How to Stop Feeling Like a Burden

Feeling like a burden is a deeply common and painful experience, especially for young adults. According to the American Psychological Association, 71 percent of people aged 18–35 don’t talk about their stress because they worry about being a burden to others.

Feeling like a burden to family members, friends, partners, or others can make it hard to be your authentic self and ask for what you need. This emotional burden can feel overwhelming, and understanding its roots is the first step toward healing.

What You’ll Learn

• Why do so many young people feel like they’re a burden?
• What does it mean to feel like a burden?
• How can you stop feeling like a burden?
• How can treatment help young adults overcome the “burden complex”?

What Does It Mean to Feel Like a Burden?

Feeling like a burden means living with a constant fear that your needs or emotions are inconveniencing, annoying, or overwhelming the people around you. It means you worry that others are growing tired of your struggles or that your requests for support are too much to handle.

These fears can prevent you from reaching out for emotional support, setting boundaries, or being fully yourself. Even when loved ones reassure you that you’re not a burden, the anxiety often lingers, making it difficult to believe and fully accept their support. You may fear being abandoned for being too needy or difficult, or worry that people will stop loving you if they discover your full, imperfect self—a complete human being with emotions, needs, and struggles.

Feeling like a burden, sometimes called a “burden complex,” can lead to extreme distress, withdrawing from relationships, and increased feelings of isolation and loneliness. It can even lead to increased risk of self-harm and suicide.

If you’re thinking about hurting yourself or ending your own life, please text or call the national Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or go to your nearest emergency room right away.

6 Reasons for Feeling Like a Burden

If you find yourself thinking, “I feel like I annoy everyone,” you’re not alone. The challenges young adults face can contribute to feeling like a burden. Here are six common reasons:

1. Past Relationships

Unhealthy or toxic past relationships can deeply impact how you view your needs. If past partners, friends, or family members responded negatively when you asked for support, you may have learned to associate expressing needs with conflict or rejection. Over time, this pattern reinforces the belief that your emotions are a burden.

2. Childhood Family Dynamics

Your earliest relationships set the stage for how you understand your worth. If your family minimized your feelings, ignored your needs, or expected you to “be strong” all the time, you may have internalized the belief that asking for help is selfish or unacceptable. Unhealthy childhood family dynamics often lead to insecure attachment styles, which can make you feel like you aren’t worthy of love or support.

3. Societal and Cultural Expectations

Many cultures idealize independence and self-sufficiency, often shaming vulnerability and emotional expression. If you’ve grown up absorbing these messages, you probably feel guilty for needing help. People with marginalized identities—such as those who are LGBTQ+, neurodivergent, or living with chronic illness—may feel even more pressure to “tough it out.” This can lead to internalized feelings of being a burden.

4. Perfectionism

Perfectionism can create impossible expectations for how you should function. You may believe you need to handle everything flawlessly and independently. When you can’t meet these high standards, it can feel like a personal failure, reinforcing the belief that you’re inconveniencing others by needing support.

5. Chronic Stress

Constant stress—whether from illness, work, school, finances, or relationships—can leave you feeling exhausted and overtaxed. When you’re already struggling to stay afloat, the idea of leaning on others may feel like adding more weight to their shoulders. Over time, this thinking perpetuates the cycle of isolation.

6. Anxiety and Depression

Mental health conditions like anxiety and depression increase feelings of being a burden. Anxiety tends to amplify fears that you’re annoying or disappointing others, while depression lowers your self-worth. Both decrease your ability to engage with others and distort your perception of your interactions. In fact, people with depression and anxiety are more likely to interpret neutral interactions with others as negative. Even kind responses from others can feel like rejection, feeding the cycle of negative self-talk and isolation.

Feeling Like a Burden in a Relationship

Feeling like a burden in a relationship, whether romantic, with a friend, or with family, is extremely common. You might worry that your emotions or needs place too much strain on your partner or loved ones. Ironically, this fear often leads you to pull away emotionally, which can create distance and strain the relationship even more.

Complex emotions like guilt, shame, and self-doubt often arise from these fears, making you feel unseen and disconnected. Yet authentic relationships thrive on mutual support and vulnerability. Your loved ones likely want to be there for you, just as you want to be there for them.

How to Stop Feeling Like a Burden

Learning how to stop feeling like a burden takes time, patience, and practice, but healing is possible. Here are some ways to reduce your sense of feeling like a burden and increase your self-worth.

Practice Self-Awareness

Begin by noticing your negative thought patterns. When you catch yourself thinking things like “I feel like I annoy everyone” or “I’m too much,” pause and acknowledge the thought without judgment. Simply recognizing when these thoughts come up is a powerful first step.

From there, try gently challenging them by asking yourself:

• What actual evidence supports this thought?
• Am I automatically assuming the worst?
• Would I say something like this to a friend who was in my shoes?

Use Open Communication

Everyone experiences struggles. Life is hard sometimes, and that’s normal. Reach out to someone you trust and ask if they have space for a vulnerable conversation. When someone agrees, share what you’re experiencing. People often feel honored when trusted with authenticity. Sharing with others also gives them permission to be more fully themselves around you, and that’s a win-win for everyone.

Learn to Ask for Help

Building relationships where both people can safely ask for help takes time and practice. Start small, and allow trusted loved ones to show you they can hold space for you. Try asking for specific support, so people can understand what you need. Local support groups or community organizations can also be safe places to practice asking for and receiving support.

Seek Out Mutual, Healthy Relationships

If your current relationships feel unsafe, invalidating, or abusive, it’s important to seek healthier connections. Surround yourself with people who accept your full self, including your struggles and imperfections. Healthy relationships allow space for vulnerability and struggles without judgment or scorn.

Practice Self-Compassion

Harsh self-talk doesn’t disappear overnight. Practicing self-compassion often feels difficult at first, but it’s one of the most valuable steps you can take. By learning to speak to yourself with kindness and care, you can gradually begin to shift the negative thoughts in your head and show up more authentically in your relationships. When you build a supportive, compassionate relationship with yourself, you’ll likely feel less anxious about being seen as needy or overwhelming to others.

Do Things You Love

Pursuing hobbies and creative activities you genuinely enjoy can help strengthen your self-image and boost your sense of self-worth. You don’t have to be great at something to benefit from it. Try signing up for a dance class, training for a 5K, taking a painting course, or volunteering to walk dogs at your local animal shelter. The specific activity doesn’t matter as much as allowing yourself to engage your body and mind in ways that feel fulfilling. These small acts of creativity and expression can have a powerful impact on your mental, emotional, and physical well-being.

Seek Treatment for Underlying Mental Health Challenges

Mental health struggles like anxiety, depression, and PTSD heavily distort your thought patterns, self-talk, levels of self-worth, and assumptions about your impact on other people. Professional, comprehensive treatment can interrupt these negative cycles and help you build healthier thought patterns.

Treatment for Feeling Like a Burden at Newport Institute

At Newport Institute, we understand the impact of holding painful emotions inside. Our residential and outpatient programs for young adults ages 18–35 take a comprehensive, evidence-based approach to healing and self-expression.

We treat primary mental health conditions such as anxiety, depression, trauma, PTSD, and mood disorders to address the root causes of these issues. Our approach includes:

• Attachment-Based Family Therapy to address childhood dynamics and communication patterns
• Group therapy to foster connection and practice vulnerability with others who have had similar experiences
• Individual therapy for personalized support and healing
• Experiential therapies like art, music, movement, and mindfulness, to build self-worth and develop new coping skills
• Psychiatric care and medication management as needed
• Life skills programming to build confidence in your academics, career plans, and personal life

By combining clinical expertise with compassionate care, Newport Institute helps young adults break free from the burden complex and build a more secure, connected future.

If you or a loved one is struggling with feeling like a burden, you don’t have to wait to get help. Start your healing journey today. Contact us for a free mental health assessment.

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