self sacrifice taught people to forget me I became so good at putting myself last that people started expecting it from me. My needs became negotiable, my feelings became secondary, and my silence became normal because I was always the one understanding everyone else. I kept telling myself that love meant patience, compromise, and giving endlessly, but somewhere in the middle of all that giving, I disappeared from my own life. The painful thing about self sacrifice is that it rarely feels destructive in the beginning. It feels noble. It feels loving. It feels like you are doing the right thing by carrying more than you should. But over time, you realize you have built relationships where everyone feels safe leaning on you while no one notices how tired you are becoming. You become a home for others while feeling homeless within yourself. And one day, your soul reaches a point where it can no longer survive on being needed alone. You begin craving something deeper than appreciation, you crave reciprocity. You crave a love that does not require your exhaustion to prove its existence. That is when healing begins, when you stop measuring your worth by how much pain you can endure for others, and start understanding that choosing yourself is not selfish, it is necessary.