When Helping Others Starts to Cost You Yourself

For a long time, survival was something I was good at.

I learned how to keep going when I was exhausted. How to function when I was overwhelmed. How to appear as if I were fine, when things weren’t okay. How to put my own feelings somewhere out of the way so I could deal with whatever was in front of me.

Those skills helped me survive trauma.

Then came healing.

Healing helped me find my voice. It helped me understand that what happened to me wasn’t something I had to carry silently. Eventually, I began sharing my story and using my experiences to educate others about human trafficking, abuse, trauma, foster care, and the things we often miss.

There was purpose in it.

There still is.

I love being able to take some of the darkest parts of my life and use them to create understanding, challenge misconceptions, change laws and hopefully make things better for someone else.

But somewhere along the way, I had to learn that even something meaningful can become too much when you give it everything you have.

When “Yes” Becomes the Default

When you’ve survived something and eventually reach a place where you can use that experience to help others, it can be incredibly difficult to say no.

There is always another event.

Another panel.

Another presentation.

Another meeting.

Another person asking for your perspective.

Another organization that needs a survivor voice in the room.

And when you know your voice might make a difference, saying no can feel selfish.

So for a long time, my instinct was to say yes.

Yes to speaking. Yes to advocacy. Yes to helping. Yes to interviews. Yes to one more thing squeezed into an already full schedule.

And advocacy was only one part of my life. There was still a full-time job, responsibilities, relationships, commitments, and all of the ordinary things that don’t stop simply because you’re trying to make a difference in the world.

The problem is, like many people who have experienced trauma, I was already very good at putting myself last.

I knew how to push through exhaustion because I had been doing it most of my life.

I knew how to ignore what my body was telling me.

I knew how to convince myself, I’ll deal with me later.

Those things can look a lot like strength from the outside.

Sometimes they even feel like strength from the inside.

Until you realize you’re burning out.

I Felt It Coming

Over the last few years, I’ve become much more intentional about the speaking and advocacy opportunities I accept.

I still love speaking, educating, and being part of conversations that can create change. I still believe deeply in the importance of survivor voices being included in the rooms where decisions are being made.

But I realized I couldn’t say yes to everything simply because it was important.

I had to start considering the timing, the purpose, what else I was carrying, and whether I had the capacity to show up in the way I wanted to.

I had to find balance.

And that meant learning to ask myself something other than:

Can I do this?

Because most of the time, the answer is yes.

I’ve survived enough to know that I can push myself through almost anything.

The better question became:

What will doing this cost me?

That’s a very different question.

Sometimes the answer is that it’s absolutely worth it.

Sometimes the opportunity energizes me. Sometimes I know I’m supposed to be in that room. Sometimes I leave a presentation or conversation reminded exactly why I continue doing this work.

And sometimes I have to recognize that something can be worthwhile and still not be right for me at that moment.

Both can be true.

My Story Can Help People Without Belonging to Everyone

This may be one of the biggest lessons I’ve had to learn as a survivor and advocate:

My story can have value without being endlessly available.

I don’t owe every audience the most painful parts of my life.

I don’t have to accept every invitation because someone believes my perspective would be valuable.

I don’t have to constantly revisit trauma to prove that I’m committed to this work.

And I don’t have to sacrifice my own well-being in the name of helping other people.

For survivors especially, I think this distinction matters.

When you’ve spent part of your life having your boundaries ignored, learning that you are allowed to have boundaries, even around your own story, can be part of healing.

There was a time when surviving meant putting myself last because sometimes survival didn’t leave room for anything else.

But healing can’t mean continuing that same pattern with a prettier name.

If I’m constantly giving everything I have to my work, advocacy, responsibilities, and other people while leaving nothing for myself, that’s not the freedom I worked so hard to find.

You Don’t Have to Wait Until You Break

I know this isn’t only a survivor or advocacy issue.

Maybe your version looks completely different.

Maybe you’re the person everyone calls when something goes wrong.

Maybe you’re the caregiver.

The dependable employee.

The friend who always listens.

The volunteer who never says no.

The person who carries everything because everyone knows you can handle it.

Maybe you’re doing work you genuinely love and still discovering that you can’t do all of it.

I’ve had to learn something that I think a lot of us need permission to believe:

It’s okay to care deeply and still have boundaries.

It’s okay to say no to something good.

It’s okay to recognize that you don’t have the capacity right now.

It’s okay to protect time that doesn’t have a productive purpose.

It’s okay to rest before your body forces you to.

And it’s okay to disappoint someone occasionally rather than continually disappointing yourself.

You don’t have to wait until you’re completely burned out before deciding that something needs to change.

I’m Still Saying Yes

I don’t want this to sound like I’ve stopped wanting to speak or advocate, because I haven’t.

I still want to speak.

I still want to advocate.

I still want to change laws.

I still want to sit in rooms where survivor voices need to be heard. I still want to educate people who genuinely want to understand. I still want to challenge the misconceptions that allow trafficking and abuse to remain hidden.

And I hope I have many more opportunities to do those things.

What has changed is that I’ve learned I don’t have to say yes to every opportunity to prove how much I care about this work.

In fact, learning to say no sometimes is part of what allows me to keep saying yes to the things that matter most.

I want to be able to do this work for years to come.

Not by giving until there is nothing left of me, but by learning how to give while also taking care of myself.

Because I spent too many years surviving a life where my needs didn’t matter.

I don’t want to recreate that life myself by continually putting everyone and everything ahead of me.

Maybe that’s part of this stage of healing too.

Learning that my voice matters, but so does my silence.

My advocacy matters, but so does my rest.

Helping other people matters, but I matter too.

For so much of my life, strength meant enduring.

Now I’m learning that sometimes strength looks like recognizing my limits before I reach them.

My spark isn’t gone.

Maybe I’ve just spent a lot of years using it to light the way for other people.

Now I’m learning to bring some of that light home.

I don’t have to burn myself out to prove that it’s still there.