I Have A Problem

I have a problem. I am too sensitive. I am too caring. I put other people's needs before mine. I put my family and children before me, as I should, but I also put others before me as well. Strangers, people begging on the streets, the mail man. Always other people. I let them use my good nature, my compassion, my weakness. I do it all the time. I feel so much for others. I give them everything I have. I give them my support, my time, my emotional strength. I forget to protect myself. The result is damage. The result is loosing the sanity I have built up over the years block by block. I get pushed back into feelings of guilt, shame, and feeling inadequate and worthless. I come undone and tear at the seams. I put myself in unhealthy situations. I place myself in situations that can mark me. Always trying to do the right thing. To be the good little girl and share. I almost never stand up for myself. I let others harm me and that is a problem. I let them drain my friendship and support until I am empty. I let them bully me, berate me, undermine my good intentions, and demand from me more of myself than I can give. I let them curse at me, abuse, and steal from me and yet I take it.  I let them take my money, my personal belongings, bits of my soul. Striving to be better each time so they are happy with me. I let these toxic relationships in my life and then wonder why I am so stressed and broken. I am after all a person with mental illness. I put that aside to help others and forget that my mental health is just as important as theirs. I let other people push me around until I am bruised and battered. Then I ask for more. I am not someone who enjoys pain. I am just too afraid that people won't like me or think bad of me if I don't give them what they want. It is unhealthy. The result of this is at some point I will shut down. A brick wall will come down from the heavens and land in front of me. I will not be able to go around it to get to my destination. I will not be able to climb over it because I have been exhausted from giving all that I have to offer. I will not be able to function anymore. It will be a complete end of all that I am trying to accomplish. I will be stuck in that spot and be depressed that I can not do what I was once able to do. I am easily guilt tripped, and maybe I am gullible as well. It is not fair that I have worked so hard to be healthy and others siphon that away from me. Drip by drip until I am depleted.  I will give and give and give. It fractures me. It damages me and I deserve better.  Just because I am a good person it doesn't mean you get to use me. Just because I care to much doesn't mean that you have the right to use it against me. Just because I am a giving loving person doesn't mean that you should hurt me over and over again to entertain yourself. I have other things to think about . I have a family and children but not just that I have a responsibility to be kind to myself. To stand up for me. To stay healthy. To finally put myself and my mental health above people that are not my family or my dear friends. It's time that I define my worth in something other than giving myself away piece by piece to those don't care or realize the gift I am giving them. I can't do this anymore. It's not even that I can't, it is that I don't want to. I deserve friendship. I deserve  respect and most of all I deserve the life I have fought tooth and nail for. It has taken me a long time to realize that I can't heal anyone else but myself. I am not anyone's therapist. I am not anyone's Santa Claus. I can't give everyone magical gifts that will make them happy. I can't give everyone every part of me or I have no me left to give. I am just a woman trying to raise a family and have a life while living with a mental illness. I have to, I need to take back my own life. I need to shut out those people that are toxic and bleeding me dry. I need to say enough is enough and this is killing my soul.  It's going to hurt me to do this but the alternative is, that if I don't, I am killing myself. No one deserves that kind of power over me. No one.