The STRONG Friend Has Left the Chat: Sinking While Showing Up for People Who Never Showed Up for Me

Why I Am No Longer Being an Emotional Vending Machine Trading Emotional Labor for Love

Jun 16, 2025

Now before I start, I’d like to share some wisdom I’ve found on my journey so that this post isn’t read through the lens of victimization or sympathy.

I believe our soul chooses the parents who will break us open in the exact ways our evolution requires. Not because they’re evil, but because the breaking is part of the blessing. Like a glow stick, something in us has to snap before we can radiate the light we came here to share. That trauma? That pain? That frequency? It glows and draws in every person, pattern, and experience we need to either repeat the wound or finally transmute it.

This is how I learned about codependency:

Through a childhood of being the strong one.
Through the relationship of enmeshment I had with my mother.
Through relationships that mirrored that glow back to me.
Through relationships that, over time, showed me it was time to stop shinning for everyone else, and finally glow for myself.

Glow Stick Broken—Trauma Frequency Activated: Codependency

As a child growing up, I was the parentified one. Being the oldest of three, I often found myself as:

The most helpful child
The most capable
The emotional regulator in a household that was led by a single, MARRIED mother.

You see growing up, my mother worked multiple jobs to make ends meet while caring for three children—one with a disability. Out of sympathy and empathy for her, I picked up where the absent parent (my father) left off.

Because I was the oldest, most capable, most helpful, with a gift of emotional regulation, I found myself playing the role of:

co-parent
Secret keeper
The glue of the family who made sure things didn’t fall apart.

This taught me early:
If I overperformed, I’d get attention
If I stayed strong, I’d be needed
If I swallowed my needs, I wouldn’t be “too much”
If I didn’t cause any “difficulties,” I’d be loved and praised for being the dependable, independent, reliable, trustworthy child.

Unlearning Begins

What I understand now, that I didn’t then, is that I was learning the program of CODEPENDENCY. I was learning that:

My well being was based upon the well being of those around me
My agency only mattered if it didn’t inconvenience others
My happiness was conditional

Over the past few years, the program of codependency, has slowly begun to unravel. And for those who take pride in doing the inner work, you know that as you unlearn, people, places, and patterns come as tests. They show up as mirrors to assess how far you’ve come. As for me, this time my mirror and test came in the form of a friendship. This is yet another chapter of “When I Mistook a Lesson for a Long-Term Friendship.” What I thought would be another opportunity to foster a longterm healthy friendship, turned out to be a checkpoint… a way to see how far I’d come in unlearning…CODEPENDENCY.

The Friendship

Recently, I had to let a friendship go. Not out of hate, but out of honesty.

It has been a little over a year since we had come into each other’s lives, and one day I heard the words that triggered me and made it click:

”I know I have been taking up space for the last week and half, and probably even more, but I just really need it”.

that line hit me. Because suddenly what my intuition had been nudging me to ACCEPT and ACKNOWLEDGE the whole time, finally broke through.

I had suppressed it.
I had silenced it.
I had gaslit my own intuition.
Why? Because I was still carrying the secret guilt trip, you know the one that whispers:
“Don’t judge too soon. Don’t jump to conclusions. You don’t want to be unfair.”

That same guilt that creeps in when you feel what your logic hasn’t fully understood yet. so instead of trusting my gut, I overrode it and tried to force something my soul already knew was lopsided from the beginning.

I gave:

Emotional support
Deep listening
Affirming words
Engagement with wisdom and feedback
Resources
Genuine interest in her life

You know…real energy.

And I don’t want to make her the villain, because under the program of codependency, I truly believed that I was supposed to:

Suppress my emotional needs
Take on everyone else’s needs and wants
Stay quiet
Not come off as ‘needy’ or being ‘too much’.

However, what confirmed that the dynamic was imbalanced was what happened when I finally expressed my needs.

I was met with:

Quick fixes
Monetary support
Surface-level efforts

That did NOT match the depth of what I had given.

What It Taught Me

In this moment, I realized that this friendship became a mirror, and what it came to teach me was the following:

I still didn’t understand my needs or how to express them.

I still felt guilt for speaking up.
I still thought love had to be earned through strength.
I still believed I only deserve care after over-functioning.
I still feared being seen as “too much.”
I still felt I had to be the emotional regulator to feel worthy.

And unfortunately, that is the lie that codependency sells up.

Truth Bombs

From this moment, I started to truly understand something deep:
Knowing your needs and being brave enough to express them, is the only way to create accountability in a relationship.

Because sometimes, people think they’re reciprocating.
They think they’re showing up.
They think they’re capable of giving the same depth they desire…

But they’re not.
Not because they’re bad people.
But because there’s a mismatch in capacity, willingness, depth, and vulnerability.

And when that mismatch goes unspoken?

That’s how the “strong friend” ends up drowning in silence while the other person believes they’re swimming together.

As long as I stayed unclear, people could pretend they didn’t know what I needed.

That is the invisible contract that codependency runs on.

The terms and conditions of this invisible contract are:

“You stay low-maintenance so I can stay emotionally lazy.”
“You keep giving more than you receive and I’ll keep pretending that’s love.”
“You play strong, and I’ll keep hiding behind your strength.”

These terms and conditions became clear when I finally said:

Need: I want someone I can talk to abut deep things. I want dialogue, depth, presence, and wisdom.
Response: “Well, I mean… I can listen.”
Need: I need inquisitiveness and diverse conversation. Not just trauma, wounds, or drama.
Response: “We do have diverse conversation. We talk about me and my resume, me and my job, me and my class…”

That’s when I knew:

If I had been clear from the beginning, we’d both would have seen we weren’t compatible. And when I accepted that I have needs, softness, and am no longer apologizing, that was the moment the contract burned.

Letting Go = Freedom

Burning this contract helped me realize I’d spent too long auditioning for love through over-capability. By being “that friend”— the fixer, the wise one, the stable one, I took on everyone’s emotional mess and called it connection (just like in childhood).

But now?

Here’s the PRICELESS wisdom I walk with:

If people love your strength but flee from your needs, they don’t love you…they only love WHAT YOU DO FOR THEM.

And I am moving forward knowing that I am no longer anyone’s emotional vending machine.

Closure & Clarity

In hindsight, that friendship didn’t fail…it was actually quite SUCCESSFUL because it fulfilled its purpose. What is that purpose you might ask? It came to show me:

That I no longer have to earn love
That boundaries don’t make me a bad friend, they make me a real one
That clarity is kindness, even when it’s uncomfortable
That if someone victimizes themselves at the expense of your boundaries, needs, and accountability…

They are more of a dependency and a liability than a friend.

My New Standard

So now?

I advocate for myself, my needs, and I intentionally set the tone. I will no longer shrink just to be loved by people who only know how to take. Because baby, I am don’t performing for proximity. I am choosing:

Reciprocity
Depth,
Inquisitiveness
Genuine interest
Emotional intimacy
Vulnerability
Boundaries
Respect
GROWTH

I am moving forward with the assurance that whoever can’t meet me, was never meant to stay.

Let this Land…

This isn’t just a post, it is a MIRROR.

If you’ve ever felt like you had to earn your place in someone’s life by over-giving, this post is your permission slip to stop.
Unlearn the performance. Honor your needs. Rewrite the contract.

Now tell me:
What invisible agreement are you ready to break? What has your own journey taught you about love, self-worth, or boundaries?

Drop your reflections in the comments or sit with the wisdom that surfaced.

May your inner wisdom show you what you’re finally ready to release.

🌙 About CancerMystique™

CancerMystique™ is a sacred space for the ones who feel deeply, love fiercely, and grow intentionally.
Here, we don’t just talk healing—we embody wisdom.

We explore life’s shadows with compassion, alchemize pain into purpose, and reclaim our power through presence, truth, and soul mastery. We do this through the lens of Universal Law, self-awareness, and inner wisdom—applying truth wherever it appears: astrology, human design, books, synchronicities, conversations, and reflections. Everything becomes a mirror. Everything is here to be embodied, not just studied.

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