The rescuer syndrome destroys closeness: the moment we step into someone else's boundaries, they start to resist. On help nobody asked for.
Often, when I talk with people in consultations, I see they have a persistent desire to play the rescuer. To help people who never asked for it and who very often don’t even need it.
In a family, one person (out of the very best intentions, of course) tries to “help” the other and make things the “right” way.
Or a wife tries to talk her husband out of a new risky project. Or a husband tries to limit his wife’s free will and forbids her to do what she loves, out of a feeling of “care”.
The variations differ, but the result is always the same. The moment a person feels we’re intruding into their personal boundaries, they start to resist. As a result, the emotional connection breaks and the person next to us starts suffocating under our smothering control.
From my point of view, the wisest thing you can do is to take care of yourself and your own life. Not to push unsolicited advice onto other people, even if they’re our family and the closest ones to us. Even if they’re doing something foolish right in front of our eyes and will suffer for it later.
If a person is closed and moving by their own inner navigation, our influence from the outside is unlikely to create anything except irritation.
But when a person has asked for help, for advice, for our view of the situation, that’s a different story. There the person is giving permission for us to speak into their situation, and they’re open to listening.
I used to suffer from the “rescuer” syndrome too, but one of my teachers helped me get rid of it very effectively. When I offered him unsolicited help with developing his business, he looked at me and said, “Dima, don’t load me up!” Then he asked whether I understood what I was doing by stepping in without any request from his side.
The God who created us never interferes with our free will, and yet we sometimes take on a function and a role grander than His. An outrageous level of pride and self-importance.
When we think we know what’s “right” and the other person doesn’t do it that way, we try to impose our reality on them, although they may not need it at all. It may even harm them. After all, we don’t know exactly which stage of personal evolution that person is going through right now.
That’s probably why the saying is still around: “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”.
And how do you react when someone wants to do you good without you asking for it?
Want to go deeper?
Reading helps, but what changes a life is specific steps, not reading. Fifty minutes of conversation is usually enough to see which steps are yours.
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