Accountability Hurts, But So Does Enabling
There’s a certain kind of pain that comes from watching someone struggle, someone you care about and realizing you can’t reach out anymore. Not because you don’t love them, but because you’ve finally recognized the pattern. You enabled their behavior. You taught them how to treat you. And even though they’re grown and know right from wrong, they still chose to do wrong and allowed you to let them.
That’s when it hits: accountability isn’t just about them. It’s about you too. What you’ve allowed. What you’ve ignored. What you kept hoping would change.
No one plays the victim better than the one who caused the damage. And often, you don’t even see it until you’ve stepped back. You replay the conversations. The gaslighting. The way they turned your boundaries into betrayal. People like this are masterful at flipping the script, leaving you confused and questioning your own reality. But accountability is clarity. It’s the refusal to rewrite the truth just to keep the peace.
You’ll never go far being loyal to the wrong people. Loyalty is beautiful but only when it’s mutual. I had to end relationships with people who seem to secretly hate me. People who smiled in my face and shaded me behind my back. People who only loved the version of me they could control. Letting go of those connections didn’t just protect my peace, it gave me my power back.
Some people are going to therapy for people who need to be in therapy themselves. It’s exhausting being the emotional caretaker. Especially when the people around you refuse to take responsibility for their own healing. Yes, people who bully, manipulate, or lash out were often bullied themselves, maybe by parents, maybe by life. But that’s not an excuse. It’s a reality. And at some point, being grown means doing the hard work of unlearning the damage we didn’t choose.
You can tell if someone is healed or miserable by how they treat people. Making fun of others to get views or attention isn’t funny, it’s revealing. When people tear others down for attention, it shows more about them than it ever will about their target. Healing gives you empathy. Misery feeds off cruelty. You just have to be willing to see the difference.
Some people don’t see wrong in their actions because they’ve surrounded themselves with people who normalize it. That’s why self-awareness is so rare. People will cling to toxic circles where no one grows, no one reflects, and no one holds each other accountable, because it’s easier than changing. But if you want real healing? You have to break that cycle.
True loyalty is demonstrated through action, not words. Real friends don’t need to perform their loyalty. They show up. They take accountability. They do right by you even when no one is watching. That’s the kind of love I want in my life…not performative, not perfect, but present and honest.
Accountability Is Strength
Let me be real: I respect people who are accountable. I’ll stay friends with someone who takes ownership when they mess up. Who apologizes sincerely. Who shows me change, not just promises it. We don’t choose the lives we grow up in, but we do choose how we show up in other people’s lives.
Being human means making mistakes. Being strong means admitting them. Accountability isn’t shame... it’s strength. It’s how relationships grow. It’s how love deepens. It’s how people heal.
So yes, accountability hurts. But so does enabling. I choose the kind of hurt that leads to healing. I choose growth.
