Putting People First

For the 20 years that I have been alive I have spent most of those years putting everyone first. It has only been the past few months where I have started to think about myself and put myself in front of other people.

Many people put people first because they think that other people deserve more than what they do, which is one of the aspects that I had. Others have been brought up to think that putting people first can make you a better person and can bring you more in your life.

However, no one really takes into consideration what it might do to the individual who isn't taking any care of themselves. They are constantly focused on other people so they may be ignoring their own health and own issues to make sure other people are as healthy as they can be.

Although putting people first isn't always bad and won’t always turn out to be bad, however it can end in you getting hurt, used or even taken advantage of because of the way you help people and people aren't always grateful for the help that you may provide.

I have a few examples where I had put people/individuals first and I have either been taken advantage of or have been hurt or used in the process. So, let's go through the examples that I have, however the names of the individuals have been changed for privacy issues.

1/ The first example that I am going to go through in this article type piece is a family member of mine who had a few health issues. I had put her first because I knew how she felt, she was the black sheep of the family and so was I. We were able to act like mother and daughter (she was my second cousin by marriage but not by blood and she was 20 odd years older than I am). She had many different health issues at the time and no one was helping her out. So, I began helping her with money issues, housing issues and also health issues. However, on many occasions I ended up in the middle of the street or on the side of the road calling 999 or 111 because she had collapsed, and many times she was taking into hospital and I was taken with her. She would stay in the hospital for 1-3 weeks at a time where the hospital couldn't find what was wrong. I would spend the first night she was admitted with her, letting the family know and letting her know she wasn’t alone. However, during these spurts of staying in hospital I would go to work and then go straight to the hospital to see if she needed anything, and then spend hours at the hospital with her.

However, I never really found her to be thankful for everything I did for her, and nearly every time after being released from hospital she wouldn't talk to me for days maybe weeks at a time because she was either "too busy" or just didn't get in contact with me.

Although you may feel or think that this may not seem that bad but when you are spending ½ - maybe ¾ of your wages on someone who isn't thankful or grateful it soon takes a toll on you.

2/ Another example of me putting people first would be that in one of my work places I was confiding in a senior colleague who said I was like a daughter to her. I would do every hour under the sun at work for her because she would promise me things or she would "support" me with whatever I was going through. But over time I began to realise that I was just a number to her, and didn't seem to really mean anything to her. So, after confiding in her and telling her nearly everything about me, after a while I felt alone with no one to talk to.

However, these two examples didn't help my state of mind. Although I had already had depression and anxiety in the past this contributed to me regaining both mental health problems along with a few other things as well.

Although in many cases with people putting others few it can most likely lead to them developing trust issues, anxiety or depression because of the situations that they can get left in or the experiences that they can go through when being "on their own".