An effect of trauma
Not knowing what you need or feeling you have no right to it
When you grew up learning that your needs were inconvenient, dangerous, or simply irrelevant, you stopped tracking them. You learned to want what other people wanted. To be okay when you were not okay. To say yes when every part of you wanted to say no. To give until there was nothing left and then give more. This is not generosity. It is the erasure of a self that learned early that taking up space was not safe. Rebuilding a sense of your own needs, your own limits, your own right to exist in your own life, is real work.
One more thing worth saying plainly: this began as protection. At some point it was the thing that got you through. If it is still running now that the danger has passed, that is not a flaw in you. It is proof of how hard something once worked to keep you safe.
It can sound like
If any of those sentences live in your head too, you are in good company here.
Nothing on this page is a diagnosis, and nothing here decides what is wrong with you, because nothing is wrong with you. Something happened to you. This page exists so that when you are ready, you can find people who understand it from the inside.
You do not have to carry this alone.
Bridge of Hope Recovery is a free, anonymous, peer-led fellowship for trauma survivors. Meetings run throughout the week by phone, by video, and in person. No cost, no waitlist, no one asking for your real name.