Well, you have a lot going on in yourself Silentempath, and you are very smart and you are also very aware of the broken parts of people. And there is also a part of you that has a strong desire to somehow fix that. That is where this difficulty in breaking away from broken people comes from. And I have to admit that I can relate to that. But with me, I have realized that it comes from my past and my own struggles from an early age that brought this out in me. I never truely saw this before. Unfortunately I am revisiting it in a very uncomfortable way right now through my PTSD.

But this is not just me, this actually happens a lot and often many people go into practicing psychotherapy because they have this strong need to help people FIX themselves. However what can happen is a therapist can do pretty well at that but they never take time to FIX themselves. This is a very real problem, even my therapist and I talked about this.

Yes, you are a silent empathetic person who recognizes the weakness in others, because you know it yourself. But you have to find a way to first address yourself, you truely cannot just set yourself aside to fix others, even if there is a scientific aspect to it. Otherwise what will happen is you will end up with a line of broken people that you may not be able to fix. And there is also a deep sense of lack of self worth that can be connected to this. I have seen this in myself and finally have identified where it comes from as well.

Ofcourse the first place you have to start is your physical health. Because if you have anything that you are dealing with that is physically wrong that can effect your emotional health. And then once you do that, then you can begin to address your psychological sense of well being.

You are probably always going to have a sense of compassion for struggles in others.
But you have to make sure you are balanced yourself too. Now if you add into that the fact that you are physically designed to be a mother/nurturer, you just MAY have that be a strong motivation in your interactions as well. And as far as men go, this scientific approach, well, they are designed to do just that in many ways. They are fixers and doers in a different way and they can get very troubled when something is a miss like your friend is dealing with.

Now, I hate to say this at risk of you shutting down, but you ARE only just 18 years old. And this is not an age where ANYONE truely knows WHO they really are YET.
And the sexuality that comes into play, THAT IS NOT TRUELY ALL WELL KNOWN EITHER. And unfortunately we are designed to do one thing, REPRODUCE. And that becomes very apparent at some point and yet this love and relationship issue, that is something that is still a very big question mark.

This forum, is such a busy forum SilentEmpath, why do you think that is? Hmmm, must be a challenge for many people hmmm. And IT "IS" A CHALLENGE. And that comes from a lot of different messages that many of us get or do not get from our parents. The one thing that is a MUST is KNOW THY SELF FIRST AND FOREMOST.
And that takes time and often even many years. But we all have this thing we call self esteem too and often we have holes in that that we tend to think SOME ONE ELSE CAN FIX or FILL or maybe we are NO WORTHY AT ALL. And sometimes we can pick those that have LOW SELF ESTEEM thinking they are SAFER for us somehow. Oh we can make so many mistakes in choosing a mate. We can even pick someone who seems strong and outgoing, oh wasn't dad that way and we do know that, ok pick him. But what can happen is what one doesn't see is the narcisist that is hidden in that that spells out THIS IS GOING TO BE A HELL RIDE.

Knowing one's self is important and also knowing that WE CANNOT FILL THE HOLES OF OTHERS. It is always up to OTHERS to learn to do that for themselves. Love?, love a broken person? That can be a kind of hell ride too. Why?, because if you cannot truely FIX that person, YOU WILL BE BLAMED for it.

Oh, I spent many years waiting for my husband to fix himself. Oh I thought I married someone who could be my friend, I truely didn't see how he was broken. I had to find out the hard way, and it WAS HARD. And years of that is also wrapped up in the package I have called PTSD as well.

Love?, that is not about FIXING people when it comes to relationships. Though we all have our holes because no parents are perfect, we have to build relationships on making an allowance for each partner to continue to grow and it can't be about spending a lifetime fixing each other. It has to be about grow up all your life and respecting your partner to do the same.

Can I see what the dilemma is here? Yes, but I don't see you having the capacity to fix it to be honest. You just don't have the life experiences yet to do that. This young man is going to have to find his way to allowing himself to find the right kind of professional help. Yes, I hear you he is so afraid of that too. But he truely cannot ask you to be his science experiment. You have a very kind giving heart, but you are not a guinea pig. You deserve to have a healthy growing experience as well.

Open Eyes