putting myself first

I think the last couple of weeks have been pretty good for me. This is because I have been learning to focus on myself first, and put others second. Although this may sound selfish, it's a vital step forwards in my recovery and one that I have struggled with for many years.

I always thought that putting others before myself would be better, because at least that was they would be helped. But looking back now, I can see that many people have used and abused my kind approach towards others and it makes me feel like a bit of a fool really. Obviously I haven't just stopped and become self centered overnight, but I have been making slow and stead progress towards putting myself first and looking after myself more.

Over the last month or two I have slowly but surely been getting people who are negative influences out of my life- these are people such as 'friends' who only spoke to me when they wanted something, people who never bothered to listen to me or how I was doing, and people who expected me to help them though absolutely everything regardless of whether I wanted to or not. 

Since getting some of the most negative people out of my life, I feel like I am more free. As silly as it sounds, I feel like I don't have to worry about when they next speak to me and what they were going to try to ask me to do. Of course, none of them took it well to begin with. I can understand it's not nice to be told that you're hurting someone and that they want you out of their life, however I did say it in the kindest way possible, but after the way they had all treated me, I really shouldn't have cared at all.

I'm very glad that I decided to take yet another positive step forwards in my life and focus far more on myself, because I know that I am making good progress and I can actually start to see it now.