The material presented
here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method
to exchange
information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
level.
Last summer I was pulled into rescing the A when he ended up homeless, ill and desitute. Admittely there was a huge hook in there for me because he had our pet dogs and he still had the truck I had spent so much money buying (I had literally finished making the payments last January). For me though it was way way more than the dogs and the truck there was some huge psychological hook in there around dependency needs and loss. As long as I was rescuing him I was not lost. I was needed, I was important, i was present I was not all alone trying to wonder how to funciton in a world that is incredibly difficult to grasp.
I could absolutely focus on "him" and not feel or deal with the issues I had to deal with. I could make him my priority and I didn't have to think about anything else. For me that was a huge secondary gain.
Maresie, your post has me thinking about rescuing. I looked in "courage to change" book and found nothing in the index on that topic. I am thinking about how I somehow have a belief system that is wrapped up in rescuing and being rescued. How did I get this belief system- how did I learn this/see this happening? Once again, I go back to my family of origin, the one I grew up in.
Rescuing is a really bizarre thing, as I look at it very closely. Person A stands there and Person B stands there. What happens in rescuing? What are the dynamics of rescuing? Person A gets scared and overwhelmed and begins to panic. Person A flails around, says things out of fear and anxiety, acts in "scary" ways perhaps. Person B who is standing near by sees this happening and runs to help, to step in and "Fix". Is this rescuing? See, I even need to inspect what it looks like, what happens, etc. its not completely clear to me.
I am thinking that rescuing is a major power trip and a major illusion of having some kind of control. If I can "help" someone (by rescuing them), they will be forever adoring, loving and full of gratitude towards me. They will worship me and be at my beck and call. They will cling to me. I will become irreplaceable. I will become a god to that person.
I am thinking that needing to be rescued is also a major manipulation to get attention and to get people hooked into your life for all the wrong reasons! When I feel like I need to be rescued I am usually insane on some level. I feel like I want to lay down and go to sleep or die or something instead of being a grown up and facing facts/doing what I need to do. I want someone else to step in and deal with "whatever situation I created" for me. Take it on, take it over and turn and say to me "OK, you can leave now, I will take care of all this".
So thank you Maresie for bringing this up. I am now asking: why do I rescue? Why do I want to be rescued? Why do I believe in the system of rescue? Its really good food for thought for me. Hugs, J.
For me the issue is very stuck in the past. I was desperate absolutely desperate to be rescued as a child. I can be that paralyzed fearful child any day.
At the same time I know that my life right now is pretty darn difficult. I can engage in fantasies that some person is going to come along and make it better. If I had a home (rather than a shared house with a lot of incredibly dysfunctional, some of them really mentally ill people) I'd be better off. I may be but I am sure there would be a "catch" in there. I felt like the A rescued me but in fact he brought me into a whole bunch of insanity. Then as his alcohoism progressed he insisted that I "rescue" him. There will always be a expectation. I know when I helped him and brought a truck that I expected undying devotion back and I got none of that. I got a heapload of resentment and wonder why I expected anything. His expectations were certaily magical but so were mine.
I find this subject really difficut because I really don't want to come out of fantasy into reality.
GREAT topic. Thanks for such wonderful insight!!! I found a therapist this week, and had my first appointment with her this afternoon. She is experienced in alcohol/substance abuse. I sought that in a therapist. ANYWAY - that very subject came up. She said, "What are you getting by being there for this man?" It forced me to look at this issue. Like you, Jean, I think on some level that it's a major power trip and a form of control. It will also "make him" forever indebted to me. The therapist said something that I hadn't thought of........she said when I attempt to "rescue" him, I am in fact judging his life. (I've NEVER considered myself judgmental). She said that he is living his life and you just step in and decide that its unacceptable. It's HIS life! It's not my business how he lives it. In my case, we're not married, have no children together, and he lives 10,000 miles away from me. How he lives his life is NONE OF MY BUSINESS. Yet, there I am deciding how he should be living it. I realize I need him to live a certain way so that I can have a happy life with him. But that's not his problem. That's mine.
And like you, Maresie, I also feel like "As long as I was rescuing him I was not lost. I was needed, I was important, i was present I was not all alone trying to wonder how to funciton in a world that is incredibly difficult to grasp." Kinda takes the focus off my own issues, doesn't it? I guess it's back to working on myself (there's just no escaping that, I guess!!! lol).
Yeah, I was looking to get rescued as a child also but I keep returning to WHY? I just wanted to be picked up, noticed, I wanted some attention, some love.
I see that I keep making choices that put in that position again and again: choices that place in a situation where I need to be rescued. I am trying to think of some specific examples. Its really hard for me to see sometimes. This last holiday season may be an example. I was completely alone throughout. I did not reach out. I did not make any plans. I just pretty much tried to have a "non" holiday. I was pretty miserable but in a way it was good because I had to just sit with myself, alone and see exactly where and who I was. Alone. Out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. No one, nothing, no pets, no friends, no family. Just me.
I thought how great it would be if someone would just notice me and pick me, like a flower in a field and invite me into their holiday festivities. Never happened. I thought HP might provide this to me. Nope. I just sat there- it was like talking on the phone with someone and they are not giving you the answer you want to hear or expect to hear- like when you say "I love you" or "I miss you" to someone, you kinda want to hear that person say it back to you, like a reinforcement. When you pause, and they don't say it, its like: OH, so you are not going to reassure me, you do not miss me, you do not love me, etc. Which is totally phoney messed up thinking. That person may feel all those things but they are just not in a place to idiotically say it like a talking bird back at you. anyway, this is what it felt like to me. So then you sit there with your hand out and no one is around to take it and it all comes right back to ME- what have I done, said, etc. to place me in this position? How is this working for me? What is so good about all this independence? etc.
I need to rescue myself. When I need help, i need to ask for it. Clearly and plainly. If I do not get it at one source, I keep looking. I will not get discouraged. I am an adult, not a helpless child. When someone says no, its OK, I will keep looking or work another angle to solve it myself. And, I must not invent a crisis so that others think I need rescuing. At the same time, its so hard to ask for help sometimes and reach out and wonder if I am just looking to get rescued again!! This whole issue is a terribly knotted up ball of yarn for me! Yikes!
I am so glad that people are talking about this. I think I felt entitled to be rescued as part of some fantasy that I would get a parent figure for once. When I met the A he was incredibly helpful to me. I think he was looking to hook me in, not in any kind of psychopath way but that was how he learned to relate. He rescues then resents, then feels entitled.
I see very very similar dynamics in the house I live in. My housemates are overinvoled no one is direct iwth each other ever.
I also think for me one of my core core issues is fear and panic and deprivation. I do not know how to manage my deprivation. I have made tremendous headway on certain issues like abuse but derpivation, feeling deeply deprived of love, attention, care, emotional mournishment. I learned how to handle that in deeply dysfunctional ways by fantasy and by trying to control my enviornment. For many reasons I find it incredibly difficult to even feel how deprived I feel. There are times when I dont' feel as deeply deprived like when I am with my dogs. There are other days when I feel like my needs will never be met and then I'm off into fantsies about rescuing and being rescued and my impulse control is not very good. I entered the relationship with the A on an impulse, I felt deprived, I'd ended a relationship I wanted a distraction. I got far more than that. I nealry died as a result of that distraction. So obviously I have to find another way to manage and there are days when I don't have a clue what that is. I do manage my impulses I have not entered another relationship with an A. I have not even had a relationship since the A but I find it very very lonely and difficult.
