losing someone else's weight.

Brick walls are pretty sturdy.  You can lean all up on that for days, weeks, years and it ain't comin' down.  Punch it, kick it, there's no give.  People.. well, people are more like.. not walls.  We've only got so much support in us before we come down and need to pull away to protect ourselves.

Everyone wants to believe that the people we love unconditionally will have an unconditional amount of support to them.  When we're most in need, we can be quick to feel betrayed or deceived by the strength of a relationship when the person we need the most has to remove themselves from the picture.  It can be extremely painful when we realize that we not only have nothing left to fall back on but ourselves, but that the people we feel we would take a bullet for might not do the same for us.

Unfortunately, I've been on both sides of the track.  I think, unless you have been, it becomes much more painful for people on either side to understand the idea of needing to walk away before we've lost so much support, we can't even hold ourselves up anymore.  On the inside of the disease (addiction or otherwise), it can feel like we don't have enough of our head together to depend on ourselves, which - of course - leads to a strong (and, often clinging) dependency on others.  On the outside, it feels like we're being spread too thin and don't have time to take care of ourselves.

People tend to lose a lot of patience for those who aren't willing to help themselves.  It's hard to stay active in someone's life when all they want to do is continue to hurt themselves.  It's even harder when you've put more energy than you thought a human being could possess into removing yourself from that kind of lifestyle.  It's a sticky situation, but we all know that you cannot help someone who isn't ready to receive it.  Some may see it as selfish, and if that's the case, then we need to learn how to be a little more selfish if it means keeping our own health and stability in check.

In the end, we can't really care for anyone - emotionally or phsyically - until we're taken care of; that goes for everyone, no matter which side they're on.