🌱 When Support Isn’t Really Support
Just because someone means well doesn’t mean it feels good.
Hello, welcome back to Edit Your Life!
Our place to spend ten minutes each week on self-awareness, and slowly examine the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves to ensure they fit us now, or give us a gentle push to start giving them a rewrite.
All through June, we’re focusing on relationships, and today we’re thinking about support.
Have you ever shared something you’ve had to really build yourself up to express, and come away feeling worse? It might’ve been someone rushing to fix it. Or minimising it. Or comparing it to something “harder”...
They might’ve meant to help. But instead of feeling seen, you felt shut down.
I know I’ve made this mistake in the past, many times – I’ve made well-meaning attempts to fix things when someone just needed me to listen. I bet you have too?
That’s what this week is about: mismatched support. The well-meaning responses that miss the mark. And how to tell the difference between feeling helped and feeling ‘handled’.
This Week’s Edit: Emotional Safety > Good Intentions
Support should help you feel more like yourself. Not less.
Here are some signs I’ve found useful in working out whether someone is actually helping — or just trying to be helpful:
🟡 You feel like you can breathe.
There’s room to speak, or cry, or not know. You’re not being hurried to a solution.
🟡 You don’t have to explain your reactions.
You’re allowed to feel what you feel - even if they wouldn’t respond the same way.
🟡 They can sit with you without needing to fix it.
Sometimes that’s all you need. Someone to stay, not solve.
🟡 You leave the conversation with more energy, not less.
Support shouldn’t feel like another thing to manage.
If someone always offers advice but never asks how you’re feeling, that’s not support.
If someone always centres their own story, that’s not support.
If you find yourself pretending you're fine to them, that’s not support either.
A Bit of Theory: Attachment, Regulation, and Co-Regulation
Emotional safety starts with connection - the kind where you feel safe being your full self, even when you’re upset, unsure, or completely overwhelmed.
But if you didn’t get much of that growing up, it can be hard to know what real support is supposed to feel like. You might assume you have to sort it all out on your own. Or that being strong means staying silent.
This is where co-regulation comes in.
It’s not about someone giving you advice or a pep talk. It’s about what happens when someone is simply with you — steady, present, not judging. Your body picks up on their calm. Your breath slows. You feel a bit more solid. Not because they fixed it, but because they didn’t flinch.
That’s what makes the difference. Not just who’s around, but how they show up.
Real-Life Reminder: You Might Outgrow What Once Helped
When Self Esteem says, “Be wary of the favours that they do for you,” it lands.
Because sometimes support isn’t as generous as it looks. Sometimes it’s conditional. Performative. Or quietly threaded with guilt.
And when you're used to being the easy one, the capable one, the one who doesn’t need much, it can take a long time to notice that what you’ve been accepting isn't really support at all.
You can care about someone deeply and still recognise they can’t meet you in the way you need now.
That doesn’t mean they didn’t matter.
It doesn’t mean you’re angry. (Although it’s fine to be.)
It just means this part of your life needs something different.
You might have to ask for more. You may need to say no to things that drain you. You might even need to become the kind of steady, honest support you were hoping they’d be.
That’s not giving up on connection. It’s giving up on contorting yourself to keep it.
Quick Edit: If You Do Nothing Else, Try This
💬 Instead of: “They were trying to help.”
✨ Try: “Did that support actually feel supportive?”
That’s it. That’s the shift.
Let’s Talk
What’s one way you’ve felt genuinely supported lately? Or a time something looked like support - but wasn’t?
Hit reply and share if you want. I read every message.
If you’ve found this edition helpful, consider upgrading to a paid subscription, or just help fuel next week’s edition by buying me a coffee – iced pls – here. Thank you!!
Looking forward to delving deeper into relationships next week with you.
See you next Thursday!
Beth x