Merry Christmas, Please Don't Call

When we started talking, I didn’t think twice about where it would go. It was one of those connections that felt effortless, like we were filling a space in each other’s lives that neither of us had realized was empty. He wasn’t extraordinary in the way some people are—he wasn’t particularly clever or well-read, and he seemed to live in a bubble where the world beyond his immediate reality barely existed. But there was something about him that made him feel steady, like a warm, familiar place to rest.

We talked every day, about everything and nothing. He was loyal in a way that made you feel safe, and sincere in a way that made you feel seen. For a while, I thought that was enough. But the more we talked, the more I realized there was a heaviness to him—a constant, quiet undercurrent of negativity that seeped into everything. It wasn’t loud or overt; it was more like a steady trickle, an endless drip of frustration and resignation that dulled the edges of even the brightest conversations.

At first, I tried to understand. He was going through things, and I wanted to be supportive. That’s what you do for people you care about, right? You show up. You listen. You try to lighten the load. But the more I tried, the more I felt like I was carrying his weight instead of helping him lift it.

He dismissed ideas like mental health or self-reflection, as if they were indulgences for people who had the luxury of time. He’d grown up with a sense that pain was something you endured, not something you worked through, and that belief had calcified into his identity. Every attempt I made to talk about it—to suggest that maybe things didn’t have to be this heavy—was met with resistance. Not anger, not outright rejection, but a kind of quiet dismissal that made me feel like I was speaking a language he didn’t care to learn.

It wasn’t just personal topics, either. Even when we talked about the world—politics, culture, the future—he carried the same negativity. His views were so fixed, so entrenched in frustration and cynicism, that it felt like there was no room for hope, no space for progress. And the harder I pushed, the more defensive he became.

At some point, I stopped blaming him and started blaming myself. Why couldn’t I get through to him? Why did I keep trying to have the same conversations, knowing they’d end in the same place? I was angry—not at him, but at me—for thinking I could change someone who didn’t want to change. For pouring so much of my energy into a dynamic that was slowly draining me.

And then it hit me: I wasn’t helping him because he didn’t want to be helped.

There’s a lesson here that I didn’t want to learn but couldn’t avoid: you can’t save someone who’s decided they don’t need saving. You can’t pull someone out of their pain if they’ve built their home in it.

Some people live in their hurt because it’s familiar, and familiarity can feel safer than the unknown. Even if the unknown is better, even if it’s brighter, it’s still uncertain. And uncertainty is terrifying. For him, the weight of his pain was the only thing that felt constant, the only thing he could trust. So he held onto it. He carried it with him everywhere, and in doing so, he let it shape his view of the world—and everyone in it.

What I’ve realized since is that people like him don’t just need to be understood; they need to be willing to understand themselves. And until they are, nothing you say or do will make a difference.

But there’s another lesson, too—one I didn’t want to admit at the time: trying to save someone else can make you lose yourself. I spent so much time trying to show him the world the way I saw it, trying to prove that things could be better, that I didn’t notice how much of my own light I was giving away.

Walking away wasn’t easy. It felt like giving up on someone who needed me. But I’ve learned that sometimes, walking away is the kindest thing you can do—not just for yourself, but for the other person, too. Because staying, when all you’re doing is carrying their weight, doesn’t help anyone.

I still think about him sometimes. I wonder if he’s found his way out of the heaviness that defined him. I hope he has. But I also know it’s not my place to wonder anymore. People like him—and like the version of me that tried so hard to help—exist to teach us something: that love and care don’t mean fixing someone. They mean knowing when to let go.

You can’t change the perspective of someone who isn’t ready to see things differently. You can’t force someone to heal if they’ve found comfort in their pain. And you can’t save someone who hasn’t decided to save themselves. What you can do is protect your own light, even when it feels selfish. Because it’s not selfish—it’s necessary.

There’s a moment when you realize the toughest part isn’t that they’re out on their own. It’s that they chose to be. That their carousel of damage isn’t something you can slow down, no matter how many times you tried to steady it. It’s realizing you can hold space for compassion while still saying, Please don’t call. Not out of cruelty, but because you’ve learned to value your own peace more than the chaos you once tried to fix.

Hurt people hurt people, but not out of malice. They do it because their pain doesn’t leave room for much else. And if you’re not careful, their hurt becomes yours. That’s why letting go isn’t giving up. It’s understanding that some battles aren’t yours to fight, and some weights aren’t yours to carry.