Dear Parent,
I’m Lianne Travers. My counselling career has moved through universities and communities alike. I found HAPHE at a moment when prevention began to feel urgent — not optional. I write as a counsellor and as a mother, believing that reflection is one of love’s most practical languages.
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When Helping Becomes Hiding
When helping everyone else becomes a way to hide
6 Mins
Lianne Travers
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When Luca (real name withheld) finally came, he’d cancelled three times. “I’m fine,” he insisted, eyes rimmed red. Living alone had become a quiet storm. Independence had drifted into loneliness he didn’t know how to name.
She said she couldn’t remember the last time someone asked how she was. “I listen all day,” she smiled, “but I don’t know what to say when it’s my turn.” Helping had become hiding; empathy her safest disguise. The more she soothed others, the less room she left for herself.
I saw that helping others had become a controlled environment — safer than introspection. When empathy becomes avoidance, kindness can quietly harm its giver. Diversifying care means leaving some compassion for oneself.
Dreams mapped so tightly they forget direction
Among caregiving students, emotional diffusion often hides personal depletion. Psychology calls it empathic distress fatigue. The prevention lies in emotional diversification — alternating care with creativity, rest, and companionship. Energy spread across life domains renews itself; energy concentrated in service collapses.
For the natural givers, exhaustion often masquerades as duty. Help them see that receiving doesn’t cancel generosity. Ask what joy looks like when it isn’t service. Offer appreciation without expectation. Prevention thrives when empathy includes self-preservation. Your permission to rest may be the example they follow.
For the natural givers, exhaustion often masquerades as duty. Help them see that receiving doesn’t cancel generosity. Ask what joy looks like when it isn’t service. Offer appreciation without expectation. Prevention thrives when empathy includes self-preservation. Your permission to rest may be the example they follow.
Peace learning its new language
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She looked drained from giving. I asked what filled her in return, and she couldn’t answer. That silence said more than any confession. Compassion without replenishment becomes depletion. We practiced the radical act of rest, one pause at a time.
Reflections for parents, not rules.
Her weekends became gentler — slow breakfasts, no apologies. The more she practiced stillness, the more creative she became. “It’s strange,” she said, “but I’m more productive now.” The paradox always makes sense in hindsight. Prevention is balance, disguised as grace.
Her story ended quietly: fewer rescues, more weekends at home. “I didn’t realise how tired I was of being needed,” she said. That’s when I knew rest had finally turned from absence into agency.
A Few Tips
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1. Ask: “What have you done for yourself this week?” Framing self-care as accountability normalises it as necessity, not indulgence.
2. Ask: “If the internet didn’t exist, who would you be? Who would still matter to you?” (Samira, platform loss)
3. Say: “When did helping start feeling heavy?” Recognising fatigue early prevents collapse.
4. Say: “You don’t need applause to be valuable. Who you are outside the screen still matters.” (Samira, platform loss)
Thank you for joining us in preventing trauma. With gentleness, Lianne Travers, Student Counsellor writing for HAPHE.
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Thank you for joining us in preventing trauma. With gentleness, Lianne Travers, Student Counsellor writing for HAPHE.
Yours faithfully,
Lianne Travers
Could You Help ?
Around ten percent of students in HAPHE’s records described distress when relationships clashed with family or faith. CAFÉ Check-Ins provide scaffolding so joy and challenge can be balanced without collapse. Your support sustains prevention, and sharing our work online helps bring it to more universities.
Self, Caregiving, Boundaries