actually took up space and asked for what we needed.

That internal saboteur can be subtle—staying quiet in a meeting, ghosting the person who treated us well (because it felt weird), never making the decision to seek professional help, or cancelling sessions or ending the work with a professional prematurely (not because you weren't getting the changes you went for - but exactly because you were and that scared you), choosing the discomfort of the familiar over growth. Or it can be louder—picking fights, procrastinating, numbing, isolating, walking back our progress the moment things feel too good.

And then there’s the external sabotage.

When we finally start changing the script—advocating for ourselves, setting boundaries, asking for more—the people who’ve benefitted from our silence, our compliance, our self-erasure often don’t like it. They may mock us, punish us, withdraw love, or try to guilt us back into old roles. Whether it’s a partner who accuses us of being selfish, a boss who suddenly finds us “difficult,” or a friend who pulls away when we stop always saying 'Yes'—this too is sabotage. And it reinforces the same old message: don’t change, stay small, be who we need you to be.

This is why emotional healing matters so much. Because without it, sabotage wins.

You need to know how and why you sabotage yourself (that’s the cognitive layer), you need to practice showing up differently even when it’s hard (that’s the behavioural layer), and most importantly, you need to heal the scared, hurting part of you that learned survival meant self-betrayal (that’s the emotional layer).

When we understand sabotage not as failure, but as a protective reflex from a time when we didn’t have better options, we stop shaming ourselves. And we start meeting that fear with compassion—and strategy.

That’s the turning point.

How I Work: Knowing, Doing, and Feeling Your Way into Worth

In my work, I help people move through three interconnected layers of healing—because just knowing isn’t enough, and even doing can fall flat if the feelings underneath haven’t shifted.

1. The Cognitive Layer is where we begin. It’s the knowing. Understanding the patterns, seeing the wounds, naming the beliefs. It’s when you start noticing: “I always say yes even when I don’t want to,” or “I feel guilty when I take up space.” This is when the lights start coming on. Clients often say things like, “I didn’t even realise I was doing that,” or “Wow, that belief came from my mum always needing me to be the strong one.”
   

But insight alone doesn’t break the cycle. You can know you’re a people-pleaser and still keep doing it.

2. The Behavioural Layer is where we put insight into action. It’s the doing. Practicing saying no, setting micro-boundaries, asking for what you want. And this is hard—because without the emotional foundation, every small act of self-advocacy can feel like rebellion, or worse, betrayal. I’ve had clients draft a message to their partner asking for help with chores… and then freeze for hours before hitting send. Or practice saying no to a coffee they didn’t want and feel like they’re being selfish. This layer is full of resistance, and that resistance isn’t stupidity or weakness—it’s the body remembering what used to keep it safe.
   

That’s why…

3. The Emotional Layer is the most essential. It’s the feeling. The place where healing truly happens. It’s where we tend to the parts of you that learned—through experience, not logic—that your needs were dangerous, that your value depended on your silence, that being loved meant being useful, agreeable, or invisible. This is where we hold space for the tears that never got cried, the anger that had no outlet, the longing that was too risky to voice. It’s messy, tender, powerful work—and without it, the knowing and the doing rarely stick.
   

When clients do this deeper emotional work, something clicks, things shift. Suddenly, they’re not just performing boundaries—they feel entitled to them. They’re not just mimicking confidence—they trust themselves. They’re not just reciting affirmations—they believe them. Their “no” becomes calm and clean. Their “yes” becomes full-bodied and free.

And it’s here—when the heart catches up with the head—that real transformation begins.

This Isn’t Just About Boundaries—It’s About Healing

If you recognize yourself in this article, please hear this: healing is possible. And it changes everything.

Over the years, I’ve worked with dozens of people who struggled to self-advocate—who were always the peacekeeper, the reliable one, the giver. And when they finally turned their care inward, when they began the slow and powerful process of reclaiming their voice, their worth, their right to take up space… magic happened. I’ve seen firsthand how transformative the healing journey can be.

This isn’t just about learning to speak up. It’s about becoming someone who no longer believes they have to shrink, tolerate, or sacrifice to be loved or safe.

They started asking for salary raises—and getting them. They left one-sided relationships and found partners who truly saw them. They set new boundaries with family and found peace. They stopped performing emotional labour for everyone else and started pursuing dreams they’d long buried. They began living like their needs mattered—because they finally believed they did. These transformations weren’t instant. They required commitment. But the ripple effects were extraordinary.

When the World Teaches You to Survive, Not to Thrive

Struggling to advocate for yourself—especially when you so easily do it for others—is not a personality flaw. It's a scar. A signpost pointing to emotional wounds that taught you, somewhere along the way, that your needs weren’t as important. That others’ comfort mattered more. That you’d be fine, so long as everyone else was okay.

Remember: no matter how much awareness you gain or how many strategies you try, true change doesn’t stick until those wounds are healed from the inside out. Until the belief that you're not enough, not worthy, not important gets gently and consistently replaced with a lived sense of worth. That healing doesn’t come from tips and tools alone—it comes from emotional repair. And it requires commitment: to yourself, for yourself, and because of yourself.

It Starts With a Decision to Matter

If you’re tired of being the one who always adjusts, always gives in, always gets less—know that it doesn’t have to stay this way. You are not doomed to a life of quiet disappointment. You can learn to advocate for yourself without guilt. You can learn to take up space without apology. You can live a life where your needs don’t come last.

This isn’t about becoming someone else. It’s about coming home to the you who’s always been there—quietly waiting for permission to be seen, heard, and valued.

You’re not too much. You never were.

But that starts with a decision—one that only you can make: the decision to matter to yourself.

If this resonates and you’re ready to explore how to heal from those old wounds and step into a more self-honouring version of your life, I’d love to support you. I offer Free 30-minute Discovery Calls to see if we might be a good fit.

FREE: 30min Discovery Call

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