I think you're absolutely on the right track catgirl.

Shrinklady.

Food for thought catgirl, i've been trying to 'rescue' my mum all there years. hm....

When I think of "rescue" I think of someone reaching out to help/rescue and someone else reaching back to take their hand

So if you were drowning in water..... would you be abandoning yourself if you allowed someone to rescue you? I hope you'd take their hand. It's not a selfish thing to do.

You only abandon yourself when you loose all hope.

I think life involves being a rescuer and a rescuee. It's ok to be both....... ok to be tossed a life raft until you can float on your own again

Wiz

Wiz,

I'm talking about someone who doesn't need rescuing. You're talking about someone who does.

Sometimes we could use a little help. I'm not talking about these times.

I'm talking about people who spend their lives searching for people they can "fix"or "rescue", who don't need "fixing", so that they feel better about themselves and don't have to face their own issues. Or people who for some reason feel that they can't be responsible for themselves, when in reality they're perfectly capable of taking care of themselves (like me), who spend their lives looking for people to take care of or "rescue" them, so that they don't have to look at their own issues, because it's all the rescuers responsibility and doing.

Does this make sense?

I'm talking about rescuing in the codependent sense of the word. In this sense of the word, there's no equality in the relationship. It's not a give/take relationship, it's a one person always gives while the other person always takes relationship.

catgirl

Hi Catgirl,

Your words hit right on with me. I'm new here, this is my first post - and I couldn't resist replying to you.
Yeah, I too spent most of my adult life so far looking for someone to rescue me....and I definitely abandoned myself in the process! I did not want to be responsible and stayed in a childlike role. What a terrible loss of years of my life. It seemed there was always someone around willing enough to try and rescue me which only perpertuated my mess....I agree that rescuing ends up to be an abandoning of the person being rescued. My T mentioned the other day that we often find it easier to blame others (makes sense to me!) but find it hard to recognize how we have let ourselves down. That was hard to swallow but I agree with her. And you.

Since that conversation with her I realized my adult life is empty of a strong self...I am just a small beginning. So now, I am in the process of starting to build ME, a strong self and life of my own. (I had even tried to tag along and live others' lives....ha, they soon got tired of that.) I looked at my childhood wishes and what might have been the beginnings of my real self......I decided to pick 2 things to do now that were kind of squashed when I was a kid. Next week I start 8 horseback riding lessons with a new friend from work. I am also going to learn to swim!! so have signed up for a few lessons in the evenings over the next weeks. I need to reach out to others on my own, realize I am capable and likeable and be very kind to me in this process. Ahh.. it is a start. I am sorry I hid for so long had to apologize to my self for my part in where I'm at currently. Hard stuff to admit, and hard stuff to recover from.
Thanks Catgirl for sharing your thoughts.

Very interesting idea, Catgirl. I wonder what you think of this little exchange as it relates to what you're talking about.

Last week, as I was once again telling my T that I can't do it, that it's too hard, too overwhelming, too awful, too wretched...that I'm sick of feeling like hell all day everyday, that I'm not improving and feel like I'm NEVER going to get better, I also said, "I want to help myself, but I don't know how."

He said, "I want you to really focus on what you just said, because below the surface idea that 'I want to help myself but I don't know how' is another, unconscious statement, which is actually a demand, and the demand is this: 'I want YOU to help me. I want YOU to do it for me."

I was pretty stunned. I really didn't like this idea and said so. He said, "of course you don't like it, and you don't see it either. But it's there, and it's hardcore."

Needless to say, I didn't feel too hot at the end of that session.

Russ

Russ,

It sounds so familiar. I was always wanting my T to fix it for me. To give me the answers or to fix me. That was me wanting to be rescued by her.

I still do want to be rescued. I'm not over that yet. I know now that she can't fix every problem that I have, but now I want her to adopt me and be my mom. If she does that, she'll fix it all for me. . . and she will rescue me, and through rescuing me, she will abandon me, so I know that she won't do that. That's why this transference thing is so hard, because you know that you can never get what you really want. But anyway, I digress.

I remember the first time I realized that she can't fix it for me. My mom had been in and out of the hospital. During this time, my T and I were working on a lot of childhood issues. It seemed that every time I had a session in which I deeply discussed these issues, there Mom went into the hospital. The child inside of me, who always blames herself for everything like a true child of sexual abuse, kept thinking that I was being punished by Mom going to the hospital because I was telling family secrets. Once, the day after I told more family secrets, they found that the cancer had spread to Mom's liver. I was beside myself! How could I have talked? I called my therapist. When she called me back, I was hating myself so much. She kept talking about all of the techniques that I had been working on for when I hate myself, trying to suggest ways I could help myself. Finally, I realized that I was just going to hate myself right then, and she couldn't fix it for me. She couldn't make it go away. I said, "Well, I see that you can't fix it." She said, "Yes, you're right. So, I guess I've done all I can, so I'll hang up now." (Saying she would hang up caught me off guard completely. It seemed so abrupt. It made me wonder if I did or said something wrong. Anyway, again, I digress.) I said, "No, don't go!" So she talked with me for a few minutes, telling me how it wasn't my fault, and how when I was a child things happened to me that weren't my fault, etc.

It was that day that I realized that she can't ever fix it for me. She can't rescue me from myself. It's my job to fix it myself and take care of myself. She'll work with me to help me learn strategies and understand things better so that I an help myself better, but she can't fix it for me. What an eye-opener!

So, what you're saying makes perfect sense!

The answers are inside of you! You're the one that can make yourself better. It takes hard work and devotion to yourself. You have to be there for yourself, not abandon yourself. It takes repetition, going over the same thing over and over again, hearing the same thing over and over again, doing the same thing over and over again, with new realizations, and slight changes each time. And it takes trust in yourself and in your T and in the process.

You'll get there. Keep working. Keep trusting. You'll get there.