112. It's a little bit messy.

But that's what feelings are like sometimes.

My boyfriend needed me to be there for him this week but I was too busy trying to save him.

I know how important it is for people to welcome all feelings without judging them or categorising them but for some reason whenever C. feels hurt, I feel like I’m dying inside. I’m an empath and I also have a savior complex, which I’m working on, so seeing the people that I love suffer hurts me terribly.

A memory pops to mind as I write this, I must have been around fifteen years old and we’d taken my mum to the hospital because she had intense pain. I don’t remember what it was but I can see myself sat on those plastic hospital triage seats crying because of how helpless I felt. I wanted her pain to disappear and I felt like running around screaming until I found a doctor that would help her numb the pain. But I didn’t, I sat there with her until we all went home.

Now that my neurons have sparked, I can also see the day my younger brother fell over and split his eyebrow open. Blood was gushing everywhere and he stood there, staring at me while his face turned bright red. Mum and dad came rushing over to see the bone under his open wound while I was told repeatedly “run to get some serviettes from the bar in front!” Of course, I understood that this was my life’s mission. My brother’s life depended on my ability to grab enough paper towels and get them delivered ASAP.

When C. feels like he’s failing with his projects, that everything is going wrong, that the world isn’t on his side and his eyes become small and the usual light in them fades, I feel just as I did with my mum and brother. I need to extinguish this fire as soon as possible. What can I do to stop the pain that he’s feeling?

The reality is that I can’t do anything and that I don’t need to do anything either. He needs to feel this pain. He needs to feel it in every way he can, to sit with it, digest it and welcome it. It won’t go away unless he accepts that it’s there and that it’s his.

Parents constantly try to make sure that they’re kids don’t feel pain. If they fall over, they pick them up as quickly as they can and repeat to them that “they’re alright”. Even if they bashed their elbow as hard as they could against the slide and feel like crying because it really hurt, they’re told that it’s okay, that it was nothing, that it didn’t hurt. They’re feeling one thing and being told by their parents that their feeling isn’t real. It doesn’t hurt, it’s not that big of a deal, don’t cry, get up and carry on playing. How are we supposed to learn how to sit with that pain if everyone tells us that it’s not really there? Do these parents have savior complexes too?

I know the theory but when I see the people I love suffer, I can’t take it, it pains me so much. Now, this isn’t their problem or their fault, it’s my own. When was younger I took great responsibility in making sure that my brother wasn’t picked on at school, he was a tiny, shy, blue eyed angel looking boy that was an easy target so I made sure to always have his back; when my parents couldn’t communicate what they needed in Spanish, I’m was there at the ready to rescue them and step in. I was responsible, I was in charge, I had it under control. But did I?

Whenever someone in primary school was alone I’d step in to make sure they knew they had a friend whenever they needed one, if someone on the playground was getting bullied I’d run over to save them from the other evil kids, if someone gets mocked in the WhatsApp group I’m there to take the victims side so they feel supported. It’s exhausting. I even smile at people in the supermarket in the hopes of making someone else’s day nice. The savior complex some call it.

It’s ironic because whenever I feel sad I really get into it, I allow myself to feel the worst I’ve ever felt, I cry rivers, I feel the sadness in my stomach and hold it. I have no issue with feeling pain to be honest, it’s something I’m used to and I even enjoy it sometimes, but for some reason it’s not the same when my loved ones feel it.

I’ll listen to C. tell me what’s wrong and my mind will be going 100 mph trying to come up with solutions. Finding the missing key to unlock whatever’s not working. Have you tried…? What about…? Have you thought about…?

This week my savior complex was healed.

That part of me understood that what she was trying to do was only making things worse. She was feeling hurt so she was hurting. She was trying to be helpful but her ways of acting weren’t the best. She was trying so hard but she really wasn’t getting anywhere.

First, the situation exploded and then she was taught how she could really help from a new perspective. We had a breakthrough.

C. was huddled up in bed reading a book so I went and sat with him. He put his head on my chest, I played with his hair and we both sat there in silence. That’s when everything clicked. I was there for him and supported him without doing anything. My presence and my time was all that he needed. He didn’t need me to ask him questions or to give him solutions, he just needed to feel like he wasn’t alone. That I was by his side.

He didn’t need fixing and he didn’t need to run from himself, he is strong enough to navigate his own feelings and he knows how to do it, but having me by his side helps to take the weight off his shoulders when he’s not in his strongest moment, and that’s all he needs.

We sat in bed in silence watching the raindrops fall against the window. It felt like an extremely intimate and beautiful moment and I’m grateful that he allowed me to accompany him.

After this mental click happened, I felt what it was like to tread a little lighter. I didn’t need to carry the responsibility of him and myself all at once. I internalised that I only need to carry my own bag and that if his gets too heavy, he can ask me to take some of the weight, which I can. But we each have our own shoulders the rest of the time.

I felt like I could truly listen and care for him coming from a place of calm instead of a busy mind constantly trying to find quick fixes and suggestions. My mind feels quieter and more at peace. I can focus on myself and my inner world because I understand now that the rest of the world can carry their own weight. I’m not Atlas.

I can let go and I can focus on myself because I’ve realised that while trying to take care of absolutely everyone in my life, on the one hand I wasn’t achieving anything and on the other hand, I’m much more useful when I act from a state of calm.

It goes, you can let it
It's okay to regret it
I'm on your side
No need to be ready
It's okay if it's messy
I'm on your side.
—Olivia Dean.

STUFF I WANT TO SHARE ↓

1. Mariona Ramis
   writes a really lovely newsletter in Catalán 💖

2. This project called “a friend who lives there” is really cool.

3. This essay by

   Ava
   made me cry and dream about Iliana, my teenage best friend who I still think about often.

4. If you’ve also seen the new Dua Lipa adverts in El Corte Inglés for “Puma Palermo born”, do yourself a favor and check out Systemarosa.

5. Eugenia Salama makes beautiful pottery and deserves a follow.