Are you rescuing people?
When you’ve helped someone it can leave you feeling great, as you’ve done something nice for someone else. There is another dynamic which plays into this, the rescuing role. There’s a difference between rescuing others and helping others. When you help someone you won’t be doing this at your expense, you’ll help them but at the same time, you’ll be caring for your own needs too. When you rescue someone, you’ll find that you don’t actually get asked for help, you offer it yourself. You’ll go above and beyond what’s expected of you, you’ll put your needs aside to help someone else.
You most likely will know, you rescue other’s because you either feel you need rescuing or you have needed to be rescued by someone at some point in your past which didn’t happen. Today you don’t want others to go through what you’ve been through. Ideally, this is a very caring way of thinking, stopping other’s feeling hurt, however, in reality, it doesn’t play out this way. When you constantly rescue other’s, you set a standard of what they can expect from you, this standard being way too high to be achievable on a regular basis.
People around you will perceive you in a certain way because of your rescuing:
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- Responsible
- Reliable
- Motivated to help others
- Caring
- Hands-on
- Allows people to take advantage of him/her because you’ll be loyal to people who mistreat you
- Generous, good person
- Carries other’s problems on your shoulders
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The way you feel inside because of your rescuing:
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- Angry because of the problems other’s get themselves in
- Angry because others won’t rescue you
- Fearful the other person won’t be able to manage without you and you must rescue them
- Guilty if you put yourself before others
- Anxious – Never able to focus on your own needs because you’re too concerned with the needs of others
- Punishing yourself – if you feel you should have done more or been there to do something/anything
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The rescuing role has 3 dynamics: rescuer, victim and persecutor.
