It’s Time To Stop Trying To Fix Everyone

How long are you going to keep doing this?

Trying to convince them to get help. To listen to your boundaries. To take their health seriously. To treat you better.

How long are you going to keep doing this?

Trying to make them take you seriously. To listen. To finally do something about it.

How long are you going to keep doing this?

You can’t fix someone who doesn’t want to change. You can’t make them get better. You can’t turn them into the person you’ve always hoped they’d be.

How long are you going to keep doing this?

You know it’s taking a toll. You can’t take care of yourself or anyone else who matters, because all your energy goes to them. What’s it like to pour every ounce of yourself into someone who refuses to meet you halfway? How does it feel to make someone your full-time project and get nothing in return?

I know you didn’t apply for this job. Your parent needed help, and there you were, captive audience, loyal listener. You walked them through breakups, job losses, and moves. It felt good to be needed. And those compliments, “you’re so mature,” “you always give the best advice,” they felt good too. But why aren’t we talking about the fact that a twelve-year-old was giving them the best advice of their life?

It’s time to stop trying to fix them and everyone else around you. It’s time to put down the books. It’s time to stop spending your therapy hour talking about what they keep doing.

I know it feels mean. It feels like abandoning your most sacred role: your parent’s confidant, cheerleader, therapist. But this was never your role to begin with.

It’s not your fault that you ended up here. But you can choose differently now. You can let them be the adult. You can let someone else support them.

I know you’ve been conditioned to believe you’re the only one who can help, the only one who understands, the only one they can tell. But we both know now, that’s not true.

They don’t want to go to someone else because that would mean being accountable. It would mean letting another adult see what’s really happening. It would mean facing advice they don’t want to hear.

It’s easier to tell you, because they hold the power in that dynamic. They knew you wouldn’t leave when they shared their darkest moments. You were a kid. Where could you have gone? How could you set a boundary? You played the role you were handed, and you played it well.

But it’s time to stop now. It was never your job, and it still isn’t.

Your worth is not measured by how much you do. You don’t have to save anyone to be good. You don’t have to fix them to be free.