Help-Bound

Posted by fxckfeelings on December 5, 2013

As we often say, help isn’t just a two-way street, but a full-on intersection; it can be benefit or hindrance, both to the person being assisted and the helper him or herself. Regardless of whether your desire to help is driven by compassion, love, guilt, or fear, pay attention to priorities, consequences, the limits of what’s possible, and your responsibility for meeting your own needs. Then you’ll probably discover that giving right and going slowly is more effective than giving more and risking an accident.
–Dr. Lastname

I’ve always been proud of being the backbone of my family, but I’m close to having a total meltdown. It’s not that my husband doesn’t work hard, too, but I’m taking care of our kids, who are especially busy with after-school sports, tutoring, etc., plus my ailing mother, plus my sister who’s mourning the sudden and unexpected loss of her son, and then on top of that, my own work, which is insane this time of year. I told him I just want to quit everything and go live on the beach in a hut. He laughed, but I meant it. I know all of these people need me, but I’m going crazy. Still, I’m ashamed, and my goal is to figure out what to do.

You’re proud of being the backbone of your family, but you’ve got your own skeleton to worry about, and it will collapse if you don’t find the backbone to stand up to the impossible job you’ve given yourself.

It’s simply not possible to personally take on an infinite number of top priority responsibilities, even if they’re all driven by emotional and financial necessity. It makes sense that you think living in a hut is your only/best alternative to weathering a hurricane of responsibilities.

Sometimes, if you can manage it temporarily, it’s satisfying and rewarding to throw yourself into one or two important tasks. You can’t take that approach with all tasks, however, or you’ll drive yourself crazy, which is what has happened.

Don’t tell me you had to do it, because it seems like you haven’t tried to limit your responsibilities by deciding which corners could be cut or dropped into someone else’s lap. You also probably haven’t tried to protect yourself from an onslaught of responsibility, or managed your responsibilities. Instead, you’ve simply attacked them single-handed, kamikaze-style.

In order to get out alive, you need to remember your responsibilities to yourself and start over. List major projects and tasks and estimate their magnitude in terms of time, duration, and need for special expertise. Define the limits of your own availability, then list other potential helpers whom you think should share your responsibilities and start assigning tasks.

Don’t allow spontaneous expressions of guilt, love, or compulsive help-giving mess up your plans or override your limits, because the only way you can make sure to both give these many tasks the attention they deserve and retain your sanity is by being a good manager, not an unlimited, untethered giver.

Following your plan may initially force you to say no to some apparently reasonable requests and ask family members to do things they don’t want to, but reasonable is relative. As long as your plan represents your moral priorities and your own estimate of what you have to give, you’re living up to your values and putting them ahead of compulsive guilt and the opinion of others. Reasonable is not what makes you feel less fearful or guilty; it’s whatever you can do that will actually help without hurting yourself.

You can’t do everything your family needs, but if you rely on your experience and convictions to create a good plan of action, you can spare yourself a meltdown, become a better manager and leader, and strengthen your spine, not just keep it intact.

STATEMENT:
“I feel overwhelmed by tasks and family crises, but not everything needs to be done, and I don’t have to do it all myself. I will re-examine what really needs to be done, who can do it, how much I can put into it, and what I’ll commit myself to doing. Then, regardless of who else responds or what gets left undone, I’ll know I’ve done my best.”

I’ve never claimed to have a particularly functional family—my ex is an addict and my daughters are always in and out of trouble because they can’t stay employed (although they’ve all managed to stay sober for the better part of a year)—but we love one another and I always try to help them out, financially and otherwise, whenever they’re in a mess. Lately, though, I’ve been tired because I’m recovering from a nasty illness, and when I have any energy at all, I have to use it to get some work done because my job is all I have to live on. Still, I have this horrible feeling that if I can’t help the kids, they will have no resources of their own, and wind up sleeping in my living room and driving me crazy. My goal is to head off the disaster that is sure to occur when I can’t bail them out and they all come home to roost.

When it comes to which emotion drives parents to protect their kids most, love and fear are in a dead heat. You want to help your daughters, not just because you love them, but because you’d hate to think what would happen to them if you don’t. Chances are, however, that your daughters will benefit from having less protection, even if their road gets rockier in the short run.

Knowing you’re not as available as you have been may cause them to worry more about themselves and work harder to fend off disaster. Sometimes it’s great to know that there’s someone who will always be there, but sometimes it’s better to be afraid that there’s no one there and you’d better hustle. Even if your protection has sometimes saved your girls from disaster, you know you can’t do it forever and it’s not what they need in the long run. They need to learn how to protect themselves and, to educate them, you have to let them run the risk of making mistakes and getting into trouble while coaching and encouraging them to learn from their mistakes.

So the fact that you’re distracted and consumed by your own problems may work out better for everyone, even if it makes you feel helpless and fearful in the short run. You’ve got your priorities straight, you’re dealing with your own survival issues, and you’re setting a good example of what your daughters need to do for themselves.

If they don’t do well, stay sober, and keep working, you won’t have a lot of attention and comfort to give them, but you’ll have love and advice on how they can recover and where they can stay until they do. You’ll always be a safety net, but your best solutions will offer them responsibility for straightening out their own lives and not make their problems yours.

Don’t buy the notion that you either have the resources to help them or you don’t. It’s when you’re stretched thin that you’re more likely to discover the value of providing calm, loving advice instead of panicked triage.

STATEMENT:
“I feel I’ve been barely keeping my kids out of trouble and my current resource problems are going to take way their only support. I know, however, that they have internal resources and need to learn from their own mistakes. I will make a virtue of necessity by showing them that they can do more with good advice and their own efforts than with the protection I’ve offered in the past.”