it became so much easier
to talk about my drive
to take care of others
when i thought of it as
a trauma response
from childhood.

when approached as something
stemming from the
‘goodness of my own heart’
something akin to being
‘just a good person’
or the source being
‘simply my selfless, altruistic self’
then the ache i felt when i wanted others
to drop everything
and care for me
(the way i did them)
stopped being so disturbingly
selfish/bad person/greedy-hearted
and instead became a warning sign
that i still needed to heal my inner child,
and the care i gave others
wasn’t, in fact, a choice or a personality trait
but was a compulsion driven from a place
of needing what i gave.