In life, many people find solace in helping others, particularly those who are broken or struggling. Often, individuals who have yet to heal their own wounds are drawn to aiding others in fixing their own brokenness. This altruism, however, can serve as both a noble pursuit and a dangerous distraction. The metaphor of broken people using their whole pieces to seal the gaps in others reflects a profound reality: some attempt to fulfill the needs of others as a way of avoiding their own deep-seated issues. While this brings temporary joy and satisfaction, it ultimately perpetuates a cycle of avoidance and self-sabotage.
The temporary reward of helping someone else can be intoxicating. It provides a sense of purpose and accomplishment, a way of seeing oneself as strong or capable. For a moment, it feels as though the broken pieces of one’s own life are irrelevant, overshadowed by the joy of someone else’s success or happiness. By investing in another’s vision or progress, people can temporarily escape the weight of their own burdens. They shift their focus away from their internal struggles and onto the external triumphs of others, basking in the glow of small wins. Yet, this distraction, while comforting in the short term, leaves unaddressed the very personal issues that continue to hold them back.
In many ways, helping others becomes a coping mechanism for dealing with one’s own feelings of inadequacy. By propelling someone else to a level of success or happiness that mirrors their own, broken individuals can maintain the illusion of wholeness. It becomes easier to fix someone else than to confront one’s own wounds, and so the cycle continues—until it can’t anymore.
At some point, the realization sets in: they cannot take themselves or the person they’ve helped any further. The gap between where they are and where they need to be becomes too wide, too daunting to cross. Often, this is where resentment starts to creep in. The joy of helping turns into frustration, and the act of building bridges for others starts to feel like a burden. The root of this resentment lies in neediness and a desire for control. Those who are broken often feel the need to fix others as a way of asserting control over their own chaos. They project their own unmet needs onto the people they help, creating a codependent dynamic where the helper feels essential—until they no longer can sustain the weight of it.
The bridge that was built—helping someone reach a level of growth they never could before—becomes something to destroy. This self-sabotage arises from the internal conflict of being unable to carry someone forward when one’s own brokenness remains unhealed. The realization that they cannot sustain the weight of another person, much less themselves, leads to withdrawal. The helper makes excuses, distancing themselves from the person they once helped, not because of any fault in the other, but because their own unresolved issues make it impossible to continue.
The core of this issue is that broken people, while capable of great kindness, are often not equipped to sustain the burdens of others when they haven’t yet healed their own wounds. The illusion of being whole, by focusing on others, eventually crumbles. One’s brokenness, unaddressed, festers and resurfaces, leaving them unable to continue the work they started. The joy and fulfillment they once felt in helping someone else turns to bitterness and frustration because they never did the hard work of healing themselves.
In conclusion, while helping others can be a beautiful and noble endeavor, it becomes destructive when used as a way to distract from personal healing. The temporary joy of aiding someone else cannot replace the internal work required to mend one’s own broken pieces. When broken people use their whole pieces to seal the gaps in others, they delay their own healing and create a dynamic that ultimately leads to disappointment and resentment. Only by addressing one’s own brokenness can they sustain the weight of truly helping others—and themselves—move forward.
