Word of the Day

The Word of the Day, boys and girls, is "rescue".

As I thought about a story my friend Scarlett told me tonight, I decided this would be a fitting topic.

Melody Beattie says rescuing and caretaking mean almost what they sound like. We rescue people from their responsibilities. We take care of people's responsibilities for them, whether they ask us to or not. Later we get mad at them for what we've done. Then we feel used and sorry for ourselves. That is the pattern. The triangle.

Rescuing should not be confused with kindness, compassion, or true helping. These are good things; rescuing is not.

Here's one example of how a rescue works. The alcoholic is too drunk to attend a family get together. You go without him. To save face, you make up a story about how they got called in to work. Everyone buys the story. You saved the day. On the drive home you are so angry that the halo is gone and the pitchfork comes out. By the time you pull in the driveway you want to go full fledged Crazy Bitch on the alcoholic.

Most of the time the people we rescue immediately sense our shift in mood after a rescue. They saw it coming. It's just the excuse they needed to turn on us. It's their turn in the persecution corner. Then it's time for our final move. We head right for our favorite spot: the victim corner... on the bottom! This is the predictable and unavoidable pattern of a rescue. Feelings of helplessness, hurt, sorrow, shame, and self-pity abound. We have been used--again. We have gone unappreciated--again. We try so hard to help people, to be good to them. "Why does this ALWAYS happen to me?"

But make no mistake. Rescues do not always have to occur with alcoholics. People who perform rescues perform them on everyone, every day; friends, family, coworkers. It's a vicious cycle. Many times we do it for the simple fact that we are afraid to say "no" to someone. To ANYONE.

So how do we break the cycle? Stop playing the victim card. We must learn to identify the signs of a rescue and refuse to do it. We also need to stop allowing people to rescue us. Take responsibility for ourselves and let others do the same. Whether we change our attitudes, our circumstances, our behaviours, or our minds, the kindest thing we can do is remove the victims--ourselves.