stop taking care of other people

I have this habit of trying to guess what other people want or need. I got the idea in my 20s, when observing how other people interacted, that I was somehow supposed to show interest, that it was necessary for me to fake an interest in other people so they would like me.

Now, that's a roundabout way of saying that I have no clue how relationships work and I've spent the bulk of the last 10 years trying to figure it out. But I remember, vividly, having that first realization at the age of 26, standing at a party watching a friend 'work' the crowd, and marveling at her ability to know just what to say to draw someone out, to flatter, to make them smile or laugh. I felt like someone learning a foreign language and knew that I had to learn that language if I was going to make it in the world, though I had no clue as to how to go about it.

I think I was susceptible to seeing my friend's approach as the 'right' one at that young (and still impressionable) age because the foundation had been laid many years before by my family.

By this I mean the kind of family that expects a child to sacrifice all her needs for the good of the parents.

I've learned how to stop most of the actual caretaking behavior, and yet the guilt - the guilt still plagues me. Even though I'm no longer doing the things I think I 'should' be doing, I still feel guilty as hell for not doing them. To the point of paralysis sometimes - this feeling that I'm a bad human for not putting the needs of others first is a poison.