Caring for yourself can kill you, if you do it the right way. They say, “Put yourself first,” but when you do, you lose everyone you’ve ever known.

I sat at the chair across from my father and we stared at eachother, unmoving, in silence. I wore a button up shirt and jeans; he wore chains and leg braces. He had been at the asylum since I was a little boy, and this was the only man I’d ever known. But my mother told me about him, who he was before he put himself first. A successful father, known around the neighborhood for good deeds and a positive attitude. One day, though, he just broke. They all said it. The news, the police, my mother, even. He “broke”. He cared so much, so deeply for so long, about others that when he finally cared about himsef they thought he was a broken man.

He never spoke. For all the years I visited him, we just sat in silence, staring. But I understood him and I felt her understood me, and I would never put myself first before it was too late.