Helen Marie Brogan

Are you always the planner, the one who gets the group moving?
The one stuck coordinating because everyone else stops participating, knowing you’ll take the lead?

“Hey, grab the tickets and I’ll pay you back.”
And somehow, that never quite happens, just a vague exchange that barely matches the original agreement.

Are you the fixer?
When plans fall apart, does everyone look at you to step in and clean it up?

Is it your vehicle, your camper, your resources?
Does everything depend on you, while everyone else suddenly becomes incapable?

Are you expected not only to plan it all… but to carry the entire experience?

Let me hit you with a story that is based on a collection of scenarios over the past year.

I made a last-minute decision to go out to an event that I originally could not attend.

Because I did not plan on attending, I didn’t coordinate, manage timing, or carry someone else’s stress about parking, traffic, or whether everything would go perfectly. I just wanted to go because I felt like it.

Simple.

They were already going. And I knew exactly what going with them meant.

It meant absorbing the anxiety before we even left.
It meant navigating indecision that had nothing to do with me.
It meant managing someone else’s experience so the night could even begin.

It meant listening to all the gossip about people who were at the event.

I chose something different.

I chose to go on my own.

And right on cue, the familiar tension showed up—the unspoken expectation that I should have gone with them, adjusted to them, made it easier for them. That somehow my choice needed to factor in their comfort.

But here is the truth I am finally starting to understand:

I am not responsible for other people’s comfort. It is not my role to parent and collect other’s belongings or schedules or plan around their forgetfulness.
I am not responsible for their enjoyment.
And I am not responsible for their ability to move through their own life.

At some point, helping stopped being kindness and became obligation.
At some point, being reliable became being expected.

Basically, at some point, I became the solution to problems I did not create. But my inclusion into the group or into a friendship became dependent on my compliance with being this fixer. 

That ends here!

Because this isn’t just about one night or one person.
This is about a pattern.

People saw the pleaser in me. The person who needed validation desperately and they took advantage.

WHY DID THESE KINDS OF SCENARIOS KEEP HAPPENING?

Because people preyed on a pattern I was portraying but didn’t realize. 

A pattern where people attach themselves to you, not because of your company, but because of your capability. Because you can drive, plan, decide, execute, pay, organize, and carry. And if you’re not careful, you become less of a person and more of a system they plug into that shores up their inadequacies.

An access point.
A convenience.
A lifeline.

And the moment you step out of that role, even slightly, you feel it, the resistance, the disappointment, the shift.

But that reaction is not proof you’ve done something wrong.
It’s proof you’ve changed the terms.

And I need to acknowledge something that isn’t easy to admit.

I didn’t always handle this well.

LEARNING TO CHANGE: THE HARD WAY

When I started to see what was happening, when I began saying no, stepping back, and removing myself from people who used guilt, anxiety, and pressure to control situations, I didn’t leave cleanly.

I reacted.

I turned it outward.
These people are shit. This town is shit. My former coworkers are shit. Everyone is shit and useless.

In many cases, I wasn’t wrong. They way took their bait and reacted- was.

The way I handled it wasn’t responsible. It wasn’t professional and, it wasn’t moving me forward.

I became reactive. They got their wish. I became just like them. 

I matched the behaviour I had been subjected to, and sometimes, I went further.

Anger feels like control when you’ve been controlled.

But it backfired because all it really did was give them something they didn’t deserve—proof.

Proof they could point to and say, “See? This is who she is.”

This reaction kept me stuck longer than any of their behaviour ever could.

I learned the hard way that losing control doesn’t prove your strength. It hands it back to the people who tried to take it.

I HAD TO LEARN TO STEP BACK AND START LIVING FOR JUST ME

Here’s the part that’s harder to say, but necessary:

If someone relies on you for their mobility, their access, their ability to participate in life, that is not connection.

People that is dependence. And dependence dressed up as friendship will keep you small if you let it.

I have spent too much of my life carrying people who never intended to walk on their own.

People who built lives around waiting. They were waiting for support, waiting for handouts, waiting for someone else to make things happen. When you are the one who fought for your independence, who built your own means, who pushed through when no one was coming to save you—you become a target for that kind of reliance.

You can carry the burden of navigating your life.

You have to say to yourself, just because you can function efficiently for others… doesn’t mean you are automatically obligated.

I had to say to myself,

“I am not responsible for creating opportunities for people who chose not to create their own.”
“I am not responsible for sustaining lifestyles built on avoidance, dependence, or entitlement.”
And,

“I am not responsible for cushioning the reality that at some point, the handouts end.”

That may sound harsh and it is, but it is also honest!

Because what I am learning—slowly, and with a lot of internal resistance—is that every time I overextend myself to make someone else comfortable, I am taking something away from my own life. My time. My energy. My peace.

And I am done trading that away.

This isn’t about abandoning people.
It’s about refusing to carry them.

It’s about making space for people who can stand on their own, who choose to be in my life for my company, not my capability. People who don’t need me to function but want me to be there.

There is a difference.

A massive one.

Yes, I made a last-minute decision.

I chose not to room with the group and made my own travel arrangements. 
Yes, I went on my own.
And yes, someone did not like it, because they could not go on their own.

But their reaction does not define my responsibility.

I am allowed to change my mind.
I am allowed to choose ease over chaos.
I am allowed to build a life that doesn’t require me to drag others through it.

And maybe the most important realization of all:

I no longer walk on eggshells.  If I feel this is happening, I pull away and decline the invite.

THE TRUTH

I didn’t leave anyone behind.

I just stopped carrying them.

-Helen