Selflessness Can Be Toxic
I knew I’d taken my people-pleasing tendencies too far when I thought I was gonna die or get paralyzed.
I knew I’d taken my people-pleasing tendencies too far when I thought I was gonna die or get paralyzed.
My partner Ech and I were in the car at around 1 am, on the way to get meds for my back pain at the pharmacy. But then my whole face and body went numb; I held my face, ran my hand around my head, and pinched my arms, but I felt nothing.
I turned to Ech and told her, “We need to go to the ER.”
The increased pain and numbness started a few days before, at a massage appointment in a neighborhood spa. It was the budget-friendly kind of spa wherein sessions were a hit-or-miss, depending on the skill and level of experience of your therapist for the day.
As the therapist’s hands applied excessive pressure to my neck and spine, alarm bells rang in my head. I learned from a different massage service that therapists avoided the neck area for safety reasons.
But instead of saying something to the therapist, I stayed quiet. I didn’t want to express doubt in her expertise and offend her. So instead, I prayed that I don’t die from a neck massage, a little amused by my own dark humor.
“Oh, Karr.” You’re probably thinking.
But yes. I’ve gone to such ridiculous lengths to put people’s feelings and needs before mine. In retrospect, a few seconds of awkwardness and speaking up could have prevented my serious injury.
It took more than 12 hours in the ER and months of physical and mental struggles, but it was the wake-up call I needed to reevaluate my toxic selflessness.
I used to take pride in my extreme giver mentality. Christian teaching tends to overemphasize self-sacrifice at the expense of your own needs. My toxic selflessness manifested in many other ways. I’d overexert myself at work, sometimes working 10+ hours straight, obsessively going through every detail before a presentation.
Over time, I burnt out and neglected my body, and it manifested in chronic body pain. I wore perfectionism and high performance like badges of honor.
But deep down, what motivated me was my fear of disappointing people.
It felt like running on a hamster wheel.
It’s been a slow and sometimes painful process, but I’ve been working on breaking my unhealthy patterns.
On being an overachiever, my therapist (as in psychotherapist, not massage LOL) advised me to lower my baseline because the higher my “normal,” the higher my fall when I fail. And so I’ve been striving for consistency over perfection.
I’ve also been watching self-improvement videos more often lately. A video by Charisma on Command stood out to me. It turns out, confidence and self-love are two different things.
Confidence is conditional: “I will love myself if I nail this work presentation.”
Self-love is unconditional and content: “I will love myself whether or not I live up to my expectations.”
True self-love is putting your health and safety first like your life depends on it. Offended massage therapist be damned. It’s calling out a person if they’re causing you harm.
Fill your cup first. Put on your own life vest first.
I’m starting to truly internalize these principles. I’m learning to embrace the “self” part in “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.”
Originally published at https://chasingkarr.substack.com
