They see you and they think of money. They see you and they think of resources. They see you walking down the street, smiling, breathing, existing—and in their eyes, you are a walking ATM. Nothing more. Nothing less. Your humanity is irrelevant; your struggles invisible. Your value is measured by what you can provide, by how quickly you can solve their problems, by how easily you can float them above the water.

You give. And you give. And you give. Because that is who you are—or perhaps it’s who they made you to be. You hand out solutions like candies, lend hands like currency, offer comfort like it’s a commodity. You teach, you guide, you patch their holes before they even notice the cracks. And they take. Oh, how they take.

But when the tides rise against you, when the waters swallow your ankles, when the currents pull your lungs under… where are they? Where is the hand to pull you out? Where is the voice to encourage you? Where is the warmth you gave so freely, reflected back to you in even a fraction? Nowhere. There is nothing. Only silence. Only absence. Only the emptiness of human greed dressed as friendship or love.

It is cruel, isn’t it? To give everything, to invest everything, to extend yourself beyond the limits of your own strength… and to find, at the moment you are drowning, that the world sees you not as a person, but as a resource. A dispenser. A walking solution.

Do they even understand the cost? The invisible toll it takes to patch a hundred lives while your own walls crumble quietly in the background? Do they notice the exhaustion in your eyes, the trembling of your hands, the gnawing anxiety that grows like weeds in the corners of your mind? No. They only notice what they can take.

You learn something bitter here. You learn it with the slow, painful clarity of betrayal: people rarely stay afloat to save you. They do not build rafts alongside you; they do not throw lines when you are sinking. They swim alongside only until their own needs are met—and when your struggles start to smell like weakness, they vanish.

And so you see the world for what it is. A place that applauds your generosity until your generosity becomes inconvenient. A place that leans on your strength until your strength falters. A place that applauds the solutions you give, but mocks or ignores the person who gives them.

You realize that “teaching a man to fish” is a luxury many will never appreciate. They want the fish. They want the handout. They want your effort delivered on demand. And when the fisherman in you struggles, they leave you to drown.

Does it make you bitter? Yes. It makes your veins pulse with fire. It makes your mind twist with irony. All the lessons you gave, all the skills you taught, all the care you offered… and they repay you with absence when it matters most.

You start to see patterns. You see the entitlement in their eyes. You see the calculation in their smiles. You see the casual disregard for your own battles. And slowly, piece by piece, you stop giving freely. Not entirely—but wisely. Protectively. Like a fortress guarding what is precious.

And yet, there is grief here too. A grief that aches deep in your chest. Because you wanted to believe. You wanted to trust. You wanted to float others without falling yourself. You wanted a world where generosity is met with generosity, where empathy is met with empathy.

But the world does not work that way. You see it now in sharp relief. People rarely stay to lift another. They rarely learn to fish. They want what is convenient, what is immediate, what benefits them without effort. And if your presence cannot be consumed, they discard it.

So you learn boundaries. You learn to teach, not to give endlessly. You learn to create value without being drained. You learn to guard your own raft while extending one to others—carefully, selectively, consciously.

And still, the sting remains. The quiet, insidious sting of recognition that your generosity has often been exploited, that your efforts have often gone unacknowledged, that your presence has been taken for granted. It is a venom that lingers in your chest.

And perhaps, in the quietest moments, you feel anger. Not at the people alone, but at the world itself. At the rules it sets, at the way it teaches survival at the expense of compassion, at the way it rewards exploitation and punishes the generous.

You remind yourself: survival is not weakness. Protection is not betrayal. Saying no is not cruelty. It is self-preservation. It is acknowledgment that your value is not infinite, that your time and effort are not dispensable.

Still, it is lonely. Watching people flounder in the water you once helped build them through, watching them struggle without a line to grab because they never learned to fish… it gnaws at you. It burns. It twists in ways that words cannot contain.

Yet there is clarity in this loneliness. A clarity that sharpens your mind, fortifies your resolve, and carves boundaries like stone. You will teach the fishers, yes—but you will no longer drown with them.

You give enough to help, yes. You guide, yes. You rescue selectively, yes. But your own boat is no longer up for grabs. Your own raft is no longer disposable. Your own hands will not be pulled under for those unwilling to learn.

And if the world sees you as a walking ATM, let them. Let them think you exist only for their convenience. Let them misunderstand. Let them exploit. You know the truth: your value is not theirs to claim. Your soul is not theirs to drain.

So you rise. You float. You give—but you protect. You teach—but you safeguard. You exist—but on your own terms. And in that, there is power, there is freedom, there is a bitter, venomous beauty that no one else will ever understand.

You were once the ATM. You were once the lifeline. You were once the silent rescuer. And now… you are the master of your own tides, the captain of your own ship, the teacher who gives without losing herself in the process.They see you and they think of money. They see you and they think of resources. They see you walking down the street, smiling, breathing, existing—and in their eyes, you are a walking ATM. Nothing more. Nothing less. Your humanity is irrelevant; your struggles invisible. Your value is measured by what you can provide, by how quickly you can solve their problems, by how easily you can float them above the water.

You give. And you give. And you give. Because that is who you are—or perhaps it’s who they made you to be. You hand out solutions like candies, lend hands like currency, offer comfort like it’s a commodity. You teach, you guide, you patch their holes before they even notice the cracks. And they take. Oh, how they take.

But when the tides rise against you, when the waters swallow your ankles, when the currents pull your lungs under… where are they? Where is the hand to pull you out? Where is the voice to encourage you? Where is the warmth you gave so freely, reflected back to you in even a fraction? Nowhere. There is nothing. Only silence. Only absence. Only the emptiness of human greed dressed as friendship or love.

It is cruel, isn’t it? To give everything, to invest everything, to extend yourself beyond the limits of your own strength… and to find, at the moment you are drowning, that the world sees you not as a person, but as a resource. A dispenser. A walking solution.

Do they even understand the cost? The invisible toll it takes to patch a hundred lives while your own walls crumble quietly in the background? Do they notice the exhaustion in your eyes, the trembling of your hands, the gnawing anxiety that grows like weeds in the corners of your mind? No. They only notice what they can take.

You learn something bitter here. You learn it with the slow, painful clarity of betrayal: people rarely stay afloat to save you. They do not build rafts alongside you; they do not throw lines when you are sinking. They swim alongside only until their own needs are met—and when your struggles start to smell like weakness, they vanish.

And so you see the world for what it is. A place that applauds your generosity until your generosity becomes inconvenient. A place that leans on your strength until your strength falters. A place that applauds the solutions you give, but mocks or ignores the person who gives them.

You realize that “teaching a man to fish” is a luxury many will never appreciate. They want the fish. They want the handout. They want your effort delivered on demand. And when the fisherman in you struggles, they leave you to drown.

Does it make you bitter? Yes. It makes your veins pulse with fire. It makes your mind twist with irony. All the lessons you gave, all the skills you taught, all the care you offered… and they repay you with absence when it matters most.

You start to see patterns. You see the entitlement in their eyes. You see the calculation in their smiles. You see the casual disregard for your own battles. And slowly, piece by piece, you stop giving freely. Not entirely—but wisely. Protectively. Like a fortress guarding what is precious.

And yet, there is grief here too. A grief that aches deep in your chest. Because you wanted to believe. You wanted to trust. You wanted to float others without falling yourself. You wanted a world where generosity is met with generosity, where empathy is met with empathy.

But the world does not work that way. You see it now in sharp relief. People rarely stay to lift another. They rarely learn to fish. They want what is convenient, what is immediate, what benefits them without effort. And if your presence cannot be consumed, they discard it.

So you learn boundaries. You learn to teach, not to give endlessly. You learn to create value without being drained. You learn to guard your own raft while extending one to others—carefully, selectively, consciously.

And still, the sting remains. The quiet, insidious sting of recognition that your generosity has often been exploited, that your efforts have often gone unacknowledged, that your presence has been taken for granted. It is a venom that lingers in your chest.

And perhaps, in the quietest moments, you feel anger. Not at the people alone, but at the world itself. At the rules it sets, at the way it teaches survival at the expense of compassion, at the way it rewards exploitation and punishes the generous.

You remind yourself: survival is not weakness. Protection is not betrayal. Saying no is not cruelty. It is self-preservation. It is acknowledgment that your value is not infinite, that your time and effort are not dispensable.

Still, it is lonely. Watching people flounder in the water you once helped build them through, watching them struggle without a line to grab because they never learned to fish… it gnaws at you. It burns. It twists in ways that words cannot contain.

Yet there is clarity in this loneliness. A clarity that sharpens your mind, fortifies your resolve, and carves boundaries like stone. You will teach the fishers, yes—but you will no longer drown with them.

You give enough to help, yes. You guide, yes. You rescue selectively, yes. But your own boat is no longer up for grabs. Your own raft is no longer disposable. Your own hands will not be pulled under for those unwilling to learn.

And if the world sees you as a walking ATM, let them. Let them think you exist only for their convenience. Let them misunderstand. Let them exploit. You know the truth: your value is not theirs to claim. Your soul is not theirs to drain.

So you rise. You float. You give—but you protect. You teach—but you safeguard. You exist—but on your own terms. And in that, there is power, there is freedom, there is a bitter, venomous beauty that no one else will ever understand.

You were once the ATM. You were once the lifeline. You were once the silent rescuer. And now… you are the master of your own tides, the captain of your own ship, the teacher who gives without losing herself in the process.