Are you a Human Docking Station?
Unraveling the patterns of Human Giver Syndrome:
For the caregivers, the mothers, the helping professionals.
Most people who’ve been socialised as women know how to cast an incredible spell of care.
We’re breathing warmth and life into our homes, our workplaces and often well beyond those walls. We’re creating nourishment and harmony in the unlikeliest of conditions. We’re arranging flowers, appointments, meals, holiday schedules and delightful experiences for most anyone who crosses our path. We’re like orchestra conductors—pulling magic out of the silence—and like train conductors—keeping things safely on the rails.
It’s a gift and a curse. A burden and a pleasure.
It’s a currency we’re taught to trade in before we have the language or discernment to decide for ourselves if we even want it—and honestly, how could this arrangement possibly be satisfying without a radical reimagining of consent and compensation?
Every exhausted and unsatisfied woman knows how to offer wildly generous amounts of care, but she also knows that reserving any of that magical warmth and beauty for herself might be perceived as questionable or shameful.
In some cases, pushing back on these norms can feel threatening or dangerous, both personally and/or professionally.
Sometimes it actually is.
Dr. Emily Nagoski, author of Burnout, describes this as “Human Giver Syndrome”, which she defines as: “The false, contagious belief that women have a moral obligation to be pretty, happy, calm, generous, and attentive to the needs of others. With HGS, if a giver falls short in any way, she may be punished or even go so far as to punish herself.”
We also know this dynamic is not distributed equally. It falls more heavily on BIPOC women and femmes and other people whose intersecting identities result in deeper layers of discrimination and exploitation.
Unravelling these patterns can feel impossible, threatening and, at first, yet another thing to be exhausted by.
It can also be exhilarating and intensely satisfying.
This is rewiring, remoulding and revisioning work and sometimes, it requires an unreasonable amount of support.
I want that for you.
I want that for us.
