Hi all, Firstly, I just want to say thank you for being a part of this thread as a lot of your stories have helped me get through some hard times myself and helped me get some perspective on situations I am/was dealing with.

Secondly, on to my main point... Does anyone else have difficulty validating themselves and has somehow become the beacon of hope for a lot of other people? If yes, how did you overcome this difficulty?

Some context, I suppose... Both of my parents are narcissistic or have a lots of trait in common with narcissistic people. They also both enable eachother but then complain about enabling eachother because ultimately they are the right one. I spent most of my childhood keeping the peace between my parents, as they used me a pawn in their own chess game against eachother, and if was my responsibility to keep both of them satiated so they didn't let the rage boil over and maintain the careful balance of annoyance instead of full, explosive rage which would then negatively impact me. I should probably also mention my mother is bipolar and refuses to medicate because she believes in the power of the mind healing the body. She also refuses to go to therapy. Both of my parents don't believe therapy is real.

Anyways... I have since gone low contact for a number of reasons, and it's been several years of slowly pulling myself out of the spiderweb that is their abuse and guilt. But because of this like... Fortunate and yet unfortunate skill that I've picked up, keeping the peace, pep talks, active listening... Whatever you want to call all of this, I've somehow become a really great friend (or at least I'd like to think so, I'd love me as a friend haha). I'm often finding myself giving my friends advice (that they solicit) and support, but somehow have difficulty applying that same logic and kindness to myself. The struggle with self compassion is real for me lol. I can tell my friend, no, you need to not work 12 hour days because you deserve to take time for yourself and rest... But then when it comes to me, I'm just like yeah I can rest when I'm dead. I guess the moral of the story is I have difficulty being the same level of compassionate to myself. I have to like, talk myself into acts of self compassion, like with logic. If you don't rest, you will burn out and that's hard to recover from. Not like, you deserve to rest just like everyone else because you're a human being who deserves respect and kindness and to rest. But for everyone else, it's easy for me to give that kind of advice and support. That and just in general, I've become a "mom friend" who is often like the big sister/mom figure for a lot of other people, I provide a lot of comfort and kindness where others had previously never or rarely received it. I enjoy validating other people, kind and non-toxic people who deserve it, but I can't even do the same thing for myself.

So does anyone else have a similar experience and if yes, how did you overcome it?