Not sure how many of you relate (I"m guessing a fair number) but I have a tendency to put other people somewhat before myself. And then I suffer because I am pretty sensitive, physically and mentally.

What I've realized is that this often happens because someone presents their wants to me as needs. Or, some people just are very expressive and complain a lot about their needs and then I might think they are more serious and important than mine.

I'm getting better at recognizing when I've prioritized someone's wants equally to my needs and what that feels like afterwards, how to correct it. But I don't know how to recognize it when it is happening or beforehand.

My goal is to prioritize other people's real needs equally to my own. But the question is what basis I use to judge the severity of the need and whether it is in fact a need.

This is relevant if I am going to be sacrificing something, if my mental or physical health will be threatened or harmed to some degree. (And being chronically ill, and having somewhat shaky mental health this past year and a half, that's always pretty much going to happen.)

so how do you know? Does it just get easier over time?

If someone tells me they need something, I just believe them. But in retrospect sometimes I see that it was a want, not a need, and I sacrificed something I shouldn't have. Or that they were very vocal about a relatively smaller need, whereas I had a bigger need that I didn't say much about because I was used to it or felt that just sucking it up was part of the baseline expectation.