What Can Be The Real Underlying Issue?

Help me! That's the mating call for the Rescuer or Super Hero identity. It arouses all of the stress hormones combined with a strong need to connect in the only way he's ever known to connect. We all know this identity. It's the grandmother to whom you can take your dirty laundry and she'll say it wasn't your fault and fold you up under her wing to rest while she takes over. It's the person in the neighborhood who takes in all the stray animals and people and has a regular farm on his less than half acre property or 3 people coming over for supper every day in his tiny apartment. It's the fierce warrior who goes to battle to save the "whatever needs saving lately." It's the man or woman who never even hums the song "What have you done for me lately?"


Unlike the Scapegoat, guilt is not the chief motivator here, however. Rather, the Rescuer needs to be needed. The Rescuer not only depends on her role to give her a sense of self, but she also depends on it to bridge the gap between self and others. In other words she needs the Rescuer role just as much, probably more, than the rescued needs rescuing. In fact, the Rescuer tends to feel as if her self-esteem has taken a big hit when there is a lag-time between rescues. Though on the one hand she might be relieved that she's not having to take care of every little thing for the rescued during that lag-time; on the other hand, she's wondering what she's doing here if it isn't to rescue someone else. There's a deep unsettling underground tremor that tells her that something is really wrong with this picture. So, without really paying much attention to it, she launches herself into another search for the next victim in need of rescue.


The best way to avoid these down turns in mood and this loss of mission is to marry or commit to someone who needs rescuing. That way the Rescuer always feels needed, even essential to his partner. There is always something that is needed, something that needs doing, some sympathy to feel, some hurdle to jump, some mission to accomplish--and it's all done with the greatest of noble thoughts--for, indeed, it does appear to the Rescuer to be a noble cause. He just can't imagine that what he is doing is not absolutely essential to the well-being, if not the survival of his partner.


Of course, it is easy to see how the Rescuer can become the primary enabler for an addict or alcoholic, but she can also become the primary enablers for the Big Baby, the Victim or the Runaway. Enabling is what the Rescuer does. The definition of enabling here is the unconscious encouragement of another's dis-ability. Not another's disability, but another's dis-ability. In other words, whatever it is that the other person is refusing to do for him or herself, that's exactly what the Rescuer will do. This encourages the other person to continue to refuse to do it for him or herself.


Typically, the first question the Rescuer will ask when this information is given to him is:

"Well, how do you know they are refusing to do it; how do you know that they simply can't do it?" The answer? Stop doing it for her and watch what happens. Typically, he already knows what happens because he's seen it several times by now: "She pitches a holy fit!" Or, "She gets really pitiful." Or, she ups the ante by getting sicker or more needy in someway--even sometimes going as far as to threaten or even attempt suicide. It is interesting that the poor Victim, now turned Bully, can put all of this enormous energy into pitching a fit, getting pitiful or upping the ante, but can't find one ounce of energy to save herself.


The Rescuer became the Rescuer early in life when powerlessness was still a big issue. But this child is assigned the role that carries with it the awesome and heady power of rescuing mother or father, sister or brother, or the whole family. There's a giant "I can't" hanging around in the air in this family. The child believes that "I can't" and assumes the "I can" as if it were the Superhero's cape and costume. Over time and the building of rescuing skills, this becomes the only method by which the child can feel connected to otherwise self-absorbed or self-involved parents, whose needs seem to outweigh those of the child. The child learns to meet her own needs vicariously through meeting those of other people. She learns that the only legitimate way to connect to others is to rescue them. Ergo, when she goes looking for friends and lovers, later in life, she'll only seek out those who need rescuing--for this sense that they need her is the only thing she has ever known of giving and receiving love. And those who assume an identity of needing rescue, for whatever reason, are attracted to her like a bee to pollen.


But when the Rescuer finally arrives in a therapist's office, it's usually because the voice of the Authentic Self has begun to be heard. And it is heard through the powerful urges, repressed by now for many years, of his own needs--his needs for love, support, affection, and a strong sense of self that is not dependent on fixing the lives of other people. He's built up years of resentment and absolute frustration that he can't seem to fix the person he's trying desperately to fix. And usually his first question in therapy is "What's wrong with me?" because he feels that his resentment and anger are telling him he's really a bad person, since his sense of self has been built on rescuing others. Generally, he is experiencing a concomitant and equally strong, seductive urge to keep on doing what he's always done. This internal conflict is creating stress and/or some physical maladies, by the time he finally arrives at therapy's door.


So, what's to be done? How will the Rescuer finally begin to rescue herself?

@lrn2valume, thanks for sharing with your great insight.


"Tips For Transitioning From a Rescuer to a Supporter"


1. If you have a 'need to be needed', do whatever it takes to get the wounds healed that led to that need.


2. Take an honest inventory of what you get out of rescuing. We don't do anything that we don't get something out of. When you are tempted to rescue, ask yourself what your intentions in doing so are. Then ask yourself if those intentions are worthy of you.


3. Set clear boundaries and standards. Boundaries are the limits you put on other's behavior when they are around you. Standards are the limits you put on your own behavior. A boundary might be something like: I do not allow people to continue to complain to me when it's obvious that they are not willing to do anything to solve their problem. A standard might be: I do not work harder on someone else's life than they are willing to work on their own.


4. When someone comes to you with a problem, take a deep breath and count to five. Then ask the two most important questions, "What do you need?" and "How can I support you?" This will give you time to respond mindfully rather than react emotionally.


5. Respect the others right to make their own choices. Along with that right comes the right to experience the consequences, the right to learn from experience. You may not agree with their choices and think that you know what's best for them, but in reality there's only one who truly knows what's best for any of us and that one is God or whatever you call your Higher Power.


6. Know that the same God that dwells within you dwells within the other. As such, inner guidance is available to that person just like it is to you.


7. Ask yourself, "What would love do here?" And, sometimes love means saying "no".


8. "Under" promise, or better yet, don't promise at all. When we are caught off guard, in a moment of emotionality, we may promise things that we later regret having promised. How much better to promise nothing and deliver a lot. An example might be promising nothing in the moment and then, keeping that person and their situation in mind, send encouraging notes, call on a regular basis to lend support, cook up food they love and deliver it, send a live plant, treat them to dinner and a movie out; there are so many ways to let a person know that we care.


9. Offer to brainstorm solutions with them. The tricky part here is to stay away from focusing on the problem.


10. Don't give advice unless it's asked for. I still slip on this one. If it sounds like the person is asking for advice, ask them, "Are you asking for my opinion?" If the answer is "yes", try to give them two or three possible options that you can think of. Sharing several possible solutions can help them open up to possibilities they may not have considered and help you stay open to outcome. When we give only one opinion, we can get attached to that opinion like it's the only way to go.


The Pros and Cons of Transitioning to Being a Supporter


If you have been a rescuer up until now and you've decided to change your ways and become a supporter instead, you need to know that the people who you have been rescuing will not like that change. And, it's even possible that they won't like you anymore. You need to ask yourself if you can handle that if it happens. In order to change from a rescuer to a supporter, you'll Have to be willing to take the risk of losing friends.


On the other side of the coin, however, if you do make this change, you will attract more healthy, self-sufficient, happy people into your life. You will make new, more energy enhancing friendships.


And, you will have much more energy yourself when you are no longer participating in rescuing behavior. You will be able to fill your own cup and give from the overflow.



Sources:

Sharon Demarte

Out of the fog

Psychology Today